Bills

Congressional Research Services Summary:

Shown Here:
Introduced in House (03/11/2021)

Assault Weapons Ban of 2021  (Needs Updating)

This bill makes it a crime to knowingly import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon (SAW) or large capacity ammunition feeding device (LCAFD).

The prohibition does not apply to a firearm that is (1) manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action; (2) permanently inoperable; (3) an antique; or (4) a rifle or shotgun specifically identified by make and model.

The bill also exempts from the prohibition the following, with respect to a SAW or LCAFD:

• importation, sale, manufacture, transfer, or possession related to certain law enforcement efforts, or authorized tests or experiments;
• importation, sale, transfer, or possession related to securing nuclear materials; and
• possession by a retired law enforcement officer.

The bill permits continued possession, sale, or transfer of a grandfathered SAW, which must be securely stored. A licensed gun dealer must conduct a background check prior to the sale or transfer of a grandfathered SAW between private parties.

The bill permits continued possession of, but prohibits sale or transfer of, a grandfathered LCAFD.

Newly manufactured LCAFDs must display serial number identification. Newly manufactured SAWs and LCAFDs must display the date of manufacture.

The bill also allows a state or local government to use Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program funds to compensate individuals who surrender a SAW or LCAFD under a buy-back program.

FFS Analysis:  During the ostensible “debate,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) was particularly on target with his opposition to the ban:

  Mr. Speaker, we do have a culture of human violence. Recently, a 16-year-old young man with three felony arrests in the past 4 months violently attacked and attempted to choke a New York subway police officer. He was released without bail. That is what is happening where you have the left in charge of criminal justice systems.

Why do I bring that up? Because that individual punched that police officer more than 20 times in his attempts to basically kill that officer. Personal weapons such as hands, fists, or feet accounted for 600 homicides in 2019, according to official reports. Mr. Speaker, 1,476 murders were committed with knives or cutting instruments, and 364 homicides were committed with rifles.

Do you see the distinction here? But what the Democrats are going for is they want to take away someone’s constitutional right instead of enforcing the law for people who are criminally violent. They are going to release those people back into your streets.

Supreme Court has held the Second Amendment protects arms in common use. But at markup, Chairman Nadler admitted that the purpose of the bill is to ban firearms that are in common use. Think about that. That does violence to the Constitution. They simply want to ban guns, and this is just another step along that path.

At markup, it became very clear that Democrats don’t even understand the guns that they are trying to ban, but they don’t care because when they say they want to put politics above people, or that we shouldn’t, what they really mean is they are going to.

Freedom First Society:  Although Democrats may be leading the assault on the Second Amendment, it is a mistake to view the assault on our freedom as a partisan problem.  Remember that Republicans have led the effort put the U.S. under regional government like the EU, most recently with the USMCA.

We defer here to several other of the Representatives who spoke forcefully against the Assault Weapons Ban.

From the Congressional Record (7-29-22) [Emphasis added]:

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee:

  Mr. Speaker, for years, the Democrats told us: We are not coming for your guns.

Oh, yes, they are.

Let’s be clear. The Second Amendment is as clear as possible. That is their beef. The Second Amendment says: The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. But they don’t care.

In fact, the sponsor of this legislation said so in committee. He said: “Spare me the BS about constitutional rights.” They don’t care about that fundamental liberty law-abiding citizens in this country enjoy, and they are coming for your firearms.

Six weeks ago, it was the red flag law, where someone who doesn’t like you can report you to law enforcement or to a judge. There is a hearing that you can’t be at, your counsel can’t be present, you haven’t been charged with a crime, but they can take your firearm, they can take your property, they can take away your Second Amendment liberties, and then you have to petition for a subsequent hearing to get that right back. And you have done nothing wrong and have not been charged with a crime.

Then House Democrats passed the unconstitutional legislation that said 18- to 20-year-olds can’t purchase a firearm. They can fight for our country, but they can’t purchase a firearm. And today they are coming for your guns, 24 million of them.

