HR127: It’s Your Money or Your Guns

Posted on by Mario Acevedo

HR127: It’s Your Money or Your Guns

HR 127 has been called “The Gun Apocalypse” and for good reason. Introduced by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson D-TX, this bill is formally known as the Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act. What HR127 ultimately does is wipe out the Second Amendment by making gun ownership unaffordable for all but the most affluent. Which is clearly the intent.

It’s ironic that the Democrats who preach criminal justice reform aren’t hesitating, with the stroke of a pen, to turn millions of law-abiding Americans into felons, punishing them with onerous fines and years of incarceration. Despite this, nothing in HR127 will disarm one violent criminal or reduce the gun homicide rampaging through our cities.

There is much about this bill that makes it unworkable and impractical but for the moment, I’ll focus the discussion on what it will cost your wallet.

Pony up, Mr. Gun Owner

This bill requires that every applicant for a gun license must first pay $800 to the US Attorney General for liability insurance. Never mind that as a gun owner, if you have homeowner’s or renter’s insurance, you already have gun accident insurance under the plan’s liability umbrella coverage. This requirement begs many questions such as, what experience does the AG have in managing insurance? How will claims be processed? Does this insurance protect a gun owner against law suits? Does this insurance cover legal expenses? There remain more questions and I’ll turn back to those later.

You’ll also be required to take 24 hours of training to include live firing training. Maybe you can find such training at $50 per hour so you’re talking $1200, minimum.

You want a gun? You must be crazy!

HR127 requires that every gun owner and member of the household undergo an evaluation by a licensed psychologist. Plus, this psychologist must interview any former spouses as well as at least two other family members or associates. Since the standards for these required evaluations are as yet not available, it’s difficult to determine how much they will cost but a reasonable estimate is $1000 each. Assuming three in your household, that’s at least $3000. Add another $1000 for the interviews—another estimate—and we’re talking $4000.

Also consider that HR127 mentions that these licensed psychologists must be approved by the AG. An Internet search shows about 100K licensed psychologists in the country and not every of them will be approved. Consider the evaluations required of gun owners and members of their households plus interviews with the ex’s and associates, that means less than 100K psychologists will be conducting hundreds of millions of evaluations and interviews. By what deadline? Those psychologists already have full schedules so we’re expecting them to take on such an avalanche of new clients on top of that? This situation will create a seller’s market of insane proportions. With that in mind, who knows what you’ll pay for a shrink’s time.

Speaking of pay…who will pay for these evaluations and interviews?

Not the AG, but you.

The psychological evaluation is offered with the premise it will be an accurate predictor of who should or shouldn’t have a gun. But in truth, those giving such evals, highly trained psychologists and psychiatrists, have a miserable record at protecting public safety. The shooters at Thousand Oaks, the Aurora Theater, and the Parkland high school had all been extensively evaluated for exhibiting dangerous behavior prior to the shootings, and yet nothing was done to prevent the ensuing massacres. And sadly, the increasing rate of suicides in this country shows that mental health professionals don’t have a firm grasp at preventing fatal self-harm.

If there is a hint that the AG’s licensed psychologists may bear any liability for a misdiagnosis, then expect the Catch 22 of HR127 to kick in:

We must keep the mentally disturbed from getting a gun

….and only the mentally disturbed would want a gun.

HR127: By the Number$$

How much will HR127 cost you, the law-abiding gun owner, to keep your property? Factor in fees (also unspecified) for the registration of each gun (don’t forget ammo), the permit application, and the permit itself so a lowball estimate for the first gun is:

Insurance: $800
Training: $1200
Psyche eval: $4000
Fees: ???

Total: $6000+

The AG’s Money Grab

Let’s return to the insurance. Assuming 75 million gun owners in this country, let’s say 25 million won’t pay this extortion and thus give up their guns. That means 50 million will jump through the financial hoops. The simple math of 50 million gun owners times $800 each means $40 billion of your money will slosh into the coffers of the AG. That’s a lot of cash. Substantially more than the entire 2020 budget for the US Department of Justice ($29.9B). What happens to all that money? Does it remain in an insurance portfolio…managed by whom? Or does that money get lost in a slush fund?

Currently, every state in the union is experiencing an alarming surge in gun homicide, mostly because of gang and drug-related shootings aggravated by the pandemic lockdowns. Is anyone naive enough to think that any criminal will subject themselves to the provisions of this bill considering they’re not supposed to have guns to begin with? Tragically, HR127 will do nothing to protect anyone from violent crime or make our streets any safer.

