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Biden signs gun control bill, lashes out at SCOTUS

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There are a lot of problems with the bipartisan gun control bill that came out of the Senate deal. I suspect it’s going to be an absolute nightmare to implement.

There’s never been any doubt that President Joe Biden was going to sign the bill, after all. While he may have wanted a more comprehensive bill, he’s going to take what he can get now and hope to leverage it into additional gun control in the future.

And sign it here did.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law the first major federal gun reform in three decades, days after a decision he condemned by the Supreme Court expandingfirearm owners’ rights.

“God willing, it’s going to save a lot of lives,” Biden said at the White House after signing the bill with his wife Jill by his side.

The bipartisan bill came together just weeks after mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo that killed more than 30 people, including 19 children at an elementary school.

It should be noted, however, that there’s absolutely nothing in this bill that would have prevented Uvalde.

However, Biden also couldn’t help but take a swipe at the Supreme Court during the signing ceremony.

“The Supreme Court has made some terrible decisions,” Biden told reporters after that ruling, and another on Friday that eliminated the right to abortion nationwide.

Yes, because acknowledging the right to bear arms actually means you can bear arms is such a horrible decision. I mean, who knows what’s next. I mean, the Supreme Court might next decide that the right to assemble actually means you have the right to assemble.

The horror!!!!

The thing is, for people like Biden, rights are whatever they, personally, think your rights should be. Remember “mostly peaceful protests,” as an example? Cities were burning, and people like Biden defending the rioters. Yet you shouldn’t be able to act in accordance with the plain text of the Second Amendment.

That’s the horrible decision he’s talking about.

Meanwhile, Biden doesn’t recognize the only horrible decision on the gun front–I’m not getting into the other debate–is the decision to negotiate on the bill he just signed.

First, the bill won’t stop or even reduce mass shootings. Even if everything works perfectly, there’s nothing there that could stop such horrific tragedies from unfolding; and since this is the government, you know nothing is going to work perfectly.

Yet it will create headaches and hassles for numerous law-abiding Americans.

Of course, for Biden and the rest of the Democratic Party, this is a feature, not a bug. For them, the only bug is the fact that people can still buy guns.

But mark my words, it won’t be long before they’ll be back at it, pushing for still more gun control, complaining that Republicans won’t compromise with them, pretending this deal never happened. That handful of Republicans who voted for this in the Senate ultimately gained nothing at all.

Lovely job, guys. You gave Biden the win he was desperate for leading into the midterms and will gain absolutely nothing in return, not even a safer society.

Brilliantly done.

Here Are the 15 Republicans Who Sold Us out on the Senate Gun Bill

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On Thursday evening, some of the Senate Republicans shamefully went along with the Democrats in passing a bill that abridges the constitutional rights of Americans and gives Democrats a victory in their gun control battle.

As we reported, the bill passed in the Senate, 65-33. Every Senator who caucuses with the Democrats voted yes. Here are the 15 Republicans who sold us out and voted for it.

Now some of them did it because they were retiring and so they didn’t care about their “careers” or our votes. Others were just elected and/or don’t face re-election until 2026 and are likely counting on us forgetting the betrayal of our gun rights.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (RINO-AK) is up in 2022 and Sen. Mitt Romney (RINO-UT) is up in 2024. They were already going to get primaried, although in Alaska they now have open primaries and the top four people go to the general election where they will have ranked-choice voting. So that likely helps Murkowski.

The bill now goes onto the House and is likely to pass there on Friday.

As my colleague Jennifer Van Laar explained, the bill contains some very concerning provisions, including funding for broad red flag state laws that can impinge upon our due process rights.

Ironically, it passed the Senate on the same day that we got a great gun rights decision from Justice Clarence Thomas that Democrats including Joe Biden and NY Gov. Kathy Hochul lost their minds over on concealed carry. The 2021 9-0 decision in Caniglia v. Strom already called into question some red flag laws, ruling against search and seizure without due process, so the lawmakers may want to check that out before they trip over it.

But these Republicans don’t care about the Supreme Court or our rights. It’s particularly harmful at a point where all on the right should be concentrated on holding together to defeat the Democrats in November, not melting like snowmen in the sun to help the Democrats achieve their gun control aims. Republicans are at record enthusiasm and have the best generic position on the Congressional ballot in years. They’re perfectly poised to boot the Democrats out if they hold together and listen to the base. This doesn’t help the Republicans’ cause when they make moves like this.

