In Response to the Article: 'Obama's Gun Free America'
Over the past few months, NRA-ILA has received hundreds of e-mails warning us about "SB-2099," a bill that would supposedly require you to report all your guns on your income tax return every April 15.
Like many rumors, there\'s just a grain of truth to this one. Someone\'s recycling an old alert, which wasn\'t even very accurate when it was new.
There actually was a U.S. Senate bill with that number that would have taxed handguns -- nine years ago. Introduced by anti-gun Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the bill would have included handguns under the National Firearms Act\'s tax and registration scheme. This has nothing to do with anyone\'s Form 1040, of course. And, fortunately, S. 2099 disappeared without any action by the Senate, back when Bill Clinton was still in the White House. We reported about it back then, just as we report about new anti-gun bills every week. Now, it\'s time for gun owners to drop this old distraction and focus on the real threats at hand.
To be clear, there is no such bill in the current Congress, and the emails about SB 2099 being sent around are false and unnecessary distractions from real threats.
To read a story by NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox on this and other rumors, please click here: http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?id=367&issue=047.
As for H.R. 45, in early January of this year, U.S. Representative Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) introduced H.R. 45, also known as "Blair Holt\'s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act." The bill is, at its core and as its name implies, a licensing and registration scheme.
The measure calls for all handgun owners to submit to the federal government an application that shall include, among many other things: a photo; an address; a thumbprint; a completed, written firearm safety test; private mental health records; and a fee. And those are only some of the requirements to be licensed!
The bill would further require the attorney general to establish a database of every handgun sale, transfer, and owner's address in America. Moreover, the bill would make it illegal to own or possess a \"qualifying firearm" -- defined as \"any handgun; or any semiautomatic firearm that can accept any detachable ammunition feeding device..." [emphasis added] without one of the proposed licenses.
Additionally, the bill would make it illegal to transfer ownership of a "qualifying firearm" to anyone who is not a licensed gun dealer or collector (with very few exceptions), and would require \"qualifying firearm\" owners to report all transfers to the attorney general\'s database. It would also be illegal for a licensed gun owner to fail to record a gun loss or theft within 72 hours, or fail to report a change of address within 60 days. Further, if a minor obtains a firearm and injures someone with it, the owner of the firearm may face a multiple-year jail sentence.
H.R. 45 is essentially a reintroduction of H.R. 2666, which Rush introduced in 2007. H.R. 2666 contained much of the same language as H.R. 45, and was co-sponsored by several well-known anti-gun legislators--including Barack Obama\'s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.
H.R. 45 currently has no co-sponsors. It is in a committee and is not up for a vote. However, this is an important bill because every element it contains--from regulation of all detachable-magazine semi-autos, to licensing and the elimination of private sales--is part of the agenda of major anti-gun groups.