HR 127 will, if enacted, require registration of all firearms and all firearms owners, licensing for firearms owners subject to psychological evaluations, and serious criminal liability for failure to comply, along with some other prohibitionist fantasies.

One gets the distinct impression of every bit of prohibitionist wishful thinking thrown together in a box, with little if any thought to consequences, implementation, and so on

There are many things to consider, about which the prohibitionists are conspicuously silent. The bill calls for registration of all firearms, which thinking Americans have always resisted because history shows that such registration always precedes and facilitates confiscation.  There is another, lesser-known reason why we oppose gun registration: The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that it does not apply to actual felons! The reason is that since the convicted felon’s possession of a firearm is already illegal, requiring him to register it violates his rights against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment. See Haynes v. United States.

(And logic tells any thinking person that the criminal, by definition a lawbreaker already, is most unlikely to obey a registration law.  Thus, the only people in line to be punished for failure to register would be the hitherto completely law-abiding citizen.)

HR 127 would require a psychological evaluation not only for the gun owner, but for every member of their household who might have access to the licensed individual’s firearms.  There are an estimated 328 million people in this country. One study indicates 43% of American households contain firearms. 

Just doing some very rough preliminary math, that would come out to more that 141 million people who would require psyche tests.  Who could administer those?

Well, the APA estimates that there are only 106,000 licensed psychologists in this country, and notes that about one-third of counties in the United States have no certified psychologists. Let’s throw in the estimated 28,000 MD psychiatrists in the USA.  That gives us only 134,000 professionals to administer 141,000,000 or more of those psychological evaluations.

An eminent neuropsychologist of my acquaintance has done many psyche evals on cops for their police departments.  He uses the MMPI, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, and figures the cost per civilian client at around $1200 for the psych eval (at $200 per hour). Presumably, if issues came up, it would take longer than average to complete, and he would have to charge more.

In short, there aren’t enough psych professionals to handle such a massive influx of new “patients,” and the cost to the individual would be enormous – and, since we are talking about law-abiding normal people, would be for the most part absolutely unnecessary in any case.

A deeper dive into the issue can be found here.

But there is much more that the people behind HR127 either don’t begin to understand, or don’t want you the voter to know about.  We’ll go into that more in our next entry here.

77 COMMENTS

  1. Mas
    The goal is NOT registration! The entire point is a legislation so onerous that the sheeple will voluntarily disarm rather than comply. The rest of us will be hunted felons.

  2. As I recall, the MMPI is particularly inaccurate when given to people of higher than average intelligence. I’m using intelligence as an indication of thinking and reasoning abilities.

    The tactic seems to be if you can’t ban it, price it out of reason.

  3. [sarcasm]This proposal sounds a little bit like infringement.[/sarcasm]

    I find it ironic that a black Congressperson of Ms. Jackson Lee’s age would think this proposal somehow different than poll taxes, Dred Scott, and other infringements on civil rights.

    No problem. They’ll just keep throwing sh*t against the wall until some of it sticks.

    Today in History: February 6, 1922, Hitler’s Third Reich begins media censorship. Approximately one year ago, “big tech” and “social media” discover the concept.

    • I find it ironic that a black Congressperson of Ms. Jackson Lee’s age would think this proposal somehow different than poll taxes, Dred Scott, and other infringements on civil rights.

      They are different. Poll taxes, Dred Scott, etc., affected fundamental civil rights that Ms. Jackson-Lee supports. This proposal affects a government-granted privilege she doesn’t support. (Or so she believes.)

      But the bottom line is, gun rights give the people she would control power to resist her control. Like most Leftists, she’s a control freak by nature. Thus, she cannot allow the means to resist her.

      She justifies it by saying she believes in civil rights, but guns are different. Guns are different because they are different. (And yes, that kind of circular reasoning has been around [heh] in prohibitionist circles [heh again] for a very long time. “Nothing new under the sun,” as they say.)

      • She Jack doesn’t even begin to know what’s in the bill. they (ObamaRiceSchumerHarrisPelosi) just had her as sponsor so that any opposition could be branded as racism. Myself, I’m not a bigot. I’m just sick of this garbage.

  4. Taking the numbers a bit further, 141,000,000 psych evals. If they tried to do that in a year, that would, if they could be distributed evenly, mean about 1052/professional. That would mean about 20/week/pro, equalling 120 hours. That would give the professionals 48 hours a week for sleep if they didn’t have to do any other thing.

    Now, I suspect, and I could be wrong, that the counties that have no psychiatrists are more likely to have a higher percentage of firearms owners, which would add to the hours needed for them to get their job done.

    As for cost, $169,200,000,000 would be taken out of the economy.

    Part of me would like to see that pass and get signed, if for no other reason than to see just how fast federal courts would slap it down to oblivion.

