Washington Examiner: Democrats are Racing Toward Gun Control Once Again

From the moment we arrived in Congress this January, the Left has been trying to take away members’ constitutional rights. And if Democrats are doing this in Congress, just imagine what they want to do to everyday people.

Then again, we don’t need to imagine. House Democrats have just passed still more failed gun control legislation to restrict our Second Amendment rights and trample on the Constitution. By mandating universal background checks, the so-called “Bipartisan Background Checks Act” would effectively create a national firearm registry, allowing the government to target gun owners.

This bill, if it becomes law, would criminalize common exchanges of firearms. As passed, it would strip away the rights of millions of people while doing nothing at all to reduce gun violence. Almost 70% of prisoners who used a gun to commit crimes acquired firearms from black-market sources, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. There is no indication that criminals will suddenly decide to follow the law if this bill is passed.

All this bill will really do is advance the Left’s agenda to criminalize gun ownership, increase burdensome regulations, establish a gun registry, and set the stage for gun seizures.

In case that isn’t enough, House Democrats are also moving forward with the “Enhanced Background Check Act,” which would subject Second Amendment rights to FBI bureaucratic inertia. If the FBI fails to complete a background check on time, a gun buyer will be presumed guilty until proven innocent, forced to write a letter to the attorney general and fill out reams of paperwork. Gun buyers’ constitutional rights will thus be lost in a web of FBI bureaucracy for at least 20 days or, in the worst case, indefinitely. Again, this will have no effect on gun crime.

Across the board, Democrats are racing toward leftist gun control regulations. On the anniversary of the tragic Parkland school shooting, the White House could not resist an opportunity to politicize the tragedy by calling for holding gun manufacturers liable for shootings. What next? Shall we hold car manufacturers liable for drunk driving? Fork manufacturers for obesity? Microphone manufacturers for off-key singing?

We shouldn’t be surprised by these radical gun control efforts. President Biden is doing exactly what he said he would do all along. During his campaign, Biden called for gun buyback programs, confiscation of assault rifles, red flag laws, gun licensing, and a national gun owner’s registry.

Biden is not the centrist the media made him out to be, and he never was. Meanwhile, his party’s gun control efforts evince the increasing power of a radical Left that is hostile toward the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.

Reps. Lauren Boebert and Kat Cammack's editorial was originally published in the Washington Examiner.