It Begins: House Democrats Introduce Bill To Ban Certain Guns
The new Democrat majority in the House of Representatives won’t be sworn into office until January, but that hasn’t stopped them from getting a jump start on their anti-freedom agenda –namely, legislation that attacks gun owners and the firearms industry and places undue and unconstitutional restrictions on the Second Amendment.
Breitbart reported that while most everyone was focused on the midterm elections, a handful of House Democrats were putting together a piece of gun-control legislation that has far-reaching implications for the gun-owning community at large, as well as for firearm parts manufacturers and the subset of gun owners who manufacture their own firearms at home.
The piece of legislation is sponsored by New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone and has been co-sponsored by 16 other House Democrats. Officially known as H.R. 7115, the bill has been laughably misnamed as the “3D Firearms Prohibition Act” — laughable because the bill actually has virtually nothing whatsoever to do with 3D-printed firearms.
The stated purpose of the bill is “to prohibit the sale, acquisition, distribution in commerce, or import into the United States of certain firearm receiver castings or blanks, assault weapon parts kits, and machine gun parts kits and the marketing or advertising of such castings or blanks and kits on any medium of electronic communications, to require homemade firearms to have serial numbers, and for other purposes.”
In laymen’s terms, and not the purposefully confusing legalese of legislation, the bill would completely ban the “do-it-yourself” 80 percent partial firearm receivers that people can complete themselves at home with the use of a few specific tools, as well as the additional parts necessary — typically sold as a kit — to produce a functioning semi-automatic firearm.
Furthermore, the bill would prohibit the manufacturers of said partial receivers and parts kits from advertising or marketing their products online or through the use of any other electronic medium.
On top of that, the bill would also require that any home-built firearms produced between 1968 and the date this bill would take effect, if passed, would now be required to possess a serial number — for “traceability” purposes — which would have to be obtained from a licensed firearms dealer for a fee.
Ironically, even as the bill would essentially ban the production and possession of home-built firearms, it nevertheless demanded that the producers of any future home-built firearms obtain a serial number from a licensed dealer prior to construction, and then present said home-built firearm to the same licensed dealer for verification upon completion — who must report everything to the Department of Justice.
That would seem to set a legal trap for those attempting to comply with the framework of the law.
As an aside, the language of the bill also appears to have dramatically widened the definition of what would constitute an “assault weapon” in that it defines such as “a semiautomatic rifle or semiautomatic shotgun that has the capacity to accept a detachable ammunition feeding device.”
Previously, so-called “assault weapons” were defined as semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that included at least one or two other features — such as adjustable stocks, pistol grips, forward grips, barrel shrouds, bayonet lugs, etc. — in addition to the “detachable ammunition feeding device” or removable magazine.
It should go without saying that the term “assault weapon” is completely made up and has no bearing on reality and really just means semi-automatic firearms, while “machine guns” — actual automatic weapons, which Democrats deliberately conflate with their semi-automatic counterparts — are already all but banned for the overwhelming majority of the general public.
The bill laid out how the ban on partial receivers — to be considered a “banned hazardous product” — would be enforced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in conjunction with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, though penalties for violations were not specified.
The prohibition against the advertising of partial receivers and parts kits — to be considered “an unfair or deceptive act” — would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, again without any specific penalty notated.
Supporters of this legislation will say it is narrowly targeted toward a small segment of the gun-owning population and is vital to dealing with the supposed scourge of “ghost guns,” their ludicrous term for home-built weapons that aren’t required to have a serial number.
However, critics will note that this legislation is but one of several being put forward by anti-gun Democrats and, if passed, would provide a jump-off point for additional restrictions on the firearms industry, the parts they produce and the means by which they advertise such products to the public.
The vastly widened definition of “assault weapon” as encompassing virtually all modern semi-automatic rifles and shotguns is also incredibly concerning, and don’t think Democrats won’t fully exploit that wide definition in their efforts to pass sweeping gun bans in the future.
Should this bill be passed by the House, it is incumbent upon the Republican-controlled Senate to immediately stop it in its tracks.
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