That is right, 24 million AR-style rifles are in the hands of law-abiding Americans today, as we speak, and those individuals will not be able to sell or transfer that property.

In the Heller case, the Supreme Court made clear that the Second Amendment protects firearms in common use at the time. During the markup, Representative Bishop asked the chairman: “Is it the point of the bill to ban weapons that are in common use in the United States today?” And the chairman said: ‘The problem is that they are in common use.”

So, yes, this is the goal. This is why it is unconstitutional. Couldn’t be any clearer. Democrats don’t care what the Constitution says.

Fortunately, courts are correctly applying the Constitution. Last week, a Federal District Court judge in Colorado, who was appointed by President Obama, issued a temporary restraining order against the Town of Superior, Colorado, to prevent it from implementing an assault weapon ban.

The judge wrote: Plaintiffs have stated that semiautomatic weapons, as well as magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, are commonly used by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes and, therefore, cannot be banned.

And guess what this bill will do? It won’t make communities safer. It won’t make them safer at all. In fact, in the Heller case, the Supreme Court said: The Second Amendment protects firearms in common use at the time and also said “for lawful purposes like self-defense.”

Three weeks ago, July 7, 2022, a Florida homeowner used his AR-style rifle when individuals forcibly entered his home. After the homeowner opened fire, the individuals immediately fled. When asked if the homeowner would face charges, the Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said: Absolutely not. The homeowner is protecting himself. And in Florida, you can do that. You can protect yourself.

Democrats tried this ban before. It didn’t work. It won’t work now.

You know what it will do? It will make communities, I think, less safe. What will make communities safer, though, is if Democrats stop defunding the police, stop cashless bail, and start prosecuting criminals. They are taking away firearms used for self-defense by law-abiding Americans.  This bill is wrong. It will make communities, I think, less safe, and it is unconstitutional….

Mr. Speaker, here is the fact. This bill is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court made clear the Second Amendment protects firearms in common use. This bill has eight pages of weapons and firearms that it bans, including 24 million firearms that law-abiding American citizens possess today. That is the fact….

Mr. Speaker, red flag laws take all guns from some people. This bill makes illegal some guns for all people, and we know where they want to go. We know what they want to do. They want to take all guns from all people because they can’t stand the Second Amendment. They hate the Second Amendment.

In fact, during the markup, the sponsor of the legislation said this: “Spare me the BS about constitutional rights.”

Well, Republicans care about law-abiding citizens’ constitutional liberties: Their First Amendment rights, their Second Amendment rights, their Fourth Amendment due process rights. All of those have been attacked by the Democrats over the last several months.

That is why we should vote “no” on this legislation and let law-abiding Americans have the respect for the Second Amendment they deserve.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-North Carolina):

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 1808, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2022.

Here they go again.  Once again, my colleagues across the aisle have rushed to exploit your fear and the pain of victims to rush out a gun control measure that will do nothing to save lives or address the root causes of violence.

I say, “exploit your fear,” and I point to the Speaker of the House just stood in this well with a poster that had a toy gun on it and wants you to feel scared about that. Well, I have a 6-year-old son, and he has toy guns. He knows about muzzle discipline. He knows you don’t put your finger on the trigger. He knows you don’t point it at people. I am able to teach my son gun safety and make him safer.

You don’t live through fear. This and other gun control measures like red flag laws, they make the other side feel better, but today’s bill will do nothing but disarm law-abiding citizens.

Congress has tried this before. In 1994, a 10-year assault weapons ban was first enacted. This ban did not stop violent crime or prevent heart-wrenching tragedies like Columbine. Yes, Columbine happened while we had an assault weapons ban.

In fact, after the ban ended, the Department of Justice issued a report that concluded: “Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement. Assault weapons were rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban.” That is the Department of Justice.

