John Cornyn introduces gun control bill
According to the Associated Press, the Senate’s number two Republican, John Cornyn, is introducing legislation similar to the bill we discussed the other day presented by Chuck Schumer;
Backed by the National Rifle Association, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican leader is introducing legislation that would reward states for sending more information about residents with serious mental problems to the federal background check system for firearms purchasers.
[…]
“Gaps in existing law or inadequate resources prevent our communities from taking proactive steps to prevent them from becoming violent,” Cornyn, R-Texas, said in a written statement.
Jennifer Baker, spokeswoman for NRA legislative affairs, said the bill took “meaningful steps toward fixing the system and making our communities safer.”
AP calls the bill “far more modest” than the bill that failed in the Senate more than two years ago, but, in fact it addresses the symptoms of the New Town school shooting better than the bill that failed. According to the article, Cornyn’s bill offers to bribe the states to do what they’re supposed to be doing in the first place – to get at least 90% of folks who shouldn’t own guns because of mental problems. I don’t know how they’re going to verify that 90% or why they’re not going for 100%, but it’s a start.
Category: Guns
I read that in Japan under the Shogunate, that no taxation below 100%, no matter how high, would be considered usury, but simple duty to the overlord.
It appears that our politicians have an admiration for the way the Shoguns ran things, the way we keep paying more taxes and getting fewer services.
And that ‘reasonable’ gun control bill? I predict that it’s going to bite us in the tuckus. Wait and see if it doesn’t.
Japan: the original hermit kingdom.
They always were a bunch of weird bastards.
Still are, have you seen this shit?!?!
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=japanese+karaoke+
And no, it is NSFW or pretty much anywhere else in the world.
As I said about Schumer’s announced proposal the other day: I want to see the text of the proposed law before offering an opinion.
But I will say that my initial reaction is to be wary. It’s extremely easy to write a proposed law. It’s quite difficult to write one that doesn’t have significant unintended consequences.
“The devil is in the details.” OK, let’s see the details.
If I find a draft, I’ll post it here. (At the moment, I don’t see anything posted on the “House.Gov” website for bills up for consideration),
I’m curious what the details are, too.
And the amendments! Last session the house passed a bill, the senate took up the same bill and passed it. With one amendment that literally stripped out the entire text of the original bill and turned it into a completely different bill with absolutely nothing to do with the intent of the original. The two bills are so different that they cannot be reconciled. Many laws do the exact opposite of what their titles imply. IE “The Patient Protection and Affordability Act”. Obamacare.
Sorry Hondo. The details are top secret. So the bill needs to pass first then we can we what’s in it…
And let’s not forget many in congress will play the Rubio and Warren game and claim that they were lied to to try and cover their ass’s and it will work because the sheeple are told to not worry..
LMFAO ! ! ! !
🙂
🙂
Another damned republican RINO…I am definitely changing my voter registration to Independent this year…this bas-ards are as bad or worst that the dumocraps!!
I missed the Newtown symptom reference. I thought that the shooter had stolen the gun from his mother, before or after he killed her. How would this have addressed that situation? What am I missing?
In theory, it address Newtown in the respect that it addresses the issue of mentally ill people and weapons possession. In theory, Cornyn’s proposed bill might have helped prevent someone like Lanza from procuring a weapon.
Adam Lanza was batsh!t crazy – so crazy his own mother was trying to have him committed. Reporting that attempt to NICS might have put a red flag on any applications Lanza might have made to purchase a weapon after he became of legal age.
In practice, it wouldn’t have made any difference given the specific circumstances of Lanza’s crime. As you observe, he offed his own mother, stole her guns, and used them to commit his heinous crime.
I’d still like to see the details. Frankly, I do not trust this Administration not to abuse NICS. And I have a HUGE problem with someone being stripped of a right guaranteed by the Constitution on the say-so of one alleged “medical professional” or LE officer, even temporarily. That type of reduction in one’s Constitutional rights should IMO require due process – e.g., an adversarial hearing before a judge prior to becoming effective at all, and definitely prior to being entered into a national database maintained by the USG.
“And I have a HUGE problem with someone being stripped of a right guaranteed by the Constitution on the say-so of one alleged “medical professional” or LE officer, even temporarily.”