    • The is the entry, the nose under the tent. It will be negotiated to what they think they can get away with and Biden or Harris will sign.

      I fully expect them to pass somthing. It won’t be this monstrosity, but it will contain many elements. It will seem reasonable by comparison and that is the goal.

      Or

      Lee is an ignorant lunatic who doesn’t understand anything about the things that scare her. This bill her insain attempt to get everything she could ever want and some part of her thinks that she’ll get it.

      Either way do not expect the courts to be friendly or do their duty. Do expect them to push this, or some part of it, through at the first opportunity.

      • Eh?

        I’m sure they intend that *you* should pay for the psych eval. And, of course, it would have to be from an “approved” practitioner, which probably would start with them being in the Obamacare listing.

        You might wait a looong time for your “shall not be infringed…”

    • $169B is a small price to pay for our total safety in these times of multi-trillion dollar programs and it’s but a tiny faction of the world saving Green New Deal’s cost.

      • *If* it would GUARANTEE total safety then you would have a point. But it will not, because it cannot.

      • As long as there are Human – Beings on this Planet = Will always Have CRIMINALS ! – Impossible to Have Total Safety From Criminal Activity – So In fact Several of our States that Have CONSTITUTIONAL CARRY RIGHTS Have seen a 24% DROP IN ALLCRIMES .. Logically – All Qualified Citizens Should Be ARMED , With That , criminals Will be VERY RELUCTANT To attempt Any CRIMES ! For Their True Nature is ” their COWARDS with Bare Hands & Alone ” – They Only Attack in Numbers of 3 Or more ! And Always have SOME TYPE OF WEAPON – fact …… So these Tyrannical Advances have another AGENDA !

  5. It’s “moving the chains” or intentionally shifting the Overton window. They know it won’t pass. While they may hope to get some section through (federal registration, for instance), the real objective is to shift the conversation so that such restrictions become normalized in mainstream thought. The Ministry of Truth (major media outlets and social media platforms) will beat the drum 24/7 and objectors will be identified, isolated, dehumanized and attacked until the “reasonable” and “common-sense” opinion will be in alignment with the Leviathan’s expectations.

    This is even more dangerous than it appears prima facie. Even if they DID manage to push it through, the impossibility of enforcement simply makes it that much worse.

  6. I’ve mentioned this on another forum. These so called “elites” that think they are our masters cannot survive without an army of serfs doing things for them. Landscaping,trash pickup,appliance repair ,electrical, masonry, carpentry,plumbing,..you get the picture . Anything you do for a living.If you are in any of these trades/ occupations,services refuse business to any 2nd Ammendment Bigot that wants to destroy your God given rights. Make them suffer, isolate them.Shun them.Reject them.Dont associate with them or conduct business with them.Ive already dropped two customers and I let them know why. Being a bigot should be painful.

    • I agree wholeheartedly.

      Here in flyover land, a local college (Coe) alum or two actively recruits local lib arts majors to work @ State Dept. upon graduation. Freshly indoctrinated; likely anti 2A. I suspect many such alums of other fed agencies actively recruit The Indoctrinated as well. You know, folks who have been gullibly brainwashed into admiring Karl Marx, who coincidentally was mentioned during my very first hour of college in a macroeconomics class.

      I love Project Appleseed.

  7. Ignoring the 2nd amendment, for now, the law in question is beyond both the legal and physical ability of both the state and federal governments. You can do this by referring to a gun as a house and the accessories (magazines) as doors. Doing so may seem absurd, but this illustrates the absurdity of this law. Some may argue that a house and a gun are not the same things, but under the law theory (were not using the Second Amendment here), the justifications must be approximately the same. The rationale for taking away the property of a house and people’s fundamental rights is almost the same for a gun as it is for a house. You could very well argue that there are about as many law-abiding gun owners as house owners.

    For this law to be constitutional, you would need to obliterate almost half of the Constitution. This law would then render most of the rest irrelevant. The federal government does not have the authority to say that you must be a licensed homeowner. That the fact that you own a home doesn’t mean that the government can search you and your property at any time with no justification without even the possibility that a criminal act has been committed. The law under question limits who you can even have on your property. One could go on for quite a long time without repeating themselves, but the point should be obvious by now.

    So the point becomes what the point of this law is. In normal times (and admittedly, these are not), such a law would stand no chance of being passed. Under the present circumstances passing this law is still not guaranteed. For the judiciary to tolerate it, they would have to move beyond invertebrates into the realm of jellyfish. Admittedly under the present circumstances, not impossible. So the most likely outcome of this would be virtue signaling. Put it up the proverbial flagpole and see who salutes. We can only hope that this is the case because the alternative is much too bloodied to contemplate. Unfortunately, we also cannot rule out that the last is the goal.

