Today is the 8th anniversary of the attack on former Arizona Representative Gabby Giffords, which is why Democratic Congressional leaders have named their gun control proposal "H.R. 8" ... and why they're rolling out the bill today.
According to POLITICO:
Giffords nearly died in the Jan. 8, 2011, shooting in Tucson, Arizona, which left six people dead and 15 wounded. She resigned from Congress in January 2012.
The bill also has 14 Republican co-sponsors. From The Hill:
The bill calls for federal background checks to be required on all gun sales, including private transactions, with an exception for transfers between family members and temporary use of a gun for hunting purposes.
The bill is not expected to get a vote in the GOP-controlled Senate, however.
Jazz Shaw writes at HotAir.com:
There’s no sign that the Senate is going to support such a proposal, so it may all be moot anyway. But it’s worth asking Pelosi and her friends what specific problem they’re trying to solve. Their usual reasons don’t seem to carry much weight. The background check loophole is largely a myth circulated by gun grabbers to people who probably don’t understand the existing laws. The Democrats almost always point to mass shootings as a reason for doing this, but in one tragedy after another, we find out that the attackers were able to pass a background check before going over the edge.
The usual rhetoric about “keeping guns out of the hands of criminals” is a noble idea, but more background checks aren’t going to do much in that regard. The government tracks this sort of data on an ongoing basis and they’ve found that the vast majority of criminals engaging in gun crimes obtained their weapons illegally. One study from 2004 revealed that, of criminals in prison for crimes involving guns, roughly one quarter of them admitted to having stolen the gun they used. 40% said they had purchased their weapon on the black market and 37% got them through the “gray market” via illegal strawman purchases and various other illegal methods.
Second Amendment activists say this essentially criminalizes private gun sales, as most people are not going to have the ability to run a background check if they are selling their firearm to another person. But gun control activists say those types of sales shouldn't be occurring at all. Of course, criminals won't care about this law because they're criminals.
Meanwhile, a recent study confirms that relaxed concealed carry laws do not lead to increases in violent crime or homicides.
Pete's Prep Sheet: Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019
- WBTV got the list of voters targeted in the Bladen County ballot harvesting operation run by McCrae Dowless - which (contrary to previous assertions) does not appear to support the idea that his operation targeted Black voters or Democrats. In other Bladen-related news, Mark Harris ran from WSOC-TV last night.
- Meanwhile, Gov. Roy Cooper's administration still cannot seem to manage disaster relief and rebuilding efforts. This has been a problem since Cooper took office in 2016.
- NC capitol reporters are mad about plans to relocate their media room from a centrally-located place in the General Assembly building to one farther away from all the action.
- Asheville property that was dangled as a potential site for a Deschutes brewery is now slated to become a housing development. The City Council is expected to vote on the project tonight. Meanwhile, the proposed redevelopment of the Flatiron Building continues under review.