What in this bill constitutes such a dire emergency?
- It makes the federal background check look harder at juvenile records for buyers under 21;
- It defines dealers more specifically;
- It increases the penalties for straw buyers;
- It says that boyfriends who beat up their girlfriends can be barred just as husbands who beat up their wives;
- Supports state-level crisis intervention programs; and
- Improves mental health services.
Who, exactly, is having their rights stripped here? Honest question: Without invoking slippery slope, how are the restrictions placed forth here infringing the Second Amendment rights of the public? It seems to me that the people hindered by this bill are juvenile offenders trying to buy a gun, dealers trying to skirt the restrictions, straw buyers, and guys who beat up their girlfriends.
You miss the entire point.
Obviously NONE of that is even remotely going to at all reduce any possible violence, in any way.
The only way to ever reduce any of the violence is will free local mental health care.
It can't be done federally, and would be totally illegal at the federal level.
Federal background checks are totally illegal. Feds have no authority, ability, accountability, or accuracy.
There is no legal means by which anyone can "define" a dealer. Anyone has the right to buy and sell as they wish.
There is no legal way to claim anyone is a "straw buyer", since anyone who buys can decide after use, that they don't like it or a change of finances make it so they can no longer afford it.
Sure people who beat up other people may be a problem, but you can NOT take property without the person having the opportunity to "face their accusers" with a day in court, first.
That is a 4th amendment guarantee.
State level is still totally inappropriate for crisis intervention programs, which must be local.
Mental health services vastly need improvement, but that has NOTHING at all to do with federal gun confiscation programs, and can only be done locally.