Democrats want to make the 2018 election about gun control. To that end, Senate Democrats are working up a licensing regime for handguns.
Lawmakers have introduced a bill that would encourage states to do so by providing federal grants.
To qualify, states would have to require a gun purchaser be at least 21 years old, submit fingerprints and a photograph to local law enforcement, and undergo a background check.
“Just like you need a license to drive a car you should get a license to purchase a handgun,” Van Hollen said.
The Handgun Licensing Purchaser Act would motivate states through federal grants to require individuals to obtain a license before buying a handgun, something Maryland currently does.
I find it odd that Van Hollen would go after handguns. Going after rifles is the latest vogue in the gun control movement post-Heller. This harkens back to a movement more interested in restricting handguns. Of course, the reason the gun control movement switched from trying to restrict handguns to trying to restrict rifles is because they had almost no success trying to restrict handguns. Josh Sugarmann, ever the evil genius of the movement, realized that if the gun control movement went after a subset of rifle owners, those owners would be politically more vulnerable, especially given the confusion about AR-15s vs. M16s, etc.
This isn’t a new approach. Van Hollen has introduced various versions of this bill for a long time, going back to when he was a member of the House
Here’s a link to the 2015 version of this bill. Which, went nowhere.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2732
Van Douchebag is from MD. Bloomberg gave $1.1 billion to Hopkins (Baltimore), 300 mil of which went to the School of Public Health, which studies gun violence for Bloomberg. Maryland is particularly proud of its own handgun licensing law (“HQL”) enacted in 2013, on which Van Douchebag’s bill is modeled. Notwithstanding a 35% increase in murder subsequent to passing the law. Facts rarely stop these people. The bigger joke is that the courts have not yet struck it down. If a law is even remotely plausible, courts will accept it in the face of solid evidence to the contrary, because guns.
Van Douchebag is Bloomberg’s personal errand boy and its not terribly surprising Van Douche is pushing a law similar to MD’s.
Make no mistake though, if Democrats get back the Senate this will become law.
False Equivalence – You don’t need anything other than money to buy, own, or operate a car. You do need a license, among other things, to operate that car on the public way.
Let me know when we can block of roads and turn them into shooting ranges. I’d be interested in that for sure!
This should be challenged as a Poll Tax, because that’s what Gun Licensing is; utilizing government imposed, economic ways and means to discourage people from exercising their Rights.
This also is a ways and means of creating a National Gun Registry for Handguns, as their are stipulations in this Bill to record the sale of Handguns upon someone’s license, aka, registration.
Poll taxes are taxes for voting.
They’re banned by the 24th Amendment, which does not ban any other sorts of taxes unrelated to voting.
It bans only the requirement of a poll tax payment for voting in a Federal election (expanded via the courts to State elections).
Fees for the exercise of a right should be (and usually are) subject to strict scrutiny, but the Courts and Constitution do not find them plain unacceptable, and there’s certainly nothing in the text to suggest “a gun license requirement is a poll tax”.
Just … no.
Poll taxes are broader than that.
A poll tax is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual. Although often associated with states of the former Confederacy, poll taxes were also in place in some northern and western states, including California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin.[1] Poll taxes had been a major source of government funding among the colonies which formed the United States. Poll taxes made up from one-third to one-half of the tax revenue of colonial Massachusetts. Various privileges of citizenship, including voter registration or issuance of driving licenses and resident hunting and fishing licenses, were conditioned on payment of poll taxes to encourage collection of this tax revenue. Property taxes assumed a larger share of tax revenues as land values rose when population increases encouraged settlement of the American west.[2] Some western states found no need for poll tax requirements; but poll taxes and payment incentives remained in eastern states, and some links to voter registration were modified following the American Civil War until court action following ratification of the 24th Amendment in 1964.
The 24th Amendment may not ban poll taxes unrelated to voting but a case could be made that they unconstitutionally burden the exercise of a right.
Thank you Richard. And, Common Law Precedent set by the 24th Amendment lays the foundation for abolishing any and all targeted-excise taxes on any and all Constitutional Rights.
remember that Van Hollen hails from a state (Maryland) that recently passed a “license to buy handguns” (AKA the HQL) as part of its 2013 AWB and has seen it so far recent legal efforts to overturn it.
i presume he’s still going with this because it’s what he’s familiar with as a small victory for the anti-gun side.
But of course! Today rifles, tomorrow handguns…
Which makes me sick how those anti-gun demagogues get away with claiming, “I support the 2nd Amendment, but…”
Once. Just once, I would like to see some reporter challenge one of those demagogues with this question, “If you support 2nd Amendment rights, can you name one specific gun-control law in the United States, or even one bill, that you think goes too far? That is too restrictive? That violates 2nd Amendment rights?” That should be a gimmee question for any reasonable person, but I would expect your typical anti-gunner to either deflect giving any answer at all, or even admitting that there is no such law that they think goes too far.
Of course don’t ever expect to see the Press ask that key question, since the Press themselves are co-conspirators with the anti-gun cult.