Sen Mike Lee says media had gun bill text before senators

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The Senate gun bill is going to be a controversial matter for the foreseeable future. After all, not only will the bill not accomplish a blasted thing, but 14 Republican senators sold out their gun rights supporting constituency in order to get to the point at which we find ourselves.

The first vote was held with lightning speed, something that should have all of us at least a little concerned, even if you support everything in the bill.

Yet Sen. Mike Lee mentioned something that may be an even bigger concern.

U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) slammed the process after the Senate held a vote Tuesday to advance a bipartisan gun control bill, giving lawmakers less than an hour to read the bill before the vote, but not before it was leaked to the media.

“This is the Senate operating at its worst,” Lee told BlazeTV host Glenn Beck on the radio Wednesday morning, griping that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has also prevented lawmakers from offering amendments to improve the bill.

Senators voted 64 to 34 Tuesday in favor of a motion to proceed for an 80-page bill called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The bill is the result of weeks-long negotiations between Republicans and Democrats on gun control measures deemed a priority after the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.

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But Lee, who did not vote for the motion to proceed, criticized the fact that Republicans who did not take part in the negotiations were asked to take a blind vote without reading the bill.

“There were a group of senators, ten Republicans and ten Democrats, who got together and wrote this behind closed doors. I hope they read it. But I don’t think anyone else had the chance to. In fact, by yesterday afternoon, mid-afternoon, a number of news media outlets were reporting that they had the bill text. Senators still didn’t,” Lee said.

“We received the bill text, just moments before we were expected to vote on it. It ended up getting an overwhelming vote, because basically all of Democrats and ten or 15 Republicans voted for it. This is stunning to me. This is not how the Senate is supposed to operate,” he added.

Lee has every right to be upset here. He should be upset. Everyone should be.

While I noted on Wednesday that the bill was pretty much what we expected, more or less, it could well have been something different.

The truth of the matter is that most lawmakers vote for laws they never read. Many of these bills are thousands of pages long and no one is really interested in reading through all of that. The Senate gun bill was only about 80 pages, which is a shorter read than many.

That doesn’t make any of this right, though. You don’t drop a bill on lawmakers just moments before expecting them to vote.

In 2020, Sen. Rand Paul introduced the Read The Bills Act. The purpose of that bill was, basically, to make sure stuff like this couldn’t happen.

The bill got no co-sponsors.

In other words, most of Paul’s colleagues were apparently fine with the status quo. Since Sen. Lee was in office at that time, I have to include him in this.

Well, this is what happens when there’s really no obligation to read the bills before voting. The media will get the text of the bill before the senators and those senators will be asked to vote on a bill they haven’t gotten past the title of.

Of course, there shouldn’t be a need for a law regarding reading the bills. It shouldn’t be an issue because there’s no reason to believe anyone who isn’t trying to pull a fast one would pull a stunt like this.

Yet here we are.

Harsanyi: Senate gun bill will just infringe on gun rights

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David Harsanyi understands the history of the Second Amendment like few others. He wrote a fantastic book called, “First Freedom: A Ride Through America’s Enduring History with the Gun.” (That’s an affiliate link. It won’t cost you a dime more, but it helps keep the lights on here.)

I highly recommend it.

Because of that knowledge of Second Amendment history, I was fascinated to see his take on the Senate gun deal.

In short? He’s not a fan.

It’s clear that the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” was written in a rush by politicians far more interested in “doing something” about guns than proposing any well-considered ideas. That’s surely the reason the Senate took a procedural vote only a few hours after releasing the text, and why they’ll probably pass the bill in a few days. It’s going to take years, however, to figure out how it all works. The bill’s numerous vague, open-ended provisions will almost surely be abused by prosecutors, cops, aggrieved family members, exes, and political opponents. And, in the meantime, the likelihood that any of its provisions will help mitigate mass shootings is very small.

That said, no one should fool themselves. Though many conservatives will be furious about the bill, it’s unlikely to be unpopular with most voters. Facing a string of horrific school shootings, voters are uninterested in hearing debates about due process or complaints from some 19-year-old who wants an AR. The media, of course, will frame the bill as a common-sense no-brainer.