  8. Why would the cost be paid by the individual being tested? Since the goal is public safety, where all of society would benefit, of course the cost of testing would come from the general budget.

    Oh the goal isn’t public safety? Or society wouldn’t see any benefit? The purpose is actually to chill the activity, particularly among demographics less able to bear the increased cost?

    Why, Ms. Lee, do you so hate economically underprivileged, politically disfavored, and historically oppressed peoples?

  9. He uses the MMPI, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

    Somehow I doubt Sheila Jackson Lee intends to use any criteria that objective or comprehensive. And the progressives apparently don’t care how much any of their proposals cost.

  10. Since the point is to disarm the populace having a “professional psychologist” administer ‘the test’ is unnecessary. The government will simply have a commission make up a ‘test’ that can be administered by any bureaucrat/clerk, have it evaluated by a computer and discover your third cousin on your paternal uncles side of the family may get depressed, and since he comes to visit you for Christmas every year divisible by five your owning a gun is a clear and present danger.

  11. They never intended that HR127 should pass. It’s a negotiating position; they want it all, but they’ll “compromise” to get some or any of it. Or even nothing, since they’ll still claim credit for trying to contain “gun violence.”

    • I’ve gone down this road before.

      H.R. 127 is the “start”. It’s the position that has everything they dream of and then some. The idea is that we negotiate it back so they get most of what they want, and both sides claim a “victory” (though in fact, only one side wins).

      The response from the GOP should not be a list of H.R. 127 parts that are unacceptable.

      The response should be a demand to scrap the whole H.R. 127 bill, AND:
      – Repeal the Gun Control Act of 1968, AND
      – Repeal the National Firearms Act of 1934, AND
      – Make background checks optional (in return, open up the NICS line to the public and make it easier to do voluntary checks), AND
      – Make all federal and state firearms registries illegal and mandate their destruction (including the ATF’s stockpile of Form 4473s and bound books), AND
      – Make all gun and gun owner licensing schemes illegal and mandate destruction of those records, AND
      – Mandate nationwide CCW reciprocity (or better yet, Vermont-style Carry), AND
      – Pass a federal law requiring courts to apply “strict scrutiny” to all 2nd Amendment relief claims.

      And now, the negotiations can begin.

      Extreme? You’re damn right. An extreme offer deserves an extreme response, and the prohibitionists must be put on notice that they’re not going to get anything without giving up something in return — ideally, a LOT of somethings in return. There must be no more “compromises” in which we’re forced to give up something we hold dear, and the controllers lose nothing.

      Anything less, and “compromise” continues to mean “instead of taking it all, we’ll let you keep half of what you already have (for now)”.

      • Similar to what i have been saying a quite a while…. We need to stop always being on the defensive and tying ‘give” as little as possible to satisfy the “anti-gunners.” We need to go on the OFFENSE! Start by proposing legislation of rescinding any and all gun laws that do not show their desired results (which is about 90% of them).

      • @Captain Bob: Like him or not, Trump had the right idea.

        Under his watch, for every new regulation, the government had to give up two.

        That needs to be our mantra for every new “gun control” bill. For every new gun law, they have to give up at least two existing ones.

        That would start getting this ball moving in the right direction.

  12. In order to preserve the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution we need to protect it from being neutered or canceled by anything, let alone a House bill written by Utopian socialists. We have demonstrated recently that unbelievably homicidal socialists like Stalin, Mao, and Hitler were not held in check by any legislation, while endangered citizens were disarmed, mainly according to arbitrary political distinctions. Alan Korwin, in his latest Gun Rights column on p. 52 of American Handgunner, mentions that “THREE MAJOR AMERICAN PARTIES SEEK CONTROL OF WHITE HOUSE.” Our Congress needs to transcend feud-mindedness and restore sanity to Washington right now. And blessed are the (Colt) Peace-Makers.

    • Restoring sanity by congress would require that congress be capable of expressing or even recognizing sanity! I doubt either is possible much less even likely.

      • Yes, character disorders seem all too frequent in Congress these days. Narcissistic Histrionic Personality Disorder, one of the more threatening maladies in the Capitol, is generally regarded by psychologists as untreatable. Such afflicted legislators are unfortunately enabled by an ability to form mutual admiration societies (read “gangs”). Every single one of the victims needs to be removed from office. Their disordered minds present grave dangers to the lives and welfare of anyone.

  13. “licensing for POLITICIANS subject to psychological evaluations, and serious criminal liability for failure to comply…”

    Fixed it.