The results are in, folks. A so-called assault weapons ban does not work. But what it does is it takes away your rights and it leaves you   vulnerable.

The simple truth is criminals don’t follow the law. Think about this: If criminals followed the law, we wouldn’t have any crime. But when you criminalize guns, only criminals are going to have guns.

So I urge you to vote “no” on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, law-abiding Americans are sick and tired of these political games that exploit the pain of victims of shootings but do not work and seriously threaten your rights and your safety.

So today, I urge my colleagues to oppose this unconstitutional ban and ineffective gun control measure.

Instead, I ask you again to please work with me to actually address the root causes of violence.

We can pass bills like my STOP II, Secure Every School and Protect our Nation’s Children Act today, which would protect schools, improve mental health, and save lives.

We have solutions that work . . . without taking away your rights.  So I urge my colleagues to vote no.

Rep. John H. Rutherford (R-Florida):

  Mr. Speaker, America doesn’t have a gun violence problem, we have a human violence problem. But those across the aisle don’t want to talk about that because then you have to talk about the culture of death that we have created in this country. Killing 63 million unborn children. Denying the sanctity of life. That is the conversation that they don’t want to have.

Mr. Speaker, as a former police officer, I have encountered many dangerous people with guns, and we stopped them before they hurt themselves or others. We identified them. We identified the threats that they were making. Then we were able to intervene and stop those individuals before they became a shooter.

That is what we should be focused on in the wake of these recent tragedies. Give law enforcement the tools and resources to stop those who have shown a propensity to become violent. That is what we should be focusing on, not defunding the police, not demoralizing the police, not delegitimizing the police. We should be focused on assisting the police and identifying these individuals who want to commit crime.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Judiciary Committee:

 Mr. Speaker, the previous assault weapons ban that was referenced by our Speaker, I just want to make sure our record is actually correct. The FBI that kept the data had to admit that, as sympathetic as they were to an assault weapons ban, actually, it doesn’t appear to have really made any difference.

If we want to talk about crime since then, we can talk about the big cities that have come under the control of Democratic authority, who have pushed for things like no bond.

John Adams had it exactly right. This Constitution is intended for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the governing of any other. So, we are either going to have to get rid of all of our constitutional rights — we can’t even allow freedom of an assembly or speech, much less the Second Amendment, if we are not going to teach moral right and wrong.

What are we finding? We are finding in our schools, of course, that they are not teaching the Ten Commandments. Instead, they are teaching to envy. Look around, covet, see who has something more than you, and you should envy and covet.

Just keep in mind, under the big city laws now, if you get violent, we will give you no bond. We will let you right back out.

Do you want to know what would do more right now than banning AR-15s? It would be to ban Democrat thinking in the big cities that is allowing the crime rates to just explode.

We have always had guns in America. That is why there is an America. But we never had a time like this when we were teaching our children everything but the moral imperatives.

That is why this bill needs to go down, and we need to go after the causes of our violence.

Rep. Ben Cline (R-Virginia):

  My fellow Americans, the Democrats are coming for your guns. This assault weapons ban is unconstitutional because it would ban firearms that are currently in common use, making the scope of the bill, a semiautomatic assault weapons ban, overly broad by capturing millions of sporting rifles, shotguns, and pistols that simply have certain accessories and cosmetic features. In fact, the bill focuses mostly on appearance, which would arbitrarily ban some firearm models while exempting others with the same functionality.

This bill would not reduce violent crime, as Democrats claim. Studies have shown that the effect of the last assault weapons ban in 1994 on violent crime was perhaps too small for a reliable measurement. Instead, what this bill and all other legislation from Democrats aimed at gun control would do is directly infringe on the rights of law-abiding Americans.

They are not going to stop here. There will always be a scary-looking gun that they think needs to be banned. There will always be another loophole that they have created out of thin air that they need to close with more bans.

Mr. Speaker, this document says “shall not be infringed.” I urge a “no” vote.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas):

  Mr. Speaker, today, I am voting against the erosion of constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans.

