WASHINGTON, April 14, 2014 — There is a bill in Washington, quietly introduced by Steve Stockman, R-Texas, which has the potential to change the game on national gun politics. Of course there are many bills which sit idly on agendas, on committees, waiting to be read by those who could probably care less about its success or passage. All of these bills concerning firearm rights have a potential impact on the freedoms of American gun owners and the gun industry, but what makes H.R. 4380 different from most of those pieces of legislation is that it will be significant before it even passes.

According to https://www.govtrack.us/ only 11% of bills introduced in the previous legislative session have made it passed committee, while a meager 2% actually were signed into law. The legislative tracking site gives H.R. 4380 a 9% chance of making it past committee, and a lofty 2% probability of being signed.

H.R. 4380 is the Gun Confiscation and Registration Prevention Act.

Why is it important?





So happy you asked.

The bill is short and sweet, so short it is included below.

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the

United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Gun Confiscation and Registration

Prevention Act”.

SEC. 2. PROHIBITING GUN CONFISCATION AND REGISTRATION.

None of the funds made available through the NICS Improvement

Amendments Act of 2007 or the Community Oriented Policing Services

[COPS] Program shall be provided to any jurisdiction which:





(a) maintains a registry of gun ownership; or

(b) conducts a program of gun confiscation directed at any firearm

which is not prohibited by Federal law or any group of persons who are

not prohibited from possessing a firearm under Federal law.”

What this bill is, whether or not intended by the pro-gun Congressman from Texas, is a test. It is a test to discern who among the United States Congress, and the United States Senate, are potential proponents of gun registration in the United States. It feels out who is for and who is against gun confiscation in the United States.

If this bill passes committee and comes to a vote, it has the potential to put every politician in the House on record for being pro-registration or anti-registration, right before the 2014 elections, and in plenty of time for the 2016 cycle. Americans will simply look at the title of the bill, they will look at who is sponsoring it, and who is opposing it, and they will have a clear picture as to who in Congress supports their right to bear arms, and who in Congress is seeking to subvert that right.

This bill is a win-win for the Republicans, and a terrible losing situation for the Democrats.

For the Republicans, the result of this bill can only end up gaining them political traction. If it passes, they get to go to their constituents to say how they fought for their right to bear arms, how they fought against a leviathan, overreaching government who was coming for their guns. They get to enjoy the favor of the gun lobby, they get to put this victory under their belt, a stamp on the side of their legislative fighter jet, and they get to enjoy the spoils of their triumph.

If it fails to pass, they get to point to every single nay vote in the room and paint them as vehemently anti-gun. They get to beg the gun lobby for more money to help oust the gun grabbers in Congress, and they get to whip American gun owners up into a frenzy, they get to turn the 2014 elections into a gun-centric debate, and if the Republicans take the majority of the victories, they get to say it is a referendum on gun rights.

For the Democrats, this bill backs them right up into a corner. By opposing this bill, which most of them will, it puts their name down in history as politicians who opposed legislation essentially preventing the registration and confiscation of firearms in the United States of America. We have heard for years during the recent gun-control debates that Liberal anti-gun politicians are not out to take away our guns, they are not coming for our right to bear arms, and that Conservative pundits and redneck voters are just paranoid.

This puts the cards on the table. If this bill passes the House and goes to the Senate, then the Democrat run chamber will most likely defeat it, providing fodder for their enemies. They too will be painted as anti-gun and pro-registration, and the gun lobby will throw support behind whoever is willing to challenge them in primary and general elections.

If this for some reason is able to pass the House and the Senate, with every single yay and nay vote a matter of public record, it of course will be up to the President to sign it. If he signs it, the Federal government will be unable to use their money to promote the confiscation and registration of firearms in the United States. If he does not sign it, the Democrats become the party that is pro-gun registration and confiscation, and chaos will ensue.

The Liberal media will do their best to downplay the significance of the bill, they will say how it doesn’t really mean “confiscate” like people think. They will spin it to make the American people believe that because this bill was passed, countless lives will be lost, or because it was vetoed, countless lives were saved.

This bill is important, it draws an important line in the sand and forces Washington to pick sides. If it makes it out of committee, a move the Republicans would be foolish not to make, then it will put politicians on record for being pro-confiscation, despite years of apologists saying otherwise. It will cement a victory for the 2nd Amendment, it will energize American gun owners, and perhaps it will restore a little bit of faith that there are those in government who actually believe in limiting the power and scope of the Federal leviathan. This bill does not need to pass to make in impact, it does not need resounding support for it to have national repercussions, its passage would be monumental, but its failure would speak louder and more defiantly than its victory.

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