  15. Find one government in all of history that banned it’s own ARMED FORCES from “Keeping and Bearing” ARMS.
    Find one government in the history of humanity that felt a need to document a “RIGHT” for it’s ARMED FORCES to possess ARMS.
    Oppressive Governments ALWAYS ban the People’S RIGHT to arms.
    The claim that the Founding Fathers wrote the 2nd Amendment to give Our ARMED FORCES a “right” to keep and carry ARMS is S-T-U-P-I-D.
    The only reason for the Second Amendment is to clearly spell-out the GOD GIVEN RIGHT of INDIVIDUALS to keep & bear ARMS.
    The only reason for the BILL(list) of RIGHTS was to codify INDIVIDUALS’ GOD GIVEN RIGHTS.
    Has there ever been a government that was not chock full of it’s “rights” up to and including declaring itself to be the Lord God Almighty?! (Rome, Egypt, Israel,etc)
    Does the 1st Amendment mean the GOVERNMENT is allowed to give speeches? Try shutting up any Politician. But THEY would LOVE to shut YOU up, hence the FIRST Amendment.
    Anyone who tells you the 2nd Amendment applies to the Army or State Militia, is telling you they think you are STUPID.
    There has NEVER been a government that felt it had to codify it’s army’s/soldier’s “RIGHT” to “Keep and BEAR ARMS” because there has NEVER been a government that refused to allow It’s own soldiers to KEEP and BEAR ARMS!
    The Second Amendment was written for the People, like the other 9 Amendments in the Bill of Rights. This was confirmed by the SCOTUS in the DC vs Heller decision, where they stated that the “People” in the Second Amendment were the same “People” that are mentioned in the First and Fourth Amendment.
    The 2nd Amendment clearly codifies the “right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms”, and certainly not “the Militia”.
    Why would “the Militia”, a type of army manned by citizen-soldiers as opposed to full-time “regulars”, need a constitutional amendment to guarantee they have the right “to keep and bear arms”?
    Is there any specific statement anywhere in the Constitution that the army Congress is empowered to raise has the “right to keep and bear arms”? Of course not. …………. That is assumed.

    the 2nd amendment,, specifies that the RIGHT to bear arms is the right of the people,, NOT the militia,,,, it is the people who will make up the militia,, but the right is not the right of a “well regulated militia” it is the right of the people, We the people were BORN WITH UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, meaning they come from GOD.

    … the Bolshevik-Left insists there is NO GOD so they can deny all your GOD given RIGHTS.

  16. Where is the Mental Screening of those who make “Red Flag Calls” on other People?
    “your” politicians make life & death decisions everyday. Decisions that affect Your economic, medical, mental, and physical health and safety. They decide the fates of MILLIONS of People. Where is THEIR “screening”? Those “elected” officials, those corrupt, narcissistic, sociopaths, let’s face it, a politician wants to tell others what they can and can’t do, what does that make a “career” politician………..
    THEY are armed with nukes, poison gasses, chemical weapons, every imaginable fiendish murder tool imaginable, and they are afraid of YOU with small arms.
    W-rong Bush hired the former head of the East German STASI, Marcus Wolf, and Yevgeny Primakov, former head of the KGB, to design Homeland Security ( both Jews, Followed by more “dual”citizen creeps.). Why? To bring oppression and the STASI SNITCH SYSTEM here…………….. and here it IS.
    Where are the RED FLAG laws on Politicians? DEMAND they do the exact same thing-PLUS.
    Politicians, Police, Judges, Government Workers make Life & Death deadly decisions every day.
    WE should be able to make ONE call and have them suspended from office and blocked from making any decisions until they are cleared for duty.
    Red Flags on priests! Why did it take DECADES for the politicians to do ANYTHING about those THOUSANDS of pedophiles??!
    There must be “reporting centers” so priests and politicians(Gov. Employees) can be immediately suspended pending investigation.
    Public Servants are also expected to be held to Higher Standards due to their positions and maintaining the Public Trust.
    How come there is never a “War on Political Corruption”? Never investigation of how these “Sacrificing Public SERVANTS” get so RICH in office? Audit THEIR finances.
    Therefore when they come out with such demands of their EMPLOYERS, their EMPLOYERS have the Right and Duty to make the same demand of THEM.
    WE demand THEY provide ALL their social media and computer searches, their e-mail accounts, Bank accounts and financial records for examination. Also Mental Screening, physical records, testing for steroids and illicit drugs. They must also wear GPS trackers so we can evaluate where they are spending their time. Screening for pedophilia and any other sickness.
    If it is good enough for US it is certainly good enough for Our EMPLOYEES.

    • The logic is strong with this one. We need a vaccine to keep us safe from bad public policies. Trump was our champion to drain the swamp, but he was overwhelmed by the communist hordes, like we read about during the Korean War, where the enemy just kept on coming. Bodies piled up on top of bodies while the machine gun barrels glowed red. When the ammunition ran out it was time to use bayonets. There is a modern term for this tactic called “swarming.”

