By: José Niño
Since day one, the role of the civilian disarmament lobby has been to generate hysteria over otherwise trivial aspects of firearms ownership.
Case in point, the recent obsession on the part of Gun Control Inc. over “ghost guns” or “untraceable firearms.”
Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline and Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal are leading anti-gun forces to rally around the Untraceable Firearms Act of 2021 (known as S. 1558 in the Senate and HR 3088 in the House).
Harold Hutchinson of AmmoLand noted that this isn’t Cicilline’s first time introducing this kind of bill. Back in 2019, Cicilline introduced a similar version of the Untraceable Firearms Act.
The name of this game is to criminalize otherwise lawful firearms activity, especially activity — in this case, homemade firearms — that dates back to the very founding of this nation. There are tons of lawful individuals who build firearms within the confines of their homes for benign reasons.
Hutchinson brought attention to one point the media will conveniently ignore about homemade firearms:
What Cicilline and Blumenthal – not to mention the media – fail to mention is that current laws can handle anyone who is home-building firearms for nefarious purposes. Under 18 USC 922, anyone who provides a firearm to a felon, illegal alien, or other prohibited persons is guilty of a felony. 18 USC 924 provides for a potential 10-year prison sentence in those cases and adds other penalties for transferring a firearm knowing it will be used for a violent crime or drug trafficking, not to mention sentencing enhancements for when firearms are brandished or discharged.
The fact is that there are already many gun control laws on the books. Many which are unconstitutional and ineffective. Logic would dictate that expanding gun control in the case of homemade firearms only serves to disarm the law-abiding, while criminals will continue churning out and acquiring illegal firearms because it’s in their very nature to flout the law.
The sanest course of action would be to enact policies that allow for the lawful to arm themselves with greater ease, while making sure that real criminals, especially repeat offenders, get locked away for longer periods of time. None of this requires the passage of laws and regulations that impede law-abiding citizens’ ability to get armed.
Gun Control Inc. only cares about accumulating power, and they will use whatever pretext they can muster up to justify their gun grabs. As always, gun owners must be prepared to refute the gun control crowd’s zaniest arguments and defeat them where it ultimately counts — the political arena.
José Niño is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. Sign up for his mailing list here. Contact him via Facebook, Twitter, or email him at [email protected]. Get his e-book, The 10 Myths of Gun Control, here.