Murphy, Blumenthal Lead Latest Effort to Impose ‘Universal’ Background Checks

A new bill offered by Connecticut Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal would send you to federal prison for selling a gun to your neighbor without putting her through a background check first. 

The bill, also known as the Background Check Expansion Act, is sponsored by 45 Democrat senators this time around. Murphy and Blumenthal have introduced similar measures in the past, but have failed to find the 60 votes necessary to advance their gun control bill out of the Senate. The votes for the legislation aren’t there this time around either, but that’s not stopping the longtime anti-gun politicians from pushing to create a new federal crime. 

“Nearly 90 percent of Americans — including the overwhelming majority of gun owners — support universal background checks,” Murphy said. “It’s just common sense that somebody who can’t pass a background check shouldn’t be able to buy a deadly firearm. As Trump endangers lives by getting rid of successful, bipartisan programs that brought down gun violence rates, we’re working to keep guns away from violent criminals and make communities safer.”

Background checks are already required on all commercial transfers of firearms. Do 90% of Americans really want to put someone in prison for selling a gun to their best friend, neighbor, girlfriend, or co-worker without putting them through a background check first? I doubt it, but that’s exactly what Murphy’s bill would do. 

The only sales that would be exempt would be those transfers that are a “loan or bona fide gift between spouses, between domestic partners, between parents and their children, including step-parents and their step-children, between siblings, between aunts or uncles and their nieces or nephews, or between grandparents and their grandchildren.” 

In other words, you can give your granddaughter a gun without trotting down to your local gun store to have them run a NICS check, but if you sell that same gun to her she has to have a background check performed before you can legally sell her the same pistol you could give her without having to do a background check.

Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense to me either. 

Murphy’s bill would also allow for the temporary transfer of a firearm “if the transferor has no reason to believe that the transferee will use or intends to use the firearm in a crime or is prohibited from possessing firearms under State or Federal law, and the transfer takes place and the transferee’s possession of the firearm is exclusively—

“(i) at a shooting range or in a shooting gallery or other area designated for the purpose of target shooting;

“(ii) while reasonably necessary for the purposes of hunting, trapping, or fishing, if the transferor—

“(I) has no reason to believe that the transferee intends to use the firearm in a place where it is illegal; and

“(II) has reason to believe that the transferee will comply with all licensing and permit requirements for such hunting, trapping, or fishing; or

“(iii) while in the presence of the transferor.

Note that there’s no exception for the purposes of self-defense. You can loan someone a gun to shoot while you’re at the range, but you can’t loan a gun to your roommate or neighbor so they can have some kind of protection against an abusive ex or a stalker. Doing so would come with a potential one-year federal prison sentence.

Again, do you think 90% of Americans are really in support of such a cockamamie system? I don’t, and I suspect even Murphy himself knows that, however well this issue polls, when voters understand all the fine print that comes with his bumper sticker sloganeering opposition would skyrocket. 

I have no doubt, though, that Murphy himself is in favor of putting people in prison if they don’t put their friends and neighbors through background checks before selling them a gun. If Murphy’s sole goal was to ensure that prohibited persons can’t purchase a firearm, he could have written a bill that would allow private parties to access NICS when needed. 

Open Source Defense has come up with an idea that seems workable in practice and wouldn’t lead to any kind of back-door gun registry or turning people into criminals for engaging in lawful commerce in arms, but Murphy and the other anti-gunners on Capitol Hill have ignored that plan in favor of a punitive piece of legislation that could ensnare many gun owners and make a mockery out of our Second Amendment rights.  

Editor’s Note: President Trump and most Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

Help us continue to report on their efforts and legislative successes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.