      • Roger, that’s why we need semi-auto rifles with lots of high capacity magazines, to repel those human wave and ‘Banzai’ charges of the Dark Side. Unfortunately the AR-15 type rifle is not very suitable for bayonet fighting and fires a puny cartridge. The 1903 is great with a bayonet and fires a serious round, but it’s much slower to operate, unless you’re Alvin York. Like the heroic corporal, we should carry a .45 pistol also, to back up our rifle when it runs out of ammo, or for close range encounters.

  17. This bill is just throwing everything at the wall hoping one of them will stick. The good thing about the increase in gun purchases is that now these bills will be even harder to pass as it affects more and more citizens. Psych tests need to be done before you can be a congressman and throw in an intelligence and civics test.

    • “Temporarily” store them in an oxygenated salt-water “preservative solution”.

      Or, “temporarily” store them in a police locker, where they become police property if they’re not picked up by a certain date. (“Oh, you can’t get your psych eval done by then because the mental health system is overloaded with others just like you? Gosh, that’s too bad!”)

      Yea, hard pass on both, thanks.

  19. I believe HR127 is a Trojan Horse. There will soon be other anti-2A Bills that will be sold as reasonable compromises compared to “what could have been” under HR127. Those Bills will garner significant bipartisan (RINO) support and be promoted 24/7 in the legacy and social media.

  20. Maybe we should say there are 141,000,000 of us and 221 of you (Dems in House of Reps). Maybe you should get your heads examined.

  21. Let’s assume that we would want an assessment as valid as one used to screen LEO applicants. As a retired clinical psychologist who assessed LEO for 50 years, I would say the MMPI is a poor instrument for this purpose, even if one assumes assessment is not a crazy and counter 2A idea. It’s not a test that would be politically biased;it is scored by computer and compared to established norms. The problem is that evaluating millions of people would produce huge numbers of false positives and false negatives that would be unfair and troubling, with possible consequences for many individuals. The results would also reveal some people to be suffering from emotional disorders, some serious, and also subject to the same test error in a sample that large. What to do with that information? When the test is used as a screening tool, you usually have history and clinical interview to evaluate the person in front of you, not just the test. Most psychologists who assess LEO or others use a battery of tests to minimize errors and look for congruity. I used five extremely sophisticated tests integrated into a battery by a fabled psychologist. This is a bad idea that would be badly executed.

  22. I reject the entire notion out of hand. Analyzing only lends cred. I’m stuck on screw them. Thats a different contingency than protest and email. The time for words to carry appreciable weight seems to have passed. Or did I miss that part? Somebody talk me down, please. Not seeing hope in any direction. They are going to keep pushing until they get what they want. Apparently they want scorched earth? Idk….

    • Steve Racer,

      You are right, the time for talk is over. Our side spoke up peacefully in 2009 and 2010. We were the Tea Party movement. The other side heard from us again in 2016 when Trump won, because their side did not cheat skillfully enough to get Hillary elected. According to Mike Lindell’s documentary, Trump won the 2020 election with 80 million votes to Biden’s 68 million. But this time the other side did a skillful job of cheating. So, our votes were cancelled, and Biden is President. Now they will cancel us, so they can stay in power.

  24. I, for one, cannot tell the exact purpose of this particular bit of terrible proposed legislation. Some of the comments above may be correct. Perhaps it is:

    1) A Trojan horse bill designed to smooth the way for a “comprise” bill. The Left has a long, long, long history of using an “incremental” approach to imposing their tyranny. They know well how to turn up the heat, slowly, until the frog boils to death.
    2) Perhaps it is designed to “normalize” firearm prohibition as the “accepted” approach to deal with the violence that they initiate. After all, initiating a crisis and then, subsequently, using that crisis to advance left-wing ideology is also a standard approach of the left. “Never let a crisis go to waste” is SOP for them and they are always happy to manufacture the underlying crisis that forms the foundation for their exploitation.
    3) Perhaps it is to “criminalize” firearm ownership. Once again, criminalizing and demonizing their political opponents has also been SOP for tyrannical regimes throughout human history.
    4) Perhaps it is part of a plan to provoke a reaction from gun-owners. A reaction that they can then use to criminalize and demonize all gun-owners as being “beyond the pale” for “modern” American society. With their control of big tech and the media, it is easy for them to smear their political opponents. Look at the way they took the actions of a few wacko protesters, in Washington D.C., and used them to smear both Donald Trump and ALL 74 million of his supporters.
    5) Perhaps they are doing it as a diversion while they pull off something else. Wave a “Red Flag” for gun-owners to chase (no pun intended) while they execute some particularly vile bit of tyranny elsewhere.
    6) Perhaps they are pushing this bill just because they can. With the POWER of big tech, big media, big business, big government, big education and big Hollywood all at their backs, these tyrants may be “feeling their oats” and believe that nothing is beyond them. After all, they (with their ChiCom allies) have just pulled off the Most Successful Combined Biological Warfare/Psychological Warfare Operation in the History of the World. I am referring to the continuing Covid-19 Pandemic Operation. An Operation that has, literally, changed the course of Human History and which promises to put the Worldwide Left in Power for at least the next Century.