I am with you, especially the medical “professional.” I know quite a few, particularly shrinks and the majority would be thrilled at being able to deprive someone of their 2nd Amendment rights.
Only a judge can do that!
It is called a “court order”.
Don’t worry Gregory Banks the psyco anal yst and CPL Dumbfuckski won’t be taking you guns!
Hondo. Lanzas weapons were purchased by his Mom so it would not have made a difference in that case, now the one we had here in Arizona with giffords this would have prevented that gun sale…
He might have got a gun, but he just wasn’t willing to wait out the three-day cooling off period so he killed Mom and stole her guns. He wasn’t in the NICS.
He was only 20 when it all went down, so by Federal law he would have been able to buy a rife or shotgun only. Not sure whether Connecticut law forbids the sale of “assault-style” rifles below age 21 – many states do. Either way – no background check law will stop someone willing to kill anyone including his own mother to acquire a weapon.
The big killer on the last bill, I think, was that the administration linked universal background checks to a) a Federal universal registration database and b) it was overliy broad and restricted even a temporary loan of a gun – so if you took your son to the range and let him use your gun, or loaned your buddy a shotgun for a hunt – everyone was illegal. I still think some form of ‘anonymous’ check – you pay a dealer $15 to run a check on you, if clean, he gives you a chit showing you have cleared within the last 30-60 days, whoever you buy from records that he has witnessed the chit but NOT its number – satisfies the background check and the privacy fears. Anything with more records than that will face resistance… hell, I would get a clearance done every couple of months just in case I ran across something, even if I didn’t buy that frequently.
From Cornyn’s website. I’m a little suspicious that social workers and mental illness people support it – there must be some money in it for them.
Remember what I said about the medical community. They are NOT your friends, where gun ownership is concerned. They’re not evil people, it’s just that they are the ones who deal with the other end of a shooting: the victim, the family, and in the instance of the mental health community, they deal with the perpetrator as well. There are no winners around guns, as far as they’re concerned.
Jonn of course there money in it for them. It’s the reward for reporting the conditions
Okay. I get it. Thanks. IF Lanza had been willing to wait for the gun he sought to purchase, maybe he would have reconsidered his plan to massacre helpless children. Instead, being impatient, he stole guns from Mom, killed her, and did his evil deed. I suppose that there might be some benefit in placating the gun grabbers with a bill like this but anyone so consumed with the desire to murder innocent people–especially children–is going to get the task done, with or w/o the government’s seal of approval.
It’s my considered opinion that these terrorists are mentally ill to start with, so how is this going to prevent them from getting their hands on weapons and shooting up a shopping mall or one of those warehouse market stores like Costco or Walmart?
It is not. Period.
Actually, as I recall legal purchase after concerns about his mental stability had been raised is precisely how the Aurora gunman (Holmes) acquired his weapons. While better reporting of whackjobs like Holmes and Lanza likely wouldn’t have prevented Lanza from shooting up the school in Newtown, it’s at least theoretically possible that it might have prevented Holmes from shooting up the theater in Aurora.
Breitbart did a list of shooters who either obtained their weapons legally or would have been okayed if they had been run though the background check system. The list is considerable and includes Holmes who may or may not have been a “no sale” if his mental health contacts had acted on the very troublesome clues he served up. In any event, it is hard for me to imagine that anyone hell bent on murder will be stopped by a background check. A solid vehicle and a crowded city sidewalk will work just fine. For those with a little patience and ability to read info in books or on the net, there are bombs. For Chinese nationals, there are knives. And then, certainly, there are the other avenues for obtaining firearms, including cash and carry in the alley. I’d like to know how all these “diverse” organizations have come to back an unseen bill. Then again, if Congress can pass legislation it never read, and the Supreme Court can add words to it that aren’t there, what’s the difference, right? The end game must always be to get the guns. There is no compromising that. It is the goal. It must be.
Hard for me to imagine a career criminal being deterred too, 2/17 Air Cav. But mentally ill individuals losing touch with reality often act unpredictably. Such an individual might be deterred. Or they might not be.
Not defending the proposal at all – just making a factual observation. I’ll decide whether the proposal is sound or not when I’ve had a chance to read – and consider – what it actually says. Until then, I’ll view it with suspicion but suspend judgement.
