I am one of your constituents and am writing to ask you to vote against S374, currently masquerading under the name of the "Fix Gun Checks Act of 2013." This bill claims to strengthen the integrity of the existing Federal NICS background checks which are run when guns are purchased from a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL, aka "gun dealer"), but Title II of the Act is nothing more than an attempt turn law-abiding gun owners into felons.
Title II criminalizes any transfer of a firearm that does not go through an FFL, with certain exquisitely narrow exemptions. As but a few examples, this bill would make the following behaviors felonies punishable by up to five years in prison:
1. Leaving town for a week and leaving your guns at your residence which you share with a roommate, live-in girlfriend/boyfriend, or married same-sex spouse.
2. The law allows transfers as gifts between immediate family members, but does not provide for a temporary transfer exemption between family members, so leaving town for a week and leaving the guns at your residence that you share with a spouse, parent, or child, is also quite likely a felony under this bill unless you "gift" it to them prior to leaving.
3. Loaning a gun to a friend so that he or she can go shooting. The law requires that such a "temporary transfer" must occur only at a shooting range. Additionally, shooting ranges are VERY narrowly defined, and informal ranges (such are are common on Forest Service land or BLM land as well as private land in many parts of the country) as well as for-profit ranges are not likely to qualify. Many gun clubs, due to their legal organization, are also likely not to qualify.
4. All lost and stolen guns must be reported within 24 hours to federal and local government. So someone who has been victimized by a home break-in and is dealing with securing their house, facilitating a police investigation, cleaning up any damage, comforting their scared family, contacting an insurance company, and possibly dealing with the fall-out of a "hot" burglary, now has 24 hours to avoid becoming a felon due to failing to file the necessary paperwork. What about a hunter who loses a gun in the woods? They must now end their trip and race back to a computer & fax machine to avoid becoming a felon?
If you are not a member of a community where gun ownership is prevelant, you may not know what is normal behavior among some of your fellow Americans. We commonly loan guns to our friends, so that they can try out a new gun, try a new sport, have a firearm on hand while theirs is repaired, or go on a hunting trip that requires a type of firearm they don't happen to own. We go shooting with friends and family at formal gun ranges which are organized under all sorts of legal frameworks, in our backyards, on the family farm, and on public lands. We do not inventory our firearms on a daily basis. This bill is criminalizing behavior that has been engaged in for generations and which causes no harm to anyone.
This bill is being closely scrutinized by the politically and legally astute people who support civil rights. Much more discussion of the shortcomings of this bill (by those more qualified and eloquent than I) is readily available if only you (or more properly, one of your aides) are willing to investigate the legislation and consider the real-world implications.
Title II of S374 does NOTHING to stop violent criminals from obtaining their weapons - they steal them or as was the tragic case recently, murder people to obtain them. This bill cannot possibly be viewed as anything more than an attempt to discourage gun ownership on the part of law-abiding citizens by turning any gun-related activity into a legal minefield that carries the potential of a felony conviction and 5 years in prison. Voting for this bill is declaration that you hate me and most of the people I know and wish to stamp out our culture by intimidation and incarceration.
I look forward to receiving your response.
![[angry]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/008.gif "Angry [angry]")
