H.R. 45

H.R. 45

This is a bill from Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) that would require a federal license to possess:

`(A) means--
`(i) any handgun; or
`(ii) any semiautomatic firearm that can accept any detachable ammunition feeding device; and
`(B) does not include any antique.'.

Snowflakes in Hell points out the absurdity of a law that requires you to pass a written test in order to exercise a Constitutional right, comparing it to the literacy tests that the South used to use to prevent blacks from voting.

The only federal license that I am going to accept is one that accomplishes the following:

1. Allows you to buy and sell guns in any state.

2. Allows you to carry concealed in all 50 states.

3. Costs nothing to get, and is good until revoked. Why should an individual gun owner pay for a license at all? It isn't for the benefit of the gun owner, but of the society as a whole.

Pretty clearly, even ignoring the federalism problems of pre-emption of state laws, such a bill isn't going to get through this Congress.

One of the arguments that is going to be used to justify garbage like H.R. 45 is the problem of smuggling across the Mexican border. No, I don't mean illegal alien smuggling north, but gun smuggling south. This article from the January 30, 2009 Houston Chronicle reports on what the new Director of Homeland Security has in mind:

WASHINGTON — The country’s new homeland security chief said Friday that the Obama administration is mapping out a crackdown on the flow of firearms smuggled to Mexico’s murderous drug gangs operating along the Texas border.

Janet Napolitano said she had directed the Customs and Border Protection service “to find guns going south and interdict them.” Additionally, the homeland security secretary said she will give Mexican authorities access to a government database to trace the U.S. origin of seized weapons.

U.S. and Mexican officials have been investigating organizations in Houston and elsewhere believed to have smuggled large numbers of weapons into Mexico. On Friday, a second man pleaded guilty in Federal Court in Houston to illegally purchasing military-style weapons that ended up with Mexican drug cartels.

“A growing wave of criminal violence in Mexico’s border communities and in the interior of the country, fueled by the availability of guns and currency smuggled south from the U.S., poses a serious threat to Mexico’s security,” Napolitano said, “and portends deepening problems for our nation’s border regions.”

Assault rifles

Napolitano, a former federal prosecutor, battled gun runners while serving as governor of Arizona. She said she had stepped up discussions with officials of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Mexican law enforcement to combat U.S.-based gun smuggling, which enables Mexican drug lords to outfit their paramilitary gunmen with assault-style weapons.

Guns bought in the U.S. that end up in Mexico have become an irritant in bilateral relations.

President Barack Obama promised Mexican President Felipe Calderon at a pre-inauguration summit in Washington on Jan. 13 to take stronger action against gun running.

Is there a problem there? I would not be terribly surprised. Are some of these guns coming from within the Mexican government itself? I also wouldn't be terribly surprised. But if gun smuggling is an "irritant" in bilateral relations, what is the illegal alien smuggling problem? A salve on the irritant? I don't think so.

If Mexico wants some help on this (and I think it would be a good neighborly thing to try and help them), perhaps they could provide some help on stopping the illegal alien problem, too.