Contact your congressperson today and let them know you oppose this bill!  Click here to find their contact information.

 

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The Delusion of California Gun Control

Posted on by Mario Acevedo

 

California Governor Gavin Newsom is like the rooster in the fable who says, “Look how wonderful I am. When I crow in the morning, that’s the reason the sun rises.” Simply put, he’s too delusional to see the coincidence.

Governor Newsom just signed 15 new gun related bills into law. During the signing he had this to say:

“California has outperformed the rest of the nation, because of our gun safety laws, in reducing the gun murder rate substantially compared to the national reduction. No state does it as well or comprehensively as the state of California, and we still have a long way to go.”

He also added that between 1993 and 2017, the latest available, there was a 62 percent decline in the gun murder rate in California, nearly double the 34 percent nationally.  What he fails to mention is that in 1993 California’s gun murder rate was well above the national average.  In 1993 the gun homicide rate in California was 9.6 per 100,000 people, while nationally it sat at 6.75 per 100,000.  In 2017 California landed at 3.64, just slightly below the national average of 4.6.  Their decline was in line with the national trend, but steeper due to the how high it was initially.

Likewise, Newsom’s claim that California’s drop in gun homicide has anything to do with the state’s ever more restrictive gun laws. Nationally, the 34 percent drop in gun homicide is the consequence of the crack epidemic declining since 1993. As to California’s 64 percent drop in gun homicide, that’s the result of both the state getting a handle on the drug trade, but more significantly, the effect of gentrification from the mountains of cash brought in by Silicon Valley and high-tech. Large swaths of California real estate have been upscaled and where rich people move in, gang-bangers and drug dealers get pushed out. East Palo Alto, one of the most dangerous communities in California, has been swallowed up by Silicon Valley and no big surprise, its violent crime rate has plummeted. Los Angeles has been similarly gentrified. Boyle Heights, another neighborhood notorious for gangs and violent crime, has been recast as a trendy hotspot for the very well-to-do, and its violent crime and gun homicides have gone down.

So if more restrictive gun laws are really the answer, let’s look at two other states that have pursued aggressive gun-control measures like California’s.

From 1993 to 2017, Illinois experienced a 34.9 percent drop in gun homicide–in keeping with the national average. And Chicago is the murder capital of America.

From 1993 to 2017, Maryland experienced a 15.25 percent drop in gun homicide–well short of the national average by half. And Baltimore is the most dangerous city in America.

The big difference between Maryland, Illinois and California? Neither Illinois or Maryland have seen big influxes of cash and gentrification like California.

Let’s look at another telling example about the impact of gentrification: New York City.

In 1911, the city passed the Sullivan Act which required that anyone who possessed a handgun had to get a permit issued by the police and to have all handguns registered.

What was the result? Fast forward to 1981, which was the most violent year in New York City’s history with over 2,000 murders, mostly by handguns. The time was known as the “Death Wish” years when the city was one of the most dangerous in the world.

Now New York City is one of the safest? What happened? The government got serious about stopping organized crime and drug dealers but more importantly, it was New York’s “broken windows” policy. The city cleaned itself up. Research any article about the New York City turn-around and gentrification was key. And you’ll be hard pressed to find any mention that gun control was a factor. Why? Because gun control only affects law-abiding gun owners and they are not the cause of violent crime.

Let’s throw more cold water on the more-gun-control-makes-us-safer myth. Let’s look at Colorado. From 1993 to 2017, the state experienced a 26.2 percent drop in gun homicide. (You have to consider that Colorado was safe to begin with compared to California, Illinois, or Maryland.) In 2014, Colorado enacted two of California’s hallowed gun-control measures, Universal Background Checks and the High-Capacity Magazine Ban. Since then, Colorado’s gun homicide rate has increased by a whopping 47.6 percent. So anyone who claims that gun control has made the state any safer is as delusional as the Gavin Newsom rooster.

What else Gavin Newsom fails to mention is that despite California’s very restrictive gun-control environment, four of the most publicized recent mass-shootings happened on his turf: San Bernardino, Thousand Oaks, the Poway Synagogue, and Gilroy. And three of the most dangerous cities in America are in California: Stockton, San Bernardino, and Oakland. That’s nothing to crow about.

