PA Bill Number: HB335

Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.

Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...

Last Action: Removed from table

Last Action Date: May 1, 2024

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Schumer touts new gun control scheme, ignores a gaping 'loophole' :: 08/04/2015

This morning in The Big Apple, perennial anti-gun Sen. Charles Schumer teamed up with his cousin, actress and comedian Amy Schumer, to launch another gun control scheme that doesn’t appear to close what may be a gaping gun control loophole, but maybe it’s because that loophole is a government agency.

Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune reported that one of the two gunmen in the failed terrorist attack in Garland, Texas earlier this year had purchased a handgun from a Phoenix-area gun shop during the scandalous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Fast and Furious allowed a couple of thousand firearms fall into the hands of drug cartel gunmen five years ago, and now it appears the operation also armed a future wannabe terrorist.

According to the report, Nadir Soofi had a “history of misdemeanor drug and assault charges” that “might raise red flags in the federal screening process” during a gun purchase. The story noted that, “Soofi's attempt to buy a gun caught the attention of authorities, who slapped a seven-day hold on the transaction, according to his Feb. 24, 2010, firearms transaction record, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, the hold was lifted after 24 hours,” and he was allowed to purchase a 9mm pistol.

Now, it isn’t clear whether Soofi used that specific handgun in Garland (this column has reached out to ATF for an answer), but this story also raises an issue nobody in the gun prohibition movement dares to answer. Just because he bought a handgun five years before committing a crime, are firearms retailers supposed to be soothsayers now? Must they be clairvoyant? Who could say five years ago what somebody might do today with a gun he bought, or for that matter a car, kitchen knife or candlestick holder? Even the government can't foretell the future.

While the Schumers are touting another gun control proposal that ostensibly will keep guns out of the hands of “violent criminals, abusers, and those with mental illnesses,” what happened to the people who engineered Fast and Furious? That operation is known to have allowed guns to flow directly into the hands of violent criminals.

Under the new Schumer plan, which has three parts, federal money will go to states that “submit key records” into the National Instant Check System. States that don’t submit all the paperwork will “face penalties.” But, what kind of penalties will the criminals face? The ones who don’t bother with background checks, and obtain their guns illegally; the people at who gun control laws are invariably aimed, but consistently seem to dodge that bureaucratic bullet?

So far, after decades of gun control efforts, criminals and even crazy people continue to obtain firearms and hurt people. They game the system, are able to get through it because of faulty records or ignore it altogether, which leaves only the law-abiding who are ultimately penalized for crimes they didn’t commit through added regulatory red tape.

Gun control schemes are like that. Wednesday morning, for example, the Seattle City Council’s Education and Governance Committee will have another discussion on proposed special gun and ammunition taxes to pay for city gun control programs. Gun rights activists say the idea is illegal right out of the gate because of Washington State’s long-standing model preemption law.

They will also talk about another plan, to require gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms. Presenters on both of these proposals will likely be countered by people who see no good coming from them at all.

But then one must ask this question: Is “doing good” with any of these proposals really what the gun control crowd is after?

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