    So, maybe they are doing it just to teach us Rubes and Peasants that THEY ARE THE MASTERS NOW and neither (a) what we think or (b) what the U.S. Constitution says matters a damn anymore.

    Honestly, the possibilities are so endless, I cannot say (for sure) what is the ultimate goal of the American Left with this H.R. 127 Bill. All I can say is that, whatever the Left is up to, it is VERY BAD for America and for our Constitutional Republic.

  25. So failing to register a firearm would be a crime? Sounds like a violation of the Fifth Amendment since registering a firearm is admitting you possess something that could be unlawful if you don’t pass the “tests”.

    Actually if this law, or one like it, passes it could be a godsend. The Supreme Court would be compelled to act if the lower courts didn’t strike it which has potential to torpedo a huge swath of firearms laws and regulations. The Left could be overplaying their hand and actually destroy their cause. If SCOTUS struck all laws based on the clause “shall not be infringed” that would be a great victory for citizens. Government may actually be FORCED to enforce the laws governing violent crime. No room in prisons? Build more!

    • I like where you’re going, but keep in mind that SCOTUS isn’t required to take any particular case any more than police are required to protect any particular person. There is no “compelled to act” to strike down unconstitutional laws.

      SCOTUS Justices (especially the liberals) are extremely good at finding legal justification for whatever opinion they want to give. But even without that, at the end of the day all SCOTUS has to do to allow the infringement is … nothing.

  26. Before we get too confident that something that cannot be implemented cannot pass, remember Obamacare. It is said that the actual goal there was to create such a mess that Single Payer would be passed. They succeeded in the first part but not the second, yet.

    Probably, the firearms equivalent of Single Payer would be prohibition on the Soviet scale. Even in the USSR, there were lots of firearms hidden. On the eve of the fall, the KGB estimated 17M illegal weapons. Probably a lot of Mosins under the floorboards, picked up in the chaos of the German invasions and the civil war. Probably even more were lost when the people living above the floorboards were killed or “relocated”.

    • The benevolent Soviets never killed anyone. Those opposing them were simply taken to be re-educated and many just didn’t survive this process.

  27. Think what the reaction would be if a bill were proposed that would require the exact same conditions be applied to the right to vote!!

    Implementation isn’t the issue/argument. (All they have to do is say everything (sales) comes to a standstill until the licensing, training and psych evaluation system is in place…years…complete bankruptcy for the industry…mission accomplished)

    The real issue is: Unconstitutionality. What other right guaranteed by the Constitution do you need training, psych evaluation, or $800/year to exercise? Answer: none

  28. As many people have pointed out, this proposed bill is unconstitutional on many levels. I would view it as a clear violation of the 2nd Amendment but, unfortunately, to those who hate and discount the 2nd, that will not sway them.

    As Mas points out, it also raises questions related to the 5th Amendment. Additionally, I suspect that issues could be raised under the 10th and 14th Amendments. However, in my view, it also violates the Constitution in that it is an ex post facto Law. Here is how Wikipedia defines an ex post facto Law:

    “An ex post facto law (corrupted from Latin: ex postfacto, lit. ‘out of the aftermath’) is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. In criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in when it was committed; it may change the punishment prescribed for a crime, as by adding new penalties or extending sentences; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime likelier than it would have been when the deed was committed.”

    Also, as Wikipedia notes:

    “Ex post facto laws are expressly forbidden by the United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3 (with respect to federal laws) and Article 1, Section 10 (with respect to state laws).”

    Clearly, H.R. 127 is an ex post facto law since it seeks to criminalize actions that are currently legal. It seeks to add new penalties and requirements to the ownership of firearms that were purchased, legally, years ago. It seeks to criminalize possession of ammunition that is currently legal to own and which was also previously purchased in good faith.

    While Leftist lawyers have made a career out of wordsmithing the 2nd Amendment so as to gut it, the language in the Constitution regarding ex post facto laws is clear and unambiguous. Congress is strictly forbidden to pass such laws. Here is the clear text of Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3:

    “No Bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”

    No matter what efforts the wordsmiths make, there is no “wiggle” room here.

    The proposed H.R. 127 is unconstitutional as an ex post facto law irrespective of the numerous other ways that it violates the Constitution.

    Of course, the totalitarian regime holding power in Washington, D.C., has little regard for the Constitution. Under the pretext of Covid-19, they are violating the Constitution daily. They see the U.S. Constitution as an obstruction in their pathway to complete, totalitarian power. A stumbling block that they must “work around”. They see very clearly.

