In line with yesterday's announcement, the Department of Justice has just announced a "rule change" that would enact a very significant gun control law without the bother of consulting Congress.
Senator Roger Marshall (R., Kan.) and six other Republican senators submitted a letter to U.S. attorney general Merrick Garland on Thursday, voicing their “strong opposition” to a new gun-control rule proposed by the Department of Justice.
Under the recently proposed “Definition of ‘Engaged in the Business’ as a Dealer in Firearms,” any person who sells a gun for profit to anyone else, including family members, would be considered “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms. As a result, a person would be required under federal law to obtain a federal permit, conduct a background check, and complete gun registration paperwork.
Such a license costs between $30 and $3,000, depending on whether they'd let you register as a "collector" or in fact (as the article says) a "dealer" ($200 minimum). That's not the real issue, although raising our costs and thereby making firearms more expensive is surely a partial motive. A real dealer divides that $200 over many transactions, but a person who just wants to sell one gun to a friend or family member is adding $200 to the purchase price of the gun.
The real issue is that this would require all firearms transactions to be reported to the Federal Government, which would then be able to build a registration/confiscation database. The FBI would also be required to approve or reject anyone who wanted to purchase or trade for a firearm.
This is the so-called "gun-show loophole" that the gun control people have been railing at Congress about for years. It's really about all private transfers of firearms, not only or even mostly 'gun shows,' and bringing them under Federal control.
Congress has refused the request to pass such a law for decades. So, instead, DOJ is attempting to wrest legislative authority away from the legislative branch in order to do by executive fiat what the democratic system has long refused to do. This is, of course, unconstitutional.
It is also illegal: see prior post. DOJ is clearly timing this in line with the Biden administration's push for an executive agency that aims at depriving Americans of as much of their Second Amendment rights as it can arrange. That brings the DOJ's leadership into a conspiracy to deprive Americans of their constitutional rights under color of law.
Rinse. Repeat. They are convinced that this will reduce gun violence, not on the basis of any statistics, which are against them, but because they don't like those people and think they are dangerous, and the others are "okay, you aren't dangerous yourself, but you are too stupid to understand that you are opening the door for dangerous people." It's feelings and culture. They have met dangerous people from outside their culture - as if that is not true of everyone - and therefore think all people outside their culture are potentially dangerous. They just feel that it's all dangerous soehow, and therefore, they don't give a FF (or a RA, your choice) about the Constitution or legality. Those are obstacles in the way of Obviously Good Ideas.
ReplyDeleteThe sheer illogic of it, following feelings and cultural tribes rather than law, statistics, or natural rights amazes me every time. They have to ignore so much sense to uphold their nonsense.
The sheer illogic of it.... They have to ignore so much sense to uphold their nonsense.
ReplyDeletePsychopaths, sociopaths--these folks have an internal logic of their own; the trick is for the one doing the treatment, to the extent any treatment is, or can be, done, is to understand their logic and work around it.
Feelings and culture gun control folks aren't psycho- or sociopaths, but they do have their own logic. It just doesn't match the logic of the tangible world any better than does the psycho- or sociopaths'.
Eric Hines
The ones we run into in daily life may well believe the ostensible "safety" BS.
ReplyDeleteAlong with other rainbow unicorn wishy washy.
The ones pushing this from the top know damned well it will not have any effect on violence.
Their short term goal is the disarmament of political opponents.
The long term goal is the elimination of those opponents.