PA Bill Number: SB1198
Title: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and ...
Description: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and .. ...
Last Action: Referred to AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Last Action Date: May 17, 2024
Bill would stop the federal government from forcing gun buyers to disclose their race and ethnicity :: 04/15/2015
In 2012, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) slipped a little-noticed new provision into one of their forms, requiring gun buyers to declare their race and ethnicity. Two Republican lawmakers want to ax that requirement, calling it a privacy concern.
Reps. Diane Black (R-Tenn) and Ted Poe (R-Texas) have reintroduced the FIREARM (Freedom From Intrusive Regulatory Enforcement of Arbitrary Registration Mandates) Act, which would ban the government from requiring gun owners to disclose this information in order to buy a firearm.
“Law abiding citizens should never have to play 20 questions with Uncle Sam just to access their fundamental right to keep and bear arms,” Black said in a statement. “As a gun owner myself, I know that this is not only a Second Amendment concern, but also a privacy concern. The government has no legitimate reason to collect this information in the first place. That is why my bill would ban the ATF from requiring Americans to list their race or ethnicity in order to purchase a firearm.”
“This requirement by the ATF is another example how this administration continually makes it harder for law-abiding citizens to possess firearms,” said Poe. “Forcing citizens who are lawfully purchasing guns to disclose race and ethnicity with the threat of federal prosecution if they fail to disclose is completely unnecessary. Bottom line, if a law-abiding citizen is lawfully purchasing firearms, race and ethnicity are irrelevant. It is time to stop punishing those who are following the law.”
When the Washingon Times reported on the form change in 2014, ATF defended the requirement as part of complying with Office of Management and Budget reporting standards. At the time, however, organizations like the ACLU were skeptical of whether those standards actually necessitated these disclosures.
Black introduced this same legislation last year, but it failed to advance.
