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A few thoughts on this. Some of the stuff in here is pretty mild, some is garden variety terrible, and some is 🤡😱. Going in order.
The licensing scheme is honestly not terrible, as long as there's no registry. It's basically a one-time background check, then you get a card & you can buy without hitting NICS every time. If they'd treat it like an FFL & let me get guns shipped directly in the mail...
But the main stipulation for my own licensing proposal in Politico, which is sorta similar to Booker's, was giving up feature-based gun bans & just focusing on the "who." Main legit criticism of that was, "they'll always try to go for both." Booker tries to go for both. 😪🤷♂️
The "bring real regulation" thing is a nothingburger. It's about warnings & safety recalls, which is dumb b/c this is not a real issue in the gun world. You can count on one hand the number of real mfgr defect type safety issues in the last 20 years in the gun world. So who cares
I support the PLCAA and am 100% opposed to efforts to repeal it. I don't want to see gunmakers sued because their products are misused by criminals. That is a dumb thing that doesn't happen to carmakers or makers of other products. Screw that.
Handgun microstamping is a backdoor handgun ban, as in CA. This technology does not exist in a production gun. It's theoretical, & even if it did exist it wouldn't do what's claimed. So this is absolutely a bad faith backdoor gun ban & its proponents know it.
It's not clear to me what this "boyfriend loophole" proposal really is, but it's so vaguely framed it's probably terrible. Also, again with the "loophole" thing. I'm automatically opposed to anything framed as "closing the loophole" here.
My ability to exercise a SCOTUS-blessed constitutional right is not a "loophole." End of discussion. Frame your proposal some other way if you want me to pay attention to it.
Re: the "Charleston loophole" -- What he's describing here appears to be the "gun show loophole." Has it been renamed? I guess "Charleston" is scarier than "gun show" because Nazis?
Bans on "assault weapons," standard-capacity mags, & bump stocks. All this is dumb & I & others have debunked it may times & in many venues. All I'll say about it here is that by piling this on top of the national licensing, it's clear that gun grabbers will never be rational.
They always, always, always try to go for the scary-looking guns because they look scary. Always. There will never be a world in which the color of a gun or the presence of something "military" looking like a rail or a foregrip doesn't send them into orbit.
In the past ~2yrs have come to believe that if the presence of a pistol grip on a rifle causes you to imagine that it's instantly transformed into a weapon of mass destruction, you are a child & have no business passing laws or generally participating in the grownup world.
I am ambivalent on this funding for federal research into gun violence. In general I think the "public health" approach to "gun violence" -- a catch-all term that includes everything from accidents to mass shootings to gang violence -- is poisonous & counterproductive.
I have many threads on the problems with this "public health" approach, but maybe one day I'll collect them into an essay or something. But really I don't hold out much hope for knocking down this or any other zombie idea, since we're /still/ arguing about pistol grips on rifles.
Modernize the ATF: Sure, if it'll get the ridiculous wait times for suppressor and SBR tax stamps down to a week or two, instead of the current ~9 months, why not.
Support ERPOs: I think there are a ton of avenues for abuse with the way these are set up, so I'm opposed unless there is real due process for the accused.
Limit gun buyers to one handgun per month: I want to see a LOT of evidence that this is likely have a real impact on gun trafficking, because I'm skeptical. I do not believe traffickers are lawfully buying handguns in bulk from FFLs then reselling them on the black market. 👃💩
Require owners to report lost or stolen guns: There is no point to this without a gun registry. If there's no chain of custody linking me to a specific gun via serial #, then how can u come after me if it's stolen & I don't report it? You can't, b/c you don't know it was mine.
Ramp up funding for community-based violence intervention programs: Finally, something that might actually save a life!
Increase trauma support for survivors and communities impacted by gun violence: Another good one! Now we're getting somewhere...
Call on the IRS to conduct an investigation into the NRA’s tax status: Wait wut?!? You are openly calling for the IRS to be weaponized against a political advocacy group you don't like?! Really?! Is that what we're doing now?
Cory will take executive action...: You're playing with fire on this. This is even more dangerous than the IRS shenanigans you're proposing. When the executive orders on gun stuff was floated in response to the wall, it was widely understood to be posturing. But now?
If I were to fix this platform so that it's not a tire fire, I'd leave the following: the licensing thing, the support for victims & violence intervention, the ATF modernization (w/ stipulation that this doesn't mean creating a de facto registry out of digitized FFL records)...
...then I'd delete everything else, & add a position statement about how feature bans are dumb & will never save lives.
Finally, I'd give the results over to Warren & tell her to replace her gun platform with this, b/c she is a worthwhile candidate & not a corporatist doofus.
Finally, I'd give the results over to Warren & tell her to replace her gun platform with this, b/c she is a worthwhile candidate & not a corporatist doofus.
