Congress To Take Up Gun Control This Week

On January 8, two bills were introduced in Congress to impose so-called “universal” background checks[1]. The bills, H.R. 8[2] and S. 42[3], are being misleadingly described as simply requiring background checks on all sales of firearms, but this is just a small part of what these overbroad pieces of legislation would do. A hearing on this gun control legislation will take place in the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives next week. Therefore, it is vital that gun owners immediately contact their Representative to urge them to oppose this legislation, and that gun owners encourage their freedom-minded family and friends to do the same. We’ve created a new webpage[4] to dispel many of the myths being circulated by proponents of these gun control bills. This legislation won’t stop criminals, but it does create many traps for law-abiding gun owners to unwittingly violate the law. Traps For Law-Abiding Gun Owners Both bills would make it a crime, subject to certain exceptions, to simply hand a firearm to another person. Any time gun owners carry out this simple act, they would potentially be exposing themselves to criminal penalties. While the bills do create some exceptions, they are overly complicated and create many traps for unwary gun owners. Accidental violations of these complicated provisions are not excused under the proposed legislation. Expanded Background Checks Don’t Work Proponents of so-called “universal” background checks claim that this legislation is the “most important” thing that can be done to stop dangerous people from obtaining firearms. This is a lie. There is no evidence that expanded background checks are useful for this purpose. Just last year, a study[5] by anti-gun researchers confirmed that expanded background checks in California did not reduce gun homicides or gun suicides. This finding is consistent with a review of past studies on expanded background checks by

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