PA Bill Number: HR541
Title: Recognizing the month of October 2024 as "Domestic Violence Awareness Month" in Pennsylvania.
Description: A Resolution recognizing the month of October 2024 as "Domestic Violence Awareness Month" in Pennsylvania.
Last Action:
Last Action Date: Sep 27, 2024
New Mexico Sheriffs' Association Opposes Bloomberg Gun Control Bills :: 02/07/2017
Fairfax, Va. – Today the New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association issued a statement opposing two gun control bills in the New Mexico legislature. Thirty-two of the state's 33 sheriffs signed the statement opposing House Bill 50 and Senate Bill 48 calling the bills "part of a national gun control agenda funded by New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg… [that] would criminalize virtually every private firearms transfer in the state.”
Excerpts from the text of the New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association statement opposing HB 50 and SB 48:
“These measures would make it harder for law-abiding New Mexicans to exercise their Second Amendment rights, waste scarce law enforcement resources, and do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
“.. this scheme would be unenforceable without creating a gun registry. We know this because a 2013 U.S. Department of Justice internal memo on gun violence prevention strategies stated that the success of expanded background check laws depends on requiring firearm registration.
“As sheriffs, we know that criminals, by definition, ignore the law. This proposed gun control law would not stop them from getting their guns from other criminal associates and theft, as they already do.”
“Bloomberg’s gun control scheme would cost law-abiding New Mexicans time, money, and freedom.”
The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action also opposes HB 50 and SB 48. These bills are part of a national effort to make it harder for law-abiding Americans to exercise their right to protect and defend themselves.
The branding of these bills in advance of the New Mexico Legislature’s 2017 Regular Session by the media and Bloomberg’s national gun control organization Everytown has been misleading and deceptive. They have falsely touted this as an effort to simply close the non-existent “gun show loophole” when, in fact, the words "gun show" are never even used in the proposed legislation and it is far more expansive than they would have you believe.
SB 48 & HB 50 would prohibit you from selling firearms from your personal collection to any distant relatives, long-time friends, business partners, neighbors, or fellow gun club members without government permission. The bills would criminalize nearly all private firearm sales between individuals, regardless of where those transactions take place, and require them to be conducted through a licensed dealer involving extensive federal paperwork, background check and payment of an undetermined fee. Licensed dealers will have to maintain the paperwork recording these transfers for twenty years. Limited exceptions are only made for immediate family members, federal firearms licensees and law enforcement agencies, executors or administrators of estates and trusts, or police officers, military personnel, and licensed security guards acting in the course of their official duties.
SB 48 & HB 50 similarly restrict firearm transfers -- including gifts, loans, exchanges and other temporary changes in possession of a firearm, not just gun sales (which involve an exchange of currency or a permanent change of ownership or title). In an attempt to garner support for these misguided proposals, advocates excluded a limited number of "temporary" firearm transfers from the acts' provisions: transfers necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm, those taking place exclusively at shooting ranges, while hunting or trapping, during an organized competition or performance, or any time the transferor remains present the entire time the transfer is taking place) only serves to highlight the overreach of the bills and raise endless questions about their scope, compliance and enforceability. Examples of commonplace activities that would be criminalized under the bills:
- A man loaning his girlfriend or fiancee his handgun for self-protection when homes or apartments in her neighborhood have been burglarized;
- A member of the military who gets deployed overseas and wants to store personal effects, including his or her firearms, with a trusted friend;
- Someone wishing to borrow their business colleague’s firearm when going on a hunting trip, to the local shooting range or to shoot on BLM land when the colleague cannot accompany him or her on the excursion.
SB 48 & 50 appear to require that the return of loaned firearms to their original owners be conducted through a licensed dealer, with the accompanying federal paperwork, background check and payment of an undetermined fee – even if the original transfer is exempt from such a requirement. The bill only exempts “temporary” exchanges and only then if the transfer and the transferee’s possession take place exclusively at one of the locations or during one of the activities listed in the paragraph above. How are the original owners of firearms supposed to take back permanent possession of their loaned guns once they and the original transferee go their separate ways, without finding a licensed dealer to perform the required transaction?
In short, these proposals will tax scarce law enforcement resources, cost law-abiding citizens time, money and freedom, and they will do nothing to stop criminals.