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A Pro-Gun Minority Calls Out Tom’s and Gifford’s On Their Gun Safety Town Hall Agenda

Posted on by Mario Acevedo

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On Saturday January 26, I attended the Gun Safety Town Hall held in the Washington Street Community Center of Denver. I’ll admit I approached with trepidation, into the belly as it were.

The anti-gun lobby is flush with cash and it shows. They can hire expert IT types to exploit social media and develop catchy websites, and they can afford big vehicles with custom paint jobs. My RSVP invitation was seamlessly handled through Eventbrite.

To enter the venue, I had to pass through unarmed security using wand metal detectors. Inside I couldn’t tell who were event sponsors or volunteers because they all wore identical flashy badges. Video cameras flanked the stage, complete with a big banner. About a hundred and fifty or so from the public filed in to occupy the rows of folding chairs arranged in the main meeting room. The crowd included the usual suspects: a few middle-aged women in MDA or Cease Fire Colorado t-shirts. One man wore a Parkland High School t-shirt, although I never found out if he hailed from there or wore it out of solidarity.

The event was moderated by a rep from the Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, who shared the dais with an anti-gun writer from New York City, someone from Tom’s Shoes (who was footing the bill, pun intended), Congressman Joe Neguse from Colorado, and Tom Mauser. The town hall began with the speakers discussing mass shooting to include the usual hate speech against the NRA.

The actual point of the town hall was to drum up support for HR 8, the new bill for expanded background checks, advertised as needed to close the infamous gun-show loophole, because as you all know, as we were told, any Colorado resident can simply drive to New Mexico or Wyoming and buy a gun, no questions asked. Ignoring of course that such an act is already a violation of federal law.

The town hall was scheduled to last an hour and at the halfway point, the public was invited to approach a microphone and share. One young woman said she was a Parkland survivor. A couple of older speakers expressed their gratitude for the campaign’s effort to end gun violence. A young man said he was from New Hampshire and rambled on about that state’s proliferation of guns, but I couldn’t tell if he was anti- or pro-gun.

Finally it was my turn. My question was that since both the DOJ and the FBI have established a direct correlation between drug trafficking and gun violence, how come the Giffords campaign, or MDA, or Everytown for Gun Safety, or any of the prevent-gun-violence groups do not once mention drug trafficking as responsible for gun violence?

I could tell my question blind-sided them. The only one who answered was the woman from the Giffords campaign, who said that they are focused on gun violence, not drug trafficking. My rebuttal was that even the CDC concludes that the highest risk factor for homicides, especially those with guns, is drug trafficking. I stressed that the anti-gun people were ignoring one of the biggest causes of gun violence. Though I went way over my three-minute time limit, the brief back-and-forth exposed a gaping hole in their agenda.

After the meeting, I did attempt to debate HR 8 with the woman from the Giffords campaign, but she wouldn’t let the facts interfere with her talking points. She’s paid big bucks to toe the company line, not acknowledge the truth or promote effective policy that provides for public safety.

Interestingly, on my way out, one of the event’s African-American volunteers, a big man named Stevon, congratulated me for my comments. Before the town hall, he had brought up the same points, which were summarily dismissed.

So what did I learn?

ONE: these public venues are a great opportunity to make our case. Unlike in social media or through the news outlets, the anti-gunners can’t easily delete our comments. They have to respond.

TWO: focus on an issue that exposes the weaknesses of their agenda. What I noted at this town hall but didn’t mention was that they got everyone stirred up over mass shootings, then segued into expanded background checks even though they admitted that these checks wouldn’t stop mass shootings. It was a bait-and-switch that needed to be spot lighted.

THREE: we can’t rant about rights because that gets little traction with this crowd. You have to call them out on their failures to address the big problems stoking gun violence such as drug trafficking, gangs, and incompetent bureaucrats. Use government sources such as the DOJ, FBI, and CDC to back you up.

FOUR: we must actively engage the various communities to make our case. For example, meet with communities of color to explain that since less than one percent of violent criminals get their guns from a gun show, and more than forty percent get their guns through the black market, then why are we wasting time on expanded background checks to close the gun show loophole? Emphasize that when the local government and the police pursue effective programs that address violent crime, as opposed to gun control, then homicides decrease and as a result we get safer communities.

FIVE: meet with our legislators and make our case. Make them explain why they endorse flawed proposals while ignoring effective policy.

Preserving our Second Amendment rights will take work, but we have truth and reality on our side.