Smells Like Infringement: 5 Ways H.R. 8 Could Make You a Felon
My nana always told me, “Trace, if you can’t say something nice about somebody, you just come sit down right here next to me.”
Every week, America’s hoplophobes go into the smallest room in their house and think really really hard about how to make life tougher for law-abiding Americans. With concentrated effort, any number of large crayons suitable for beginning writers, and quite possibly some grunting, they usually manage to squeeze out a few little rabbit pellets’ worth of “gun control.” However, this past week Pelosi et al must have doubled up on the Metamucil, because their most recent efforts definitely…shall we say, made a splash? The passage of H.R. 8, which is now on its way to the Senate, is definitely the newly created anti-gun House majority’s first deposit in the Great Porcelain Bank of things that smell like infringement.
“But Trace,” you might be wondering, “H.R. 8 only expands background check requirements so that everyone who buys a gun has to have a NICS check run. Isn’t that a good thing?”
Not exactly. The problem is that either through ignorance (best-case scenario) or deliberate action, the way that H.R. 8 is written is such that there are any number of perfectly moral and ethical things that are legal today that would become felonies if this bill were to become law. What’s more, they’re all things that sport shooters, personal defenders, and hunters might do as a matter of course. There are “exceptions” written into the bill, but those are so confusingly worded that it would be very, very easy to run afoul of them. Here are five of them.
1: The Home-Defense Nightmare
Let’s say a few years ago you bought a handgun and a shotgun. A couple of years after that, you met the man/woman/attack helicopter of your dreams (we’re not judging) and moved in together. Now the unthinkable has happened: Someone has broken into your home. You hand the handgun to your significant other and ask them to call 911 while you go investigate with the shotgun. The only problem is that your live-in cuddlemuffin isn’t your spouse, and didn’t go through a formal firearms transfer. So when the police arrive, they take two people away in cuffs: You and the burglar.
2. Heirlooms, Schmeirlooms
How about this: You’ve amassed a tremendous collection of rare and interesting firearms over the course of your long, happy life. As your sunset years advance, you decide to start giving away your things to your family and friends so there won’t be any fighting or confusion over your will when you’re gone. Your godson is happy to keep that remembrance of you…but, whoops, you didn’t make him go through a NICS check. The good news is that federal prison is definitely cheaper than a retirement community.
3. Good Shotguns, Good Neighbors
Perhaps you’re just starting your gun collection, and you finally found a shotgun that fits you like a glove. Your neighbor, who is a good sort and shovels your driveway sometimes, asks if he can borrow it to go to the range and see if it works for him, too. He might like to buy one just like it. Except the minute you hand it over to him, you’re not just a good neighbor and friend…you’re a felon.
4. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
What if, one day, your best friend confessed to you that he’s undergoing a crisis with depression and asked you if you could hang on to his guns for him while he works on his mental health? Good for him for safeguarding his well-being, and good for you for helping him out by keeping his collection safe. Except, whoops, no, he didn’t make you meet him at a gun dealer’s so he could run a background check on you so those guns are getting taken away all right…by Uncle Sam. And so is he.
5. Crash Into Me
It may not even come in the form of a situation over which you have any control. On your way to work one morning, some undercaffeinated person runs a red light and t-bones your car. You’re concussed and your car is totaled. As the EMTs load you into the ambulance, you ask your co-worker, who was in the passenger seat, to please secure the handgun your CCW permit and local laws allow you to keep concealed in the dash. Sadly, you’ve got another headache coming to compound the one you already have, because…you guessed it, you just committed a felony.
Is it time to panic? Probably not: As of now, it would appear that H.R. 8 is little more than theater. President Trump has already vowed to veto it should it arrive on his desk. Instead, it should be viewed as a harbinger of what’s to come should things change any further in either the legislative or executive branches of our government. However, now might be as good a time as any to contact your state Senators and let them know that you’re watching how they vote on this one…
Remember that nics check you went through when you bought your last firearm? Guess what, you are now In a database. If it should come down to it, they know who we are.
Fuck them all I’ll cosmoline everything and bury it with instructions for finding before any of those fools will ever get their hands on them!!!!
This is what we get when we gave up the “Right” to own a gun and allowed the Federal Government to grant us “Permission” to own one. Since the 2nd is really about protecting the citizens from a Tyrannical Government, it is in the best interest of the government to limit that “right” in any way possible. First up is make sire the citizens are inferiorly armed (NFA). Then start restricting who can own (GCA). Constantly build upon that foundation with new and more restrictive laws. Restrict who can “Bear”, and turn that right into a privilege (CCW Laws). All sorta like boiling a live frog. Start cold and turn the heat up so slowly no one will notice. Quick quiz:: Who said; “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”.? For those Scholars among you who have recently graduated from Federal Indoctrination Centers (Schools and Colleges) the answer is Ben Franklin. He did a little more than fly kites. No Federal gun law on the books could stand the scrutiny of a Constitutional Supreme Court. Why do you think they refuse to hear the cases? Not in the Government’s best interest? Hum…. What a bunch of fools to allow this to happen.
None of you have even seen the bill! None of you! You just make up crap as you go! I’m still waiting for Obama to knock on my door looking for my guns! These guys that call themselves writers suck money out all of you because they scare you with lies. This whole article is bullshit!
Did YOU actually read it. says exactly what this article states. And for fvcks sake, how can this be titled “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019”? It has only FIVE Republicans versus 227 Democrappers sponsoring it. The Bipartisan part is the real BS. The Dems are and will come for the guns – they’ve admitted it. READ THE BILL AGAIN!
