On March 2, 2021, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn introduced what he’s calling the “Enhanced Background Checks Act 2021” to close what he and the anti-gun Lobby call the “Charleston Loophole” HR 1446.
Instead of having to wait 3 business days if you get a delay, you’ll have to wait 10 business days before you can request an “escalated” review.
The FBI seemingly has another 10 business days, and after those 10 business days, if the FBI can’t figure out what they need to figure out, you automatically get to buy the gun.
James Clyburn says, “The Charleston Loophole is the flaw in the background check system that enabled a gunman to obtain the weapon used to murder nine people and wound three others as they participated in a bible study at the historic Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Caroline in June 2015.”
He goes on to say that “had the FBI Background check been complete, the perpetrator of the Emanuel Massacre would have been barred from purchasing a firearm.”
So let me get this straight, they’re calling the 3 business days “The Charleston Loophole” because the Charleston shooter was able to buy the gun because the FBI didn’t finish their investigation in the required three days.
So now they want to give the FBI 20 business days to finish their investigation before the automatic proceed. Even though this enhanced background check act does the same thing as the original law, just with a different waiting period, it’s somehow not also a “loophole”?
The first law wasn’t a loophole. It was a very deliberate safety measure to prevent the Federal Government from arbitrarily denying people their 2nd Amendment rights by simply not completing background checks in a timely manner.
Without it, the FBI can sit on your background check as long as they want to. So now they’re trying to inch their way towards the FBI having the ability to do just that.
5-10 years from now, when we forget about this law, they’ll be another shooting in someplace like Idaho, and they’ll be telling us how we need to close the “The Idaho Loophole” because the FBI couldn’t finish their investigation in 20 business days.
The “Idaho loophole” is the reason why the Idaho shooter was able to get a gun, so now we need to make it 40 business days instead of 20 days, and on and on we go until we’re waiting damn near a year for the FBI to finish their investigation.
It’s called an instant background check, not the “whenever the FBI feels like finishing their investigation” background check.
They’re exploiting the Charleston tragedy to say that the 3 day period was the loophole that allowed the shooter to buy the gun when in reality, it was government incompetence that failed to prevent him from having a gun.
Oh, and it gets worse before it gets worse! Even if they had called the right police department, he was arrested for a misdemeanor, not a felony.
Even though he admitted to being in possession of the drugs, merely being in possession of drugs does not make you an “unlawful user” as required by federal law to deny someone the ability to buy a gun.
Hell, even the ATF said it:
“Current and former ATF officials say a single misdemeanor arrest for possession of a controlled substance would not be disqualifying. The federal courts have tended to be strict in interpreting’ unlawful user,’ and as a consequence, this provision is not often enforced.”
Honestly, I hate that I even have to make this argument in defense of such a disgusting human. But the truth is what the truth is, and the truth is; he was able to buy that gun, not because of a loophole.
He was able to buy the gun because the Government failed, which it does a lot. I refuse to give up any of my 2A rights because it would require me to depend on the Government to keep me safe when they can’t even call the right police department or put CCW down the correct information on a document. Now they’re trying to use their incompetence to justify infringing on your rights.
Hell, the families of some of the victims even sued the FBI for their mess up.
Again, it gets worse before it gets worse. The Charleston Murderer tried to buy his gun on April 11, 2015, but he didn’t do what he did until June 17, 2015.
That’s over two months that the FBI had to conduct their investigation. Over 60 days. Even if they had the 20 business days this bill wants to require, the Charleston shooting would have still happened.
They are using a tragedy to justify passing a law that wouldn’t have stopped that tragedy, and they do this all the time. They use any and every tragedy to implement more Government and more restrictions, getting people killed!
Carol Bowne, was a New Jersey woman whose ex-boyfriend murdered her after waiting more than forty days to get approved for a firearm permit that would allow her to buy a gun.
The only reason she was trying to buy a gun was because she was scared her ex-boyfriend would try to kill her. The only reason she didn’t have her permit to buy a gun is because the New Jersey government is notorious for taking their sweet little time approving permits.
These people don’t care about you; they care about their power. I’m not saying they want you to die; I’m saying they care more about controlling you than they about keeping you safe.
They use your desire to feel safe against you by using tragedies to justify passing restrictive laws, giving them more power over you.
This law is yet another example of how they try to take inch by inch and hoping that when they come around again to take another inch, you’ve forgotten about the last time they took an inch.
Then one day, you look up, and you don’t have any rights left, and once those are gone, you don’t get them back.
So what can you do?
Call and write your representatives in congress. They are going to vote on this in the House of Representatives next week. It’ll likely pass the house, but it has a chance to be stopped in the senate because of the filibuster rule, but you have to hold these senators’ feet to the fire.
ESPECIALLY the Republican Senators because all republican senators aren’t strong 2A supporters. Some are fair-weather 2A supporters, and if they think they can get away with voting for a gun control bill that “Seems Harmless,” they will.
SO WRITE AND CALL YOUR SENATORS and tell them to dead this bill in the water! I’ll post a link to find the information to write and call your representative. Please share this video far and wide.
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