    • But TN_MAN, the need to control who is armed is a matter of “public safety.” We can’t be free to not wear a mask, or open up a school or a business if doing so would be unsafe. Having guns in the hands of unstable people would make America unsafe. Mr. and Mrs. America want to be safe, not free. What good is freedom if we get COVID-19 or shot with a gun?

      Ouch, thinking about these things is scaring me. Get me to a safe space quickly. Life is too hard. Get me some soma.

      • Roger, have a cup of hot chocolate and I’ll loan you my teddy bear, crayons, and coloring book until you feel safe again. Sorry but I’m not lending anyone my Cindy Crawford sex doll.

  29. Ah, but implementation isn’t really an issue. I’d expect that if one couldn’t be examined & certified “fit” within X amount of time, one would be required to surrender any firearms for safekeeping until one could demonstrate “fitness”. I’d expect that returned items would be evaluated for appropriateness for your stated usage prior to return.

    I spent nearly 30 years in a job where the MMPI and psych interview was an every 3 year routine. Not really that big a deal, but doing it for ~50% of the population is another story. The nature of the evaluation is, however, a massive potential issue. I once spoke with a gent who was part of the board that developed a state mandated interview. He mentioned that after several years they did an evaluation of the process and discovered that a couple of the presented scenarios “had issues”. They discovered that those with certain life experience viewed the given situation as “can I make the shot” rather than “should I make the shot”.

  30. You really don’t think these will be valid psychological tests administered by professionals, do you? They will be like the “literacy tests” that were given to black Americans in the Jim Crow states before they were allowed to vote. If you know the right people, you’ll be guaranteed to pass, and if you vote the wrong way, you’ll be guaranteed to fail.

    • A shocking number of the people who approve of this bill see the desire for gun ownership as proof of a mental disorder.

      Do you want to own a firearm? “Yes.” — Proof of mental problem. FAIL.

      Do you want to own a firearm? “No.” But you’re attempting to purchase one, ergo your actions demonstrate you DO want to own one. — Proof of mental problem AND compulsive dishonesty. FAIL.

      Or as you said, you know (or donated sufficiently to and voted for) the “right people”, and you pass instantly.

      Jim Crow will look perfectly fair by comparison.

      • Along with Richard–“Calling Dr. Yossarian”–you’ve cleverly identified the pretzel logic that could potentially be employed in a model “Catch-22” scenario. Unfortunately, this same “test” could be misused to evaluate “mental stability” based on attitudes held regarding religion, education, economics, history, ethics, values, preferences, patriotism, politics or even the Constitution itself, I suppose.

  31. This is what happens when WE THE PEOPLE fail to educate themselves on their civic duty. Intelligent voters would not vote for, and keep sending back to office, corrupt, un-American politicians. Maybe they found politics too complicated or too boring to study. Now they have fallen for charlatans. Many American voters can be swayed by slick sales pitches (marketing). This has been going on for many years. It’s sad to watch America commit suicide. Communism is only good for the party members. Every one else will suffer. America was a great place while it lasted.

    • You make some interesting, valid points. I wonder how folks would even define “civic duty” these days. Our founders obviously assumed an educated (not necessarily measured by years of schooling, of course) and ethical citizenry populated by individuals motivated–at least in part–by authentic good will. And while “What’s in it for me?” remains a universal element of all political systems, I suppose, the founders assumed that well-informed citizens of basically good intent would be able to put (or at least seriously entertain the thought of putting) “the good of the whole” above pure self-interest when necessary–just like the founders and many of their contemporaries successfully chose to do in breaking from the British in the first place.

  32. Just because something is impossible does not mean the liberals will be deterred from trying it. Gun bans and confiscation of all private owned firearms is their ultimate fantasy which will allow them to exert complete control over their subjects and use their armed henchpersons to intimidate/eliminate any defenseless resisters. They’re always dreaming The Impossible Dream and trying to make it come true. Remember, they have tried this before, but not successfully – yet.

    Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing something repeatedly and expecting a different result.”

  33. Before this bill could become law they would have to superload the SCOTUS to keep it from being thrown out as unconstitutional.

    Every law is ultimately enforceable by the point of a gun so every law should be written with that gravity in mind. Our founding fathers gave very detailed and conscious thought to how this country should be run. Today’s legislators give little to no thought to anything they propose. They run solely on emotions.

    No worries. When this fails in congress our President will just issue another executive order…

    • Crooked Joe will sign another executive order written by someone else and put in front of him before Doctor Biden gives her senile spouse a bunch of medication, changes his diaper, and puts him back in bed for another much needed nap.

  34. That is worse than the laws in Canada. Hmm…what if 150 million Americans move to Canada? There are less than 38 million Canadians, and not all of them are lefties to begin with. We could have a very pro-gun and pro-freedom country in short order.