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In the end, though, nothing will change in our political environment. Today, the corrupt corporate media and Democrats will herald the law as breaking a “logjam,” the first gun “safety” law in 30 years. This is untrue. Congress has passed numerous gun laws. Thousands of gun laws and regulations exist in the United States. No right has ever been more regulated. And, in a few days, Democrats will return to accusing Republicans of supporting terrorism and abetting child murder. Senators like Murphy will be back to demanding bans on semi-automatic rifles and arguing for backdoor national registries. Within weeks, if not earlier, the media will tell us that the bill was a mere, tiny, first step in bringing the United States in line with other civilized countries. For one side, the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” will be a fleeting win, for the other, an incremental step in a crusade to limit national gun ownership.

Please, go read the whole thing because Harsanyi makes some excellent points all around.

But he’s especially right about how this won’t settle the debate, even for a short time. We have Sen. Dianne Feinstein already trying to alter the bill via an amendment that would further infringe on the gun rights of certain law-abiding adults.

If Feinstein is going to make this play right now, when things seem to be precariously beneficial for the gun control side of the debate, then just how do you think they’ll react if they think they’ve got the advantage?

Of course they’ll start pushing for more gun control. After all, I have yet to find a gun control fan that can tell you where their line in the sand actually is beyond some “total confiscation” bit. Even then, I don’t believe them. I’m quite sure if we got close to a total gun ban, they’d be all over supporting it.

That’s speculation, but I’d say it’s pretty safe.

For now, though, we know what’s coming and it won’t be anyone saying, “Well, we passed gun control, so we’ll focus on other stuff now.”

This will be ignored, much as Fix NICS was ignored this time around. Anti-gun lawmakers will do pretty much what Harsanyi predicts and push on through as if nothing was passed at all, saying as much, and continue their efforts to infringe on our Second Amendment rights.

Nothing will be solved except an understanding that some lawmakers cannot be trusted.

Cruz has counter proposal on guns, but there are problems

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Sen. Ted Cruz is one of the lawmakers out there who is generally pretty good on guns. The Texas Republican has made his stance pretty clear and he was not one of those who sided with his fellow Texan, Sen. John Cornyn on the Senate gun deal.

In fact, Cruz has his own proposal to address guns and it doesn’t target law-abiding citizens.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz condemned the bipartisan gun control legislation soon coming to a vote, calling on the U.S. Senate to instead consider legislation he crafted with Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso that he said targets criminals instead of every gun owner.

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Instead, Cruz called on senators to support the “Safe Kids Safe Schools Safe Communities Act” – which he said is focused on the criminal element rather than the weapon used.

“It’s focused on funding prosecutors that if you commit a violent crime with a gun, you’re going to be prosecuted by the Department of Justice and sent to federal prison. If you try to illegally buy a gun, if you’re a felon or fugitive, if you try to legally buy a gun, you’re going to be prosecuted and sent to federal prison,” he said.

“This bill provides $36 billion for funding over ten years for police officers, armed police officers in schools. It doubles the number of police officers in schools. It provides $10 billion in funding for mental health counselors. So if you have a kid that has serious mental health issues, you stop him early before he commits the crime.

Now, on one hand, this is far more preferable to the bill in the Senate right now and there are aspects of this that really should be non-controversial.

However, there are still issues with this.

First, let’s not that this bill isn’t going to go anywhere. It’s better than the Senate deal, but our definition of “better” is part of why it’s not going to get any help from the Democrats.

As for the issues, there are really two that I see.

The first is that this bill is that it still seems to be premised on the idea that it’s somehow better for your loved one to be stabbed to death than shot. It focuses on guns as if they’re a particular scourge, but the issue is and has always been violent people. Those prone to violence will still be violent no matter what kind of weapon they can access.

Additionally, this is a bill that punishes people after the fact. While I personally don’t see that as a bad thing, we’ve got a political environment looking at preventing so-called gun homicides.

Yes, this bill may have some prevention aspects to it, but it does so in part by deterrence. Right now, many people are less than impressed by deterrence, especially when you realize that if deterrence was going to work, the potential punishment for murder would do the trick.

It doesn’t.

The bill also seeks to remove criminals from society, and there is where it’s more likely to make some kind of impact. Yet it won’t help the one place most people are focused on right now. Nothing in this bill will really impact mass shootings.

Mass shooters tend not to have long rap sheets, for example. They can generally buy their guns lawfully because of that, so there’s nothing here for them except a potentially even longer prison sentence. How does that work, though, when your killer isn’t planning on surviving the encounter?

Now, all that said, I’d much rather see Cruz’s bill pass than what we’re likely to have crammed down our throats, mostly because it won’t impact law-abiding citizens and will likely put criminals behind bars for even longer, thus reducing the criminal population on the streets.

But I can’t pretend this bill is without its issues.