In my humble opinion, it is probably just another meaningless law. To my everybody feel good about themselves. Why not enforce the laws that exists. Just saying.
Probably because that makes too much sense. Why would pols call for that when they can preen themselves and dance in front of the media claiming they actually did something beneficial? Many of these shooters gave off warning signs that were ignored by authorities who were in more fear of bad PR and lawsuits than they were concerned about public safety and well being.
As before, once the details of the bill are known and it is as clean and straight forward as it appears, it sounds good. However, I do have a little problem rewarding states for doing that they are required to already be doing. I am sure the states fall back on “it’s an unfunded mandate we can’t support and keep up with”. But if they are rewarded then I would want to be damned sure the federal money they get goes ONLY for this purpose and not siphoned off at the state’s discretion for a new “Rainbow Pride Statue” in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.
I completely disagree. Even if clean, it will not stop a single committed individual from committing a similar crime. Then those to whom we’ve given an inch will demand the law be “improved” by taking the mile. This is how the left operates in every aspect of political and social change they are foisting upon the citizens of this country.
AZtoVA…I see your point and it is valid. People set on doing these things will always find the means to do them.
I think it’s bullshit. Government bureaucracies always have been and always will be oceans of incompetency and nincompoopery that cannot be trusted. What’s to say this won’t give someone like Gregory Banks with the title of “Licensed Counselor” the power to register someone in that database over the least little whim, and *POOF!*, there goes their 2nd Amendment rights. I see this as little more than a political PR stunt that can bite innocent people in the ass.
Yep. This.
Yep, and all you veterans are suspect. Get ready to turn them in.
I’d laugh at your snark, if it weren’t so close to the sad truth.
I will admit to some snark, but not the whole snark. I am half ass serious in a sad way.
If memory serves, quite a few years ago NRA (I’m a life member, but we do some stupid shite once in awhile) was on board for gettin’ vets on the NICS list for merely having someone put in charge of their finances.
If this thing passes and Weekend Warrior is right, once you’re on “the list” good luck getting off it.
OC
I thought it was the VA trying to put us on that list.
I’m curious (I haven’t read the thing yet and can’t while I’m at work) how that jives with protecting doctor/patient confidentiality, and how it prevents doctors from exercising their own brand of activism by reporting people with temporary emotional problems as ineligible to exercise their rights under the Second Amendment.
And we all know LOTS of them would be activist to the max!
And that’s my fear. What would stop an anti-gun, activist doctor/counselor/social worker from applying their paranoia and reporting an otherwise stable individual who may be experiencing some temporary emotional problems?
Short answer: if they were allowed direct reporting, nothing. Ditto of they reported thru local LE that “rubber-stamped” their alleged “professional opinions”.
That is precisely why I am opposed to the denial of 2nd Amendment rights (or any other right specifically guaranteed by the Constitution) by anything other than due process of law. Further, due process for this purpose IMO should NOT be an administrative determination by some individual; it should be an adversarial legal proceeding in a court of law. The former allows the “single person whim or vendetta” scenario. The latter provides safeguards against that.
It’s also required by the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, as I recall.
Agreed. And do you see the easy progression? When Lanza attacked, people said we needed to improve the mental health system. Now the politicians are touting increased mental health spending, as long as the results end up in a data base somewhere. Nothing has changed — they’re pushing for universal gun registration, preparatory to universal gun control, if not an outright ban. And no, the Constitution will not prevent that — if they can’t repeal it or circumvent it, they will smother it under tons of legislation and law. It’s just that simple.
And, who’s to say that, down the road, we won’t get another pResident who thinks that laws and the Constitution are just guidelines, to be ignored whenever he or she feels like it?
I agree with Hondo, with a caveat. There are far too many judges around who buy into the “if only there were no guns” mantra. Or, who prefer to see words and meanings in the law and constitution that plainly aren’t there.
Excellent point Hondo. Thank you.
Hondo, do you mean like that Phony Viet Nam vet mayor in Jersey that turned his police force loose on his detractors? Or guys like the DRG that make spurious allegations to law enforcement of terrorism against people who call them out for their dushbaggery?
Or the other allegations that critter makes.
