A 2nd Amendment-related Public Service Announcement

Senate Judiciary Committee to Hold
Hearing on S. 941 (BATFE Reform) Next Tuesday

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

On Tuesday, September 14, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on reforming current regulation of commerce in firearms--especially in the area of dealer licensing and oversight--by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The hearing will focus on S. 941, the "Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Reform and Firearms Modernization Act" sponsored by Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Congressmen Steve King (R-IA) and Zack Space (D-OH) have introduced a companion bill — H.R. 2296 — in the U.S. House and it has 240 cosponsors. The bills would roll back unnecessary restrictions, correct errors, and codify longstanding congressional policies in the firearms arena. These bipartisan bills are a vital step to modernize and improve BATFE operations.

Of highest importance, S. 941 and H.R. 2296 totally rewrite the system of administrative penalties for licensed dealers, manufacturers and importers of firearms. Currently, for most violations, BATFE can only give a federal firearms license (FFL) holder a warning, or revoke his license.

S. 941 and H.R. 2296 would allow fines or license suspensions for less serious violations, while still allowing license revocation for the kind of serious violations that would block an investigation or put guns in the hands of criminals. This will help prevent the all-too-common situations where BATFE has revoked licenses for insignificant technical violations—such as improper use of abbreviations or filing records in the wrong order.

Friday, May 29, 2009

In the last few weeks, NRA-ILA has received hundreds of e-mails warning us about “SB-2099,” a bill that would supposedly require you to report all your guns on your income tax return every April 15.

Like many rumors, there’s just a grain of truth to this one. Someone’s recycling an old alert, which wasn’t even very accurate when it was new.

There actually was a U.S. Senate bill with that number that would have taxed handguns—nine years ago. It was introduced by anti-gun Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and it would have included handguns under the National Firearms Act’s tax and registration scheme. This has nothing to do with anyone’s Form 1040, of course.

Fortunately, S. 2099 disappeared without any action by the Senate, back when Bill Clinton was still in the White House. We reported about it back then, just as we report about new anti-gun bills every week. Now, it’s time for gun owners to drop this old distraction and focus on the real threats at hand.
 

Bloomberg Further Disgraces Himself In Latest Anti-Gun Pitch

Friday, September 10, 2010

No one in this country knows better than New Yorkers what "devastation" looks like. On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center buildings and their surrounding area were reduced to rubble, burying nearly 3,000 Americans. To this day, the images are difficult to comprehend; they show a concentration of man-made destruction unprecedented in the United States and perhaps anywhere on Earth.

New York's current murder rate pales in comparison to that of 2001, of course. But it also pales in comparison to what it was in other years gone by. Due in part to crime-fighting programs adopted under former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, New York City's murder rate is only a fifth of what it was 20 years ago.

Presumably, New Yorkers are well aware of the relative safety in which they live today. However, the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has a skewed perspective even though the September 11 anniversary is front and center in every news outlet today due to other controversies.

With New York City's and the nation's murder rates lower than anytime since the 1960s, Bloomberg sounded the alarm, saying "Illegal guns and their accompanying violence devastate communities across our country."

Bloomberg revisited his perennial cause célèbre —gun control—because his anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), has issued an Issue Brief urging Congress to "close the gun show loophole"—gun control supporters' Orwellian "doublespeak" for "prohibit private sales of firearms at gun shows and everywhere else."

Since U.S. crime rates are so low, MAIG invoked Mexico's war with its drug cartels, repeating the soundbite first heard in 2009, when Attorney General Eric Holder tried to use Mexico's problem as the excuse for reinstating the federal "assault weapons" ban. "In fact, 90% of guns recovered and traced from Mexican crime scenes originated from gun dealers in the United States," MAIG says.

Discovering that geography is more than a subject taught in elementary and middle schools, MAIG adds its revelation that "four in ten of the U.S. guns recovered in Mexico between 2006 and 2009 were originally sold by gun dealers in Texas. The three other states that share a border with Mexico – Arizona, California, and New Mexico – were the source for another one-third of the U.S. guns."

Of course, the operative words in the "90 percent" soundbite are "and traced." The GAO has already reported that most guns seized in Mexico, from cartels or anyone else, have not originated in the United States. For example, GAO noted, "In 2008, of the almost 30,000 firearms that the Mexican Attorney General's office said were seized, only around 7,200, or approximately a quarter, were submitted to ATF for tracing." The others were not submitted for tracing, presumably in many cases because their markings indicated that they were not traceable to the U.S.

For all their effort, Bloomberg and MAIG got scant coverage by the news media. But the debate will likely continue over how many guns are smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico, what percentage of the cartels' guns originate in the U.S., and from which countries the cartels obtain their machine guns, grenades and other weapons that are unavailable in the United States.

One thing is sure, however: Americans have greater access to U.S. guns than does anyone in Mexico, and our murder rates pale in comparison to those of our southern neighbor. For example, the murder rate of Juarez is nearly 100 times higher than that of El Paso, just across the border. If anything, that's a criticism of Mexican laws, which prohibit honest people from getting guns with which to protect themselves.