Universal Background Checks — Rights or Privileges?

Capitol Hill Democrats woke up Wednesday champing at the bit to pass an invasive, sweeping piece of legislation—H.R. 8, the “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019”—Democrats in the “other Washington” (Washington state) are also pushing several stricter gun control measures. The overall national anti-gun push is leading many to wonder if the Democrat party has forgotten the difference between “rights” and “privileges,” or whether Democrat lawmakers just doesn’t care.

According to the Seattle P-I.com, “Democrats in the Washington Legislature are advancing new targeted gun restrictions, but so far their broadest measure—a ban on assault weapons—has stalled.” But there are other measures still in play, all of which could qualify as impairments on the right of individual citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves, or the state, as delineated in Article 1, Section 24 of the state constitution, adopted Nov. 11, 1889.

Perhaps not coincidentally, House Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi back in Washington, D.C., are poised to adopt the so-called “universal background check” legislation that Republican Congressman Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, writing at Fox News, insists “would not have prevented several of the mass shootings that occurred in recent years.”
So, why are they doing this? Can Democrats be so averse to the Second Amendment that they are doing everything possible to destroy it?

Washington State Sen. Patty Kuderer, a Bellevue Democrat, sponsored legislation in Olympia to ban so-called “assault weapons.” The bill apparently stalled because of apparent concerns that it would “conflict” with anti-gun-rights Initiative 1639, the measure that stripped young adults ages 18-20 of their right to purchase and own any sort of semi-auto rifle, which has now been defined by the initiative to be a “semiautomatic assault rifle.” That definition is so sweeping that it includes every self-loading rifle ever made.

Banning an entire class of firearms is a non-starter with Congressman Mullins and his GOP colleagues who oppose H.R. 8. The bill may pass in the House, but it is almost certainly going to face difficulty in the Republican-controlled Senate, and here’s why, according to Mullin:

“H.R. 8 fails to prevent gun violence. Over 77 percent of criminals in state prisons for firearm crimes obtained a firearm on the black market, on the street, from a drug dealer, or through theft, according to the Department of Justice.

“Stricter gun laws do not always equate to safer cities. Look to Chicago, where Illinois has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.”

The legislation would not have prevented shootings at Columbine High School, Fort Hood, the Aurora movie theater, Las Vegas, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Washington D.C. Navy Yard or Sandy Hook. But Democrats, according to Mullins, don’t care. Anti-gunners want a symbolic win, another trophy on their mantle, he intimates.

“House Democrats will continue to carry on about how their bill will ‘prevent’ future gun violence,” Mullins writes. “But H.R. 8 will not prevent gun violence at the hands of criminals. Current law already requires a background check on every commercial gun purchase in America. But that doesn’t fit House Democrats’ narrative.”

He says that H.R. 8 could turn honest gun owners into criminals. Some in the firearms community wonder if that isn’t the plan; disqualify as many people as possible from being able to own firearms, making it easier to trample over them in a rush to erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights.

Far-fetched? Who living in Colfax or Colville, Tacoma or Tonasket, Issaquah or Ione in Washington State 25 years ago would have imagined how a movement funded by a relative handful of Seattle-area billionaires and less-wealthy elitists could change their state to a gun-restrictive gulag like New Jersey over the course of five years, beginning with anti-gun Initiative 594?

Over the past weekend at the Washington Arms Collectors gun show in Puyallup, alarmed gun owners raised money to help pay for a lawsuit against I-1639 being fought by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association. They are tired of seeing their rights eroded by initiative elections that are financed by wealthy anti-gunners who apparently believe the Constitution is for sale.

Voters in heavy Democrat districts passed the measure, while those in conservative districts did not. It’s what author and philosopher Ayn Rand warned about when she wrote, “Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).”

But Democrats don’t seem to care about that right now. They have gun owners and the Second Amendment in their sights.

Are you in favor of Universal background Checks? Do you think more restrictive gun legislation will prevent future high profile shootings? Have the Democrats crossed the line to the ‘Party of Gun Control’ in your view? Share your answers in the comment section.

Dave Workman is the Senior Editor at the Liberty Park Press.