I agree with all the comments the “the devil is in the details.” Most would support a “clean bill,” but even then, I’m not sure I would. A clean bill, once passed, would have to be implemented by regulations, authored by the implementing agencies. Those regulations are where they’ll get us, as API and Nicki has noted.
To garner my support, Congress will have to step-up by specific, detailed criteria for when someone will entered into NICS based on a mental condition; and then, maybe.
Does anyone really think that paper produced by career legislators will protect any of us from criminal violent behavior? Wake up.
Well, I was on my way to rob a store the other day and shared that with a friend who told me that robbery is a crime. That stopped me cold, I can tell you!
Ahhh. I stand corrected. Drive on congress critters… drive on. Just get the message out to all the criminals so they will stop.
Hondo right on due process.
Suppose due process is followed but the causal factor is temporary. How do you get off the list?
If this is a one-way trip then it has to be REAL SERIOUS due process.
Richard: I don’t give a damn if it’s only temporary. Someone arrested has the right to a speedy arraignment/bail hearing and if bound over for trial, a speedy trial. We go to great lengths to give those arrested due process to avoid infringing their 5th Amendment rights even temporarily without just cause.
Why the hell should the 2nd Amendment be any different?
Bribing the states for doing their jobs. Now there’s an idea. I hope the VA will pay attention to this concept. Maybe the VA could pay bonuses to managers who are able to streamline the appointment process and enable more veterans access to good quality medical care.
There are bribes and there are bribes. The one most of us think of is “do this and receive that.” That’s inducement to cooperate, to comply. The other type is “do this and don’t receive that” with the “that” being funding for certain things. That’s coercion to cooperate, to comply. The federal government does both well and since states always have their hands out, the upshot is central control of all sorts of things that would otherwise be reserved for individual states to decide. No tanks or soldiers are needed. The states can nearly always be relied upon to sell surrender power for a price.
GDC: best I can tell, reporting of data to NICS by states is not legally mandatory (28 CFR 25.4). So I don’t think “bribing the states for doing their jobs” is exactly the correct way to describe what’s allegedly being proposed. IMO it’s more like “paying someone to do something you want them to do”.
Should the states report felony convictions and involuntary commitments to NICS. Probably. But if it’s not mandatory and costs money (e.g., time and effort) to do that, I can’t blame states for saying, “We’ll do it as time permits. We don’t have the resources to devote someone to that full-time.”
My only intent was to point out that systems get gamed. The VA is a great example and I don’t expect the outcome of this NCIS thing to be much different.
I don’t like any of this. All I can see coming out of any and all of these proposed pieces of legislation is that they are aimed at making law-abiding citizens into criminals.
The ‘do something’ mentality needs to have a choke-chain on it. There is plenty of legislation already in place NOT BEING ENFORCED.
Do something? It’s ALREADY BEEN DONE! And no one was paying any attention.
Long time lurker, first time poster 🙂
It should be noted that the government already does reward states for improved record reporting, especially mental health records, under NARIP. See http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=491
With Schumer involved, I’d be very suspicious…
My .02
Because that is the problem. We don’t have enough laws to stop criminals.
Gooooooooooood damn it.
Remember the “firearm owners protection act” aka MucClure-Volkner? that is the one that fut-bucked potential owners of full auto it’s. By closing the registry for th “tax” on them.
In the case of this proposal, remember that sage wisdom from Admiral Akbar.
“… It’s a trap!”
Folks, you do -not- make -federal- law to address one or even a few nut jobs. This is A Bad Idea.
Yup. They will bolt on some last-minute crap that will bugger some or all of us. Just the whole “we need more rules!” is meant to end all access. That is why they just keep on failing to use the ones that are already there. The goal is to take all of -yours-. They need -your- help to do it.
Stop grabbing your ankles and saying “this one won’t be so bad”.
yes. It will.
Yes, it will.
Time to recall the SOB.
Bill has been introduce, but text is not yet available. Watch this web page for further details. Should be available by the end of the day on Monday.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2002/text?resultIndex=1
well, now that a day has passed, most of the anti-gun groups are squealling that it doesn’t go far enough – no universal background checks, no banning gun show sales, no national registration or confiscation, no firing squads for gun owners…. At least they are being moderate in their demands, right?