McCarthy Gun Control Bill Rammed Through The House

scribblet · June 18, 2007

Wow, this is a surprise to me, although I'm not up that much on U.S. politics. Apart from the fact that personally I think there does need to be more gun control in the U.S., this seems like a pretty underhanded manipulatory move.

McCarthy Bill Rammed Through The House -- Deal between NRA leadership and Democrats leaves most Republicans in the dark

http://www.gunowners.org/

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Wednesday started out as a routine day in the U.S. Congress, with Representatives attending congressional hearings, meeting with constituents, perhaps devising clever new ways to pick our pockets.

At 8:30 in the morning an email went out to House Republicans indicating that a gun control bill, recently introduced by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), was on the Suspension Calendar (normally reserved for "non-controversial" bills).

Many Representatives didn't see that email until it was too late. Less than three hours later, the bill passed by a voice vote. The bill in question, H.R. 2640, is a massive expansion of the Brady Gun Control law, the subject of many previous alerts by Gun Owners of America.

Its passage in the House is a case study in backroom deal making, unholy alliances and deceit. A sausage factory in a third world country with no running water has nothing on today's U.S. Congress.

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that a deal had been struck between the NRA leadership and Democrat leaders in the House.

The headline read: "Democrats, NRA Reach Deal on Background-CheckBill."

Red flags went up throughout the pro-gun community. Who was party to this "deal," and how many of our rights were being used as bargaining chips?

The McCarthy bill, at the time, looked to be going nowhere. The general consensus among pro-gun Congressmen was that any gun bill offered by McCarthy was simply DOA. cont.

Stay tuned. There is more to come.

kimmy · June 19, 2007

Boo-hoo!

Psychos like Suk Dong Kok won't be able to buy guns without background checks anymore! How draconian!

Here's a Denver Post editorial on the issue, rather than the frothing-at-the-mouth rantings of a gun-lobby that makes the NRA look like the NDP:

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_6165103

The unusual coalition won easy House approval last week to close a loophole in the 1993 Brady law that allowed Seung-Hui Cho to buy the handguns with which he killed 32 people at Virginia Tech - even though a judge had declared him mentally ill. The Senate is likely to follow suit, marking the first time since 1996 that Congress has strengthened gun-control laws.
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat who has long sought to tighten gun-control laws, and two pro-gun rights lawmakers, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich.

The NRA is the nation's largest gun-rights group. But its support for the new bill actually reflects the NRA's long-standing belief that existing gun laws should be enforced before new ones are written. That's exactly what the McCarthy/ Smith/Dingell bill would do.

The Brady gun-control law required states to submit information to a national database about people who are banned from buying firearms under federal law - including convicted felons, those involuntarily committed to mental health facilities, and those whom courts have deemed "a mental defective," meaning they are a danger to themselves or to others.

But as a report ordered by President Bush after the April Virginia Tech shootings pointed out last week, that law has been poorly enforced because schools, doctors and police were unsure about what information could legally be shared because of the confusing and overlapping maze of privacy laws.

The bill passed by the House clarifies those rules and would provide grants for states to update the national database gun dealers use for background checks on prospective buyers. The update would add more criminal records and mental health information to the database.

-k