The Second Amendment Takes Another Hit
— Domestic confiscation bill, road-block gun ban passes Congress

a. Sets up thousands of gun ban zones across roads statewide where local police or the BATF can arrest unsuspecting drivers who have a firearm in the car. Victims will face 5 years in prison.

b. Also known as the Kohl amendment, this provision reenacts the School Zone Gun Ban law ruled unconstitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court last year (U.S. v. Lopez, 1995). The provision creates gun ban zones nearly one-half mile in diameter around every school in the country.

c. Anyone without a pistol carry license driving through a zone with an unloaded firearm, that is not in a locked container or rack, faces 5 years in prison. (This would apply even to off-duty police officers, despite ineptly crafted exceptions in the Kohl language.) Many who were previously able to drive freely with guns, either in plain view or in the glove compartment, can now be victimized by anti-gun local police and/or BATF agents.

d. And finally, just a couple of other quirks that result from the law: a) Because of the way “school” is defined in the Title 18 of the U.S. Code, the school zone gun ban could outlaw the possession of firearms by parents who home school their kids; and b) For a person who lives within 1,000 feet of a school, any hunting trip would constitute a legal labyrinth. He or she could not carry the gun to a car parked on the street unless he determined that such action was approved by school officials.

a. Frank Lautenberg, who has an “F-” rating from GOA, originally cosponsored the so-called domestic confiscation provision with anti-gun Senators Dianne Feinstein and Edward Kennedy as S. 1632. The largest wholesale firearms confiscation effort in decades, this provision bans thousands upon thousands of Americans from owning firearms for life, and orders their guns seized. For now this gun ban only applies to domestic dispute misdemeanors, but it sets a very bad precedent, since previously only felons have been stripped of their rights. (Note: This provision could strip many law-enforcement officers, previously convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors, of their ability to carry firearms.)

b. Rep. Bob Barr introduced an NRA-supported amendment as a compromise. But even Barr’s language was altered after protests from Clinton and Senate Democrats. The Barr provision — perhaps best termed as the “Lautenberg Lite” provision — would have reduced some of the problems with the original version, but it still extended the gun ban into the area of misdemeanors (a bad precedent).

c. The Lautenberg-Barr provision which passed the Congress threatens to disarm the very women that it is supposed to help. The provision would impose a lifetime gun ban on anyone who has been convicted of “us[ing] or attempt[ing to] use … physical force” in a domestic situation. Of course, this “use of force” language can cover anyone (both men and women) who gets involved in a little spat between spouses, roommates, lovers, etc.

d. The “use or attempted use of force” language will not only affect women who might throw a lamp at their spouse (like the First Lady), it will also endanger parents who spank their children. (Parents convicted of a domestic misdemeanor for spanking will now have to forfeit their guns or else become felons — for being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.) This provision federalizes a state issue and is clearly unconstitutional (under the 2nd and 10th Amendments for starters).

e. What is the answer? If an act of domestic violence is serious enough to lose your civil right to own guns, then it should be a felony, which persons already were prohibited from owning firearms. If it is not serious, it should be treated as a misdemeanor — a penalty which historically has not forced one to forfeit his or her rights.

a. Besides the two gun bans mentioned above, legislators also threw in the study on placing taggants in black and smokeless powders — a provision which had previously stalled in the Congress. (Source: Sec. 113(2) of the general provisions of the Justice Department Title in H.R. 3610.)

b. The bill gives the BATF a PAY INCREASE of almost $100 million dollars for next year –$16 million in the regular budget plus an additional $66 million for anti-terrorism efforts. (Source: Titles I and VII of the Treasury-Postal provisions.)

c. H.R. 3610 continues the language included in the previous year’s budget prohibiting the BATF from “investigat[ing] or act[ing] upon applications for relief from Federal firearms disabilities.” This means that non-violent offenders who lose their gun rights won’t be getting them restored any time soon. (Source: Title I of the Treasury-Postal provisions.)

d. The so-called digital telephony provision will threaten the privacy of gun owners (Source: Sec. 110 of Commerce-State- Justice provisions). The funding in this provision will be used to force telephone companies to retrofit existing telephone equipment in order to facilitate the ability of government officials to wiretap citizens. This would be similar to requiring home builders to put microphones in walls of every home so that the FBI could more easily eavesdrop on conversations. (Before spending the $60 million for these technological “improvements,” the FBI must first submit an “implementation plan.”)

e. The “best” part of the bill was a provision in the Labor-HHS section containing a prohibition on the CDC’s ability to spend any funds “to advocate or promote gun control.” Despite this apparent victory, there are still two problems with this and other language in the CDC budget. First, the department which conducts the anti-gun studies did not receive a pay cut. Second, the so-called prohibition in this provision only prevents the CDC from actually lobbying in favor of gun control. As long as the CDC does not call for any gun bans, waiting periods, etc., the “prohibition” will not prevent them from placing the same anti-gun studies in medical journals — the very same studies which are always used by the media and HCI to impugn our firearms rights. (Source: Title II of the Labor-HHS provisions.)