Just hours ago, the House voted to pass H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 by a vote of 227-203. This nasty bill would made it illegal for any American citizen to sell or a firearm to another American without first having a dealer with an FFL run an FBI NICS check on them.
The wording of the bill says, “It shall be unlawful for any person who is not a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer to transfer a firearm to any other person who is not so licensed, unless a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer has first taken possession of the firearm.”
Of the 227 votes for the bill, 219 were Democrats. Eight Republicans voted for the bill, which we’ll address in another article.
There were 202 Republican Congressmen and women who voted against the bill; they were joined by just one Democrat.
But far worse than any background check requirement is the unspoken aspect of this bill.
The information gathered to conduct the ‘background check’ — including the name and address of every single gun owner in the country — will be stored in a government database. As time goes on, the government will eventually create a master database.
It’s not lost on gun owners that this database will be essential in the implementation of any future gun control — including gun confiscations!
After all, how will they know who any new laws apply to if they don’t have a database of gun owners?
H.R. 1446 Followed Right Behind H.R. 8
Another bill that passed a House vote today was H.R. 1446, filed by James Clyburn of South Carolina. This bill would expand the current three-day-maximum waiting period connected to background checks to a ten-day minimum and thirty-day maximum waiting period!
The current law says that the FBI has three days to prove that the buyer is disqualified from the purchase. If the current check takes longer than three days, the gun buyer is automatically given the green light to buy a firearm.
This new legislation would do away with that, expanding the window more than three times over — with the potential for an escalated review lasting as long as thirty days!
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) who co-sponsored the legislation with Clyburn, had no problem stating on his website that the initial ten-business-day review can be followed by a ten-day “escalated review” in some cases.
The Real Battle Will Be In The Senate
Gun owners will remember that H.R. 8 already passed the House in the 2019/2020 legislative session. And given the momentum the left has felt since January 6th, it’s no great shock that it passed the House again.
That’s because,for gun owners, the real battle will be in the Senate. When H.R. 8 passed the first time, the bill stalled out in the Republican controlled Senate, but that protection is gone.
Still, all hope isn’t lost. In order to pass this bill, the Democrats will need at least one Republican legislator to vote for it. It’s crucial that gun owners make it clear to their Senators that compromise will NOT be forgotten or forgiven on election day!
Get Involved!
We have reached out to the American Firearms Association in the past, asking what action our readers can take to stop these bad gun bills at the federal level. It’s critical that every gun owner contact their federal legislators and tell them “HELL NO!” to this gun control bill.
To that end, the folks at the American Firearms Association have provided the form below that enables you to email YOUR federal legislators directly. They’ve provided several pre-written emails to make it as quick as possible — please take one minute to send your email NOW!