    • Yeah, we could do the same thing as the Mexicans and Central Americans, and just invade our neighbor to the north. Can we get lots of free stuff in Canada?

  35. You cannot reason with the force sweeping in. It is evil. You can’t run from it either. We have seen examples of it in the past, and today, and the oppressed and murdered are numbered in the hundreds of millions. You cannot argue with it. Talking with it is futile. It seeks no common ground, no unity, and no truth though it hides behind those words and other noble ideas, and pantomines the great ideals that are generated from the better nature of man. When it feels sufficiently strong, it emerges from the shadows where it has been, and will always be. And it is here…now…openly.

    “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, Insure Domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare…” We respond to this evil with ecactly this spirit. We are not perfect; no nation on Earth is, and has ever been. We do not cancel and erase things of the past because they weren’t perfect. We learn from them, and carry the visionary thoughts and ideals and truth forward to continually mold a more perfect union. We don’t seek to destroy. We strive to improve. We are not making America great again, we are striving to continually make America ever better.. Perhaps from that effort we can inspire others on this Earth to follow the better nature of man, and in doing so they can inspire and uplift us with their contributions. Returning to the evils and corruption of the past will not move us forward, only doom us to repeat the. horrors of history. And what is called for now is adherance to the great ideals of liberty and freedom, and a dedication to our foumding principles. Feigned unity, and capitulation will fail us, as will the compromise of our principles. Hang tough. Seek justice. Truth. Have faith. It’s that simple.

  36. Friend Jacob Morgan, judging by the unusually vast amount of Americans seen fleeing north from the border state of Arizona lately, you may be on to something. No telling how far they plan to go. The unfolding continuation of the sham Trump impeachment witch hunts ought not divert attention from the deranged Democrats’ overwhelming, uncontrolled disaster coming from the southern border. The SCOTUS really should call a moderating tribunal, stop all the monkey business, and have the goofy monkeys’ heads truthfully examined. Our Mickey Mouse Club of too many compromised, wacko and/or corrupt politicians maneuvering from behind a stalking-horse of “science” into blundering tyranny is now serving us an invasive Chop Suey special. May God save us all from irresponsibility and a Trump-less economy. Know your local laws, be generous but safe, and good luck to everyone.

  38. Half of the American people do not deserve to have Donald Trump as their President. He is too good for them.

    We go to school from kindergarten to 12th grade, then half of us go on to college. We have the equivalent of a 1980s super computer in our hands. We can use the world wide web to check facts. We have history to show us that communism does not work. Personally, I like to compare West Germany with East Germany to show the failure of communism. If we don’t like history then we can look at what is going on today in Venezuela and even Cuba. The Chinese communists themselves had to give up the economic side of communism, and practice state capitalism, just so their billions of people could get out of poverty and so the government could modernize its military. All of these facts prove that communism doesn’t work, and yet some highly educated and highly intelligent (Noam Chomsky for example) Americans are addicted to the secular religion of communism. Strange brew and strong delusion, isn’t it?

  39. I admit I have not read all the critterese of the bill yet, but…

    If there are no time limits placed upon the psych eval and other hoops, that would be enough to render the majority of gun owners instafelons. If the process is too slow for a gun owner to get licensed to own and all pews registered within the short period to comply, then the lack of being registered and licensed renders him in criminal non-compliance.

    I am reviewing the text now to see if –much like background checks can’t drag forever– this bill has any allowances for the process bogging down. I doubt they would be that reasonable–this bill is not in the same universe with reasonable.

    Also, we are witnessing anarcho-tyranny unfold. This bill is just in essence a statement of intent. If it passes they will enforce it– even if just through bureaucratic attrition. If it doesn’t pass they will enforce the spirit (most foul) of the bill through fiat–courts, executive orders, state level, insurance, banking, etc.

  40. Mas,
    Part of this proposed HR127 is the $800.00 insurance payment to the Attorney General’s office.
    What is the AG’s “plan” for this money?
    How is this not an “infringement” on the “Right-to-Keep-and-Bear-Arms”?
    I know these are rhetorical questions, and I do hope you will be addressing them in the upcoming articles.
    Best to you!

  41. It will be interesting to see what people choose to do when they can’t buy ammunition or a hunting license
    without their Federal permit. Can’t get your guns repaired either. Likely lots of instant felons and poaching and people deciding not to follow any laws. Time to practice more with the crossbow.

    • Long bows and recurves are much faster to shoot. Just have a bunch of broadhead tipped arrows on hand and practice a lot. Crossbows are good for ambushes and precision shooting with a scope. Don’t forget to carry a sword, axe, or mace to back up your bow.

  42. its costing tax payers how much to have military fortifications to protect DC? I fear it could get ugly.

    in my state Maryland, new laws being proposed, nothing pretty. Pissing the FUDDS off. I suspect when push comes to shove our national fate will be determined.

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