By: Teresa Mull

The U.S. House voted last night to pass H.R. 8, known as the “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019.”

The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) reported last night:

For the first time in 25 years, Congress passed MAJOR gun control legislation.

Today, Nancy Pelosi’s Universal Gun Registration bill H.R. 8, advanced out of the House of Representatives by a vote of 240 to 190.

Make no mistake about it, Patriot, H.R. 8 is the largest gun control expansion since 1994!

This dangerous bill is now headed to the U.S. Senate.

“If passed, H.R. 8 would ban virtually all private firearms sales, requiring your guns to be registered through the Brady NICS system at YOUR expense,” NAGR reported previously. “Furthermore, simply lending a rifle to a family friend for a day of recreational shooting without going through bureaucratic red tape could become a criminal offense.”

Veto Likely?
Fox Business reports the White House would likely veto the pair of gun control bills pending at the federal level, if they make it to President Trump’s desk:

The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, or H.R. 8 – a bill that would require a background check for every firearm purchase (even private transfers) – is “incompatible” with the “guarantee of an individual right to keep arms,” the White House said. Lawmakers approved this legislation in a vote on Wednesday.

H.R. 1112 aims to require a gun dealer to wait 10 business days to receive an answer from the background check system before proceeding with a sale. The White House said this measure would “unduly impose burdensome delays on individuals seeking to purchase a firearm.” This bill is expected to be voted on later this week.

Republican Pushback
“A group of House Republicans gathered Tuesday on Capitol Hill to express their anger over two bills proposed by their Democratic colleagues that, if passed, would drastically tighten federal gun laws,” Fox News reports.

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-GA) said of the bills:

“This bill turns law abiding citizens into criminals and it’s one more step towards federalized gun registration and ultimately gun confiscation. That’s been the intention of many of the people bringing this bill for a long time. They want true gun control and this is the first step and surely not the last.”

Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) said of H.R. 8:

“Frankly HR-8 is taking the fears and concerns of a nation over gun violence and perpetrating a fraud upon them. They are preying upon the very victims they are supposedly trying to help by putting a bill out there that will not help them. By constantly bringing up the mass violence instances such as schools and theaters and others. They are saying this will help. The reality is nothing in this bill would have stopped Parkland and nothing in this bill would have stopped the violence we have seen.”

Background Checks Don’t Work
Gunpowder Magazine has reportedly repeatedly why background checks are ineffective.

A background check system is already in place, and of the firearm sale denials the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) comes up with, GOA reports, approximately 95 percent are “false positives,” meaning “…people who are being denied are not the people that want to hold up the neighborhood grocery store.”

The U.S. Constitution protects citizens’ unalienable rights, and forcing law-abiding Americans to get permission to exercise these rights is a violation of the Constitution. Background checks, the Ron Paul Institute has noted, are a “violation of several parts of the bill of rights,” including the First, Fifth, and Tenth Amendments.

Not only do the background checks we have in place not work to prevent mass shootings (most of the most infamous shooters, including the man who shot Giffords, passed background checks), they also disarm good people who deserve the right to self-defense, and set a dangerous precedent that can quickly lead to gun confiscation on a huge scale, as GPM’s Ted Patterson has noted:

Background checks are nothing more than a firearms registration system, which has historically been a precursor to full-fledged firearms confiscation. Many point to Nazi Germany as one of the best examples of what comes of gun registration. Most people probably do not know that it was not the Nazis nor Hitler who initiated gun registration. It actually was the preexisting Weimar government’s initiative put into law because of their fears of the Communists and Nazis. The Weimar government implemented laws that the Nazis would later use to oppress the German people, namely, German Jews.

Although Hitler rapidly expanded upon what the Weimar government had instituted, this historical event reminds us that well-intentional laws passed by good people can be used by the next round of political operatives to devastating effect. This is why it is so important to stop any hint of universal background checks: such a measure could open the door to a disastrous future.

Teresa Mull is editor of Gunpowder Magazine. Contact her at [email protected].