Bob, why do you think this article is BS and that none of us have read the bill? Maybe you should go read it yourself, then you can point out specifically what the article got wrong. Here it is – free for all to read. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8/text
Actually Bob,
Here it is https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr8/BILLS-116hr8pcs.xml
I have seen it, and read it, and it is entirely possible that the abovementioned scenarios occur. It is poorly written, and overly broad. Now how about a nice cup of shutthefuckup.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If you make people criminals for doing nothing you are going to make them question “why not do something?” It won’t get me in any deeper trouble. If you treat someone like a criminal, what’s the incentive to not act like a criminal? “In for a penny, in for a pound” so to speak. You’ll get people thinking “well I’m going to prison for defending myself anyway so I might as well shoot the bad guy in the back as he runs off, and now that I think about it, I’ll just jump in my car and chase down his buddies a shoot them all too.” I mean, If I’m going to be punished anyway why not do something worthy of the punishment? Get my drift? The left is just asking for trouble, in the long run, going after law-abiding citizens.
Well said!
ALL OF YOU ARE CORRECT. OUR ONLY SALVATION IS FEDERAL LAW STILL HAS TO GO TO THE SENATE WHICH I BELIEVE WILL NOT PASS IT, BUT I COULD BE SERIOUSLY WRONG . YOU CANNOT TRUST ANY OF THE POLITICIANS
Contact our state Senators? For those of us from CA, “you must be kidding!”. Our Senators are some of the ringleaders of this gun-control madness and won’t listen to ANYTHING we say to them. And now we have a new anti-gun Governor who surely has his eyes on a future White House seat. Scary times, indeed. We’re pretty helpless in CA, other than to plan a move to another state.
We’re helpless here in Minnesota as well. Except for the state Senate, everyone here is a Dumacrat!!!!!
Jeff Knoll, you are so right about that. I’m a Minnesotan and feel like I have blue hands on my throat.
None of this will happen, as long as there is no way to prove who owns which gun.
The gun-grabbers know this, and it provides a perfect excuse for a registration. Camels’s nose, and they are NEVER satisfied.
Make no mistake on this bill. This isn’t about closing the “gun show loophole” it is about registration. Once all guns have to go through a formal transfer process, they will know who owns the AR’s and any gun that has magazines that hold more rounds then they like.
Once they know who owns them they will know where to go to take them from you. And that after all, is the end game for the democrats.
Do these Dems not recall the revolt from England’s tyranny and oppression? Do they think Americans will sit by and accept the tyranny they are trying to impose? I think, if so, we are headed for another civil war!!!!!!!!!!
First you take away the legal guns then you criminalize gun ownership, next you build internment camps…oops I mean prisons and lastly you incarcerate the new law breakers. Sound familiar every other socialist regime has done this to their citizens. Is reeducation and eradication the final solution?
Reeducation of the liberal socialist is out, Eradication is the only viable option I can see from here. Happy Hunting!
Hmmmm…. Sounds familiar. Makes me think of the numbers on my Dad’s arm.
Actually, domestic partners are one of the exceptions. But just as insidious as any of the other new “crimes” listed above, the Attorney General is given authority to make up almost any restrictive additional regulation he feels like but with two exceptions. The AG cannot require an FFL to facilitate any of these newly required transfers and cannot “cap” or set an upper limit on how much the FFL can charge for a transfer. So the sole FFL in D.C. could set the fee at $10,000 or higher and by law the AG could not say that is too much. However, the law does allow the AG to say the minimum charge is $10,000 or even a million.
I seem to recall that the sole firearms dealer in Washington, D.C. chrged $500.00 to do a transfer.
Perhaps that is what the Democrats want! They want to make felons of all of us so they don’t have to bother with us. Aren’t they sneaky? No, not very – just DUMB. We can see through all of their illegal and dirty plays. Come on, Mr. TRump. Put your foot down. Don’t give this thought 10 seconds. It ought to be automatic. This is nothing more than a way to make law-abiding citizens felons..
You can never have power and control over law abiding citizens, only criminals. So make every one a criminal in order to gain control. Do you see the plan?
These new laws being pursued by democrats do absolutely nothing to deter criminal activity and only criminalizes legal law abiding citizens while allowing courts too continue hand slapping the real criminals who abide by no law!!!
The socialist goal has nothing to do with criminal behavior. These laws are specifically aimed at unarming the populace. Plain and simple. The only reason they mention criminal behavior is because that’s the only way to con the general public into supporting these ideas.
This is insane …. Our founding fathers, sailors, airman, troops, and Marines Not to mention civilians and others who are sworn to protect the Constitution of this country, They gave their lives so that we may enjoy the right leg down by our founding fathers, I find it an insult To those great and wonderful people Who made the ultimate sacrifice
There are Democrats who suck and should be taught alesson> If this kind of crap become law we should follow these people closely and if they violate such a law make sure the world knows about it. Not like years ago when a couple of Ted Kennedy’s bodyguards were arrested trying to get into the capitol armed to the teeth. The major media did nothing much with it.
Maybe it is time for citizens who have proof of illegal actions by the elected officials to start filing court actions against them, and in many cases file class action lawsuits, but file them against the individual, not against
them as an elected official where they can use taxpayers funds to defend themselves, make them spend their own money and get their own lawyers.
Good luck. Almost all judges, attorneys (that includes most “elected officials) and cops are Freemasons and they protect their own first (regardless of the law) so your chances of prevailing in court against them are nil.