Led by Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a group of Democratic senators are pushing for a requirement for all would-be gun owners to first acquire a Department of Justice (DOJ) license.
Joined by Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Booker is using Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo to justify this latest attack on Second Amendment-protected rights.
“This is the moment to enact ambitious legislation — as a nation, we must rise to it, or we are fated to witness the deadly scenes of this past weekend and years past over again,” he said in a statement.
Read between the lines: Never let a crisis go to waste.
Under their proposed “Federal Firearm Licensing Act,” any Americans who wish to purchase guns must first be licensed by the DOJ. Licensing requirements would include a written firearm safety test and hands-on training, Politico reported. A criminal background check, fingerprints, and proof of identity would also be required.
The Act states, “It shall be unlawful for any individual to purchase or receive a firearm unless the individual has a valid Federal firearm license.”
The bill to establish the act offers the following reasons an individual may be denied the license:
The Attorney General may deny a license under this section if the Attorney General determines that the applicant poses a significant danger of bodily injury to self or others by possessing, purchasing, or receiving a firearm, after examining factors the Attorney General considers are relevant to the determination, including (aa) history of threats or acts of violence toward self or others; (bb) history of use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force by the applicant against another person; (cc) whether the applicant is the subject of or has violated a domestic violence or stalking restraining order or protection order; (dd) any prior arrest, pending charge, or conviction for a violent or serious crime or disorderly persons offense, stalking offense, or domestic violence offense; (ee) any prior arrest, pending charge, or conviction for an offense involving cruelty to animals; (ff) history of drug or alcohol abuse or involvement in drug trafficking; (gg) any recent acquisition of firearms, ammunition, or other deadly weapons; and (hh) involvement in firearms trafficking or unlawful firearms transfers; and (ii) history of unsafe storage or handling of firearms.
The license is good for a single firearm purchase, so individuals who wanted to purchase more than one firearm would be subjected to the licensing requirements for each item. Private citizens would also be prohibited from legally selling a firearm to someone else without going through the Federal Firearm Licensing requirements.
The license would have to be renewed every five years, at which time licensees would be required to undergo another background check and undergo firearm safety training again.
“This bill moves us in the right direction and is based on a simple concept,” Booker said. “If you need a license to drive a car, you should need one to buy and possess a gun.”
The bill notes the licensing requirement would not apply to states deemed by the Attorney General to have similar requirements.
The constitutional risks of the legislation are glaring, as it would make gun ownership a privilege that can only be granted by the federal government, a complete bastardization of the original intent of the Second Amendment. And as observed by Bearing Arms, the time it would take for the federal government to license 80 to 100 million gun owners across the country and renew their licenses every five years in itself constitutes an undue burden on gun ownership.
Democratic efforts to enforce gun-control measures consistently ignore data that gun control has little effect on criminals and makes it harder for law-abiding citizens to exercise their constitutionally protected right to bear arms. Statistics show that crime rates are reduced as the number of privately owned firearms increases in the United States.
Moreover, New York already has a stringent “red flag” law. Such laws are already controversial because of their ineffectiveness and infringement on due-process rights, and while such a law ostensibly should have prevented the Buffalo shooter from obtaining his firearm, it failed to do so.
Senator Booker first introduced the proposition for a federal firearms license during his 2020 presidential bid. He introduced the “Federal Firearm Licensing Act” in 2019, but the measure failed to progress.
