Bill Introduced to Protect Gun Rights During National Emergency

With the current makeup of Congress and with President Donald Trump in the White House, we’re going to see a lot of bills that we might not ordinarily see. There’s a feeling that now is the time to get a lot of stuff done that we might not get in a couple of years.

That’s actually pretty smart since the president’s party tends to lose some ground in Congress during the midterms.

So the introduction of various pro-gun pieces of legislation is to be expected. One example is from Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas. It seems he’s got a bill that will protect gun rights in the case of a national emergency.

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) is introducing legislation Tuesday to protect Americans’ gun rights from being squashed by gun control in the event of a national emergency.

The legislation is the Protecting the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act.

Cloud’s office spoke exclusively with Breitbart News about the Act, noting that actions witnessed during the Biden Administration were a catalyst for wanting to put these protections in place.

They pointed to a June 2024 advisory issued by Biden Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, in which Murthy declared gun violence to be a “public health crisis.”

Cloud’s office referred to this advisory as “a thinly veiled attempt to justify radical gun control measures—including public carry bans, firearm confiscation, so-called “assault weapon” bans, magazine capacity limits, strict storage mandates, and a national gun registry.” Moreover, Cloud’s office noted that Rep. Cloud believed the advisory represented an approach that was 180 degrees out of synch with the Second Amendment and with they type of actions needed to protect American communities and Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

Cloud told Breitbart that he’s concerned an anti-gun administration could use Murthy’s advisory to try and curtail the right to keep and bear arms. While that sounds alarmist, it’s really not. As Cloud noted, we saw attempts at just this during COVID. Many states tried to shut down gun stores entirely for the duration of the “emergency,” which would have deprived an untold number of people of their Second Amendment rights at the moment they felt they needed them the most.

When I first read this, I had a couple of thoughts.

The first was that I didn’t think this was a major priority. I wouldn’t oppose it by any stretch. I just figured that there’s only so much political capital that can be used for pro-gun legislation and this wasn’t exactly the hill I think we should die on right here and now.

But then I thought about Cloud’s comments, and while the courts did shut down the anti-gun states during COVID, I’d just as soon make it impossible for it to get to that point.

Plus, I think this might be one of the easier measures to get through the Senate.

It’s kind of hard to pretend you support the Second Amendment when you’re actively voting against a bill that really just protects the Second Amendment.

Not that anti-gunners won’t try, mind you, but even if this bill never sees the president’s desk for a signature, the fact that Democrats will try to shut it down is going to be very telling.