Senator Cory Booker is struggling to find his place among all the Democratic candidates vying for the 2020 nomination. Polling at just 3% in recent polling, Senator Booker needs something to help him get some attention. He resorted to releasing a plan for sweeping gun regulation, but there are several issues with the plan.
The foundation of his gun control plan is a licensing program that would require gun owners to have a federal license in what is referred to as “similar to applying for or renewing a passport.” Other key components that are listed in the same article refer to the universal background checks that are referenced for every gun sale. Beyond that, there are some interesting thoughts in the gun control proposal.
First, he refers to additional oversight and regulation to gun manufacturers. The statement is made that gun manufacturers have little incentive to make firearms safer and that Booker wants to give the Consumer Product Safety Commission oversight of firearm manufacturers. Firearm manufacturing currently falls under the jurisdiction of the ATF, which is responsible for the oversight and compliance of gun manufacturers. We already know the challenges of government agencies interacting, and splitting the oversight of this between two departments would not help.
He continues that he would repeal PLCAA, the law that protects gun manufacturers from liability regarding misuse of firearms. The repeal of this law would allow gun manufacturers to be sued as liable when their firearms are used. To give an example, a gun manufacturer could legally manufacture and sell a firearm, following all legal channels. If that gun was then used as part of a gun trafficking incident, or potentially even a home defense situation, the gun manufacturer could be held liable for the actions of someone else. How does this even make sense?
There are many other restrictions, regulations, and requirements as part of the proposal that can all be found on the website that was shared. Of course, he did not fail to include the assault weapon ban and high capacity magazine ban. He states that these firearms and magazines are only made to efficiently and quickly kill people. There was no description of what constitutes an assault weapon, so one can only derive that this would refer to semi-automatic weapons as has been said before by Democrats.
The second amendment is clear that gun ownership is a right to maintain a free State. If Democrats get their way, we will soon be following in the footsteps of other nations and unable to defend ourselves against their tyranny.
