Friday, January 27, 2017

Gun Reform Bills Three of Top Ten for Congress Attention



As the Trump administration continues to exceed expectations and keep promises, Second Amendment supporters look to Congress to see what bills may be moving.  

The amount of interest is a rough gauge of public support for these bills.  In the Congressional web site that tracks the ten top most viewed bills, three are gun law reform bills.

The second most viewed bill is H.R. 367, To provide that silencers be treated the same as long guns. It has 40 co-sponsors. It is the reintroduced Hearing Protection Act. It is textually the same as the H.R. 3799, the Hearing Protection Act of 2015, that was introduced by Congressman Matt Salmon of Arizona.  He retired with the 114th Congress.

The fifth most viewed bill is the same Hearing Protection Act of 2015. In the top five most viewed bills, two are Hearing Protection Act bills that are textually the same. It had 10 co-sponsors.

The ninth most viewed bill is H.R. 38, the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017. The NRA-ILA backs this bill. Gun Owners of America backs this bill. The Second Amendment Foundation's Alan Gottlieb has applauded the bill. The NSSF backs this bill. It currently has 67 co-sponsors. A similar bill in the last congress gathered 216 co-sponsors.

Representative Richard Hudson (R. N.C.), who introduced H.R. 38, says the bill would apply to permits issued to non-residents by some states.
“My legislative intent is to ensure a non-resident carry permit is recognized, and I’ve confirmed this with legislative counsel and Judiciary Committee staff,” Hudson said.
Text of the bill is not yet posted on the Congressional web site.  Here is a summation of the bill.  From freebeacon.com:
Hudson’s bill would require states to recognize the validity of every other state’s gun carry licenses, but it would require concealed carriers to follow the specific laws of whatever state in which they are carrying. The bill mostly mirrors national reciprocity bills introduced by Hudson in previous years but adds language designed to ensure that those in Constitutional Carry states, where no permit is required to concealed carry, are protected by the legislation. The bill would also allow concealed carry in the National Park System, the National Wildlife Refuge System, and on lands under the authority of the Bureau of Land Management, Army Corps of Engineers, and Bureau of Reclamation.
 Here is a screen shot of the most viewed bills web page.

Views on the Congressional web site are not votes in the House or Senate. The ratings and views are watched by members of Congress.  On gun law reform issues, the views are a pretty good indication of the intensity of voter support for the bills.

Second Amendment supporters consistently show 3-7 times as much support on the Internet as do gun haters.  On clearly worded issues, the support has gone as high as 20 to 1.  These bills are more clearly understood than many Internet polls.


©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I get so damned upset with people that can not comprehend that the second amendment is not I say again it is not a states rights issue the tenth amendment clearly makes it a federally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms. Individual states have no constitutional authority to change what the federal constitution guarantees. states can not amend the second amendment to read as they please. we are first citizens of this country then we are residents of the states we reside in. the entire purpose of the bill of right is to prevent the states having any authority to deny federally guaranteed rights. none of those rights can be infringed upon by the federal government and the states clearly have no authority to infringe. we do not need reciprocity laws we need enforcement of the tenth amendment as written. The second amendment can not be added to without a ratified constitutional amendment. the US supreme court has ruled it has to be written to be enforceable. None of the states law mirror what is written in the second amendment. they all add things to the individual guaranteed right that are not written in the second amendment. the second amendment is strictly a federal constitutional issue. any thing other than the written 26 words of the second amendment is repugnant to the federal constitution and therefore is void. this is the issue that has been completely ignored for generations. why do we have a bill of rights if the states have the power to deny them? Infringing is infringing no mater who does it. the second amendment does not require any one to carry and it does not prevent anyone from carrying any where in this country, any way, any where, any time they damn well please. and there is no definition of what constitutes a weapon. the states have no authority to define weapon. the states are required to enforce the second amendment as written. I will argue to the day I die that is original intent.