In the long history of mankind, freedom and liberty are not lost overnight. It comes by way of a slow and gradual burn.

We have seen an unprecedented assault on our First Amendment through the legacy media and social media giants censoring the thoughts and opinions of individuals of the right while propping up their favorite candidates and covering up stories that could be detrimental to their public personas.

Policies are then implemented that are antireligious freedom, anti-due process, anti-free assembly, and, today, anti-Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. These rights shall not be infringed.

Instead of making families and communities safer, this backward, gun-grabbing attempt does nothing to harden school security, address our mental health crisis, or reverse the depreciation of our morals and values.

No, it does nothing for that, but it tears at the fabric of our Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to protect the Constitution and vote “no.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Judiciary Committee:

  Fact: This assault weapons ban bill is unconstitutional. Chairman Nadler even recognized, when he stated that “the problem is that these weapons are in common use.” And in Heller, the Supreme Court ruled that the Bill of Rights clearly protects firearms in common use. This is an unconstitutional piece of legislation.

Fact: The assault weapons bill will ban weapons in common use, and my colleague will most assuredly target citizens to take their guns.

In the words of Democratic perpetual candidate Beto O’Rourke: Hell, yes, we are going to take your AR-15 and your AK-47.

That is the truth, and everyone knows it. Don’t hide behind it. Everybody knows precisely what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing.

Fact: Less than 2 percent of all prisoners had a firearm obtained from a retail source at the time they committed their crimes. Only 13 percent of the offenders in State prison populations obtained their firearms from retail stores. Criminals usually don’t get their guns at gun stores through legal channels. That is a fact.

Another fact: Upwards of 80 percent crimes are committed by people with prior arrest records, often by people with prior convictions for violent crimes or prior weapons offenses, and almost none of our gun control proposals–and particularly this one–are targeting this group. That is the truth.

Those are the facts. The fact is, as Thomas Jefferson said: “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

This is the precise kind of tyranny that my colleagues are exercising today, precisely when they are opening our borders up to lawless cartels and gangs, and precisely when they are defunding the police. Precisely when they are making our communities unsafe, they want to limit the ability of the American people to defend themselves and to exercise their Second Amendment rights to protect their families.

That is what is happening on the floor so my colleagues can appeal to their liberal White voters while they ignore the Black men and women and Brown men and women who are buying weapons to defend themselves in criminal hellholes in our country.

Rep. Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (R-North Carolina):

In markup I asked if any Democrat disputed that this bill bans guns and magazines in common use. Chairman Nadler candidly responded: “That’s the point of the bill.”

In other words, the essence of the bill is to stop commerce in weapons as alternatively described by the Court in Heller in 2008 as those “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.”

Heller explained the origins of the right to keep and bear arms in militia service. Ordinarily, when called for militia service, able-bodied men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.

The Supreme Court further explained we also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and bear and carry arms. In Miller it said, as we have explained, that the sort of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.”

This was explained and recapitulated in Bruen just a month ago on June 23, and we see repeatedly that this is being defied. In fact, 1 week after Bruen, the Supreme Court granted petitions for certiorari, vacated, and remanded one State ban on MSRs and a State ban on magazines in common use to be reconsidered.

This is in defiance of the Supreme Court.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wisconsin):

  Mr. Speaker, just imagine a 17-year-old makes a decision to enlist in the Army, the Marine Corps, or the Navy. And then that 17-year-old goes through 8 weeks of basic combat training at one of the basic training centers in Fort Jackson or Fort Knox or Fort Benning. Then they are given a service weapon, an M16 typically, and then they are taught to assemble and disassemble that weapon down to the bolt.

They will go through training with a drill sergeant on a range and they are taught how to fire their service weapon in live-fire exercises. Then the 17-year-old will go on to AIT to be taught their specialty and continue to be on Active Duty or the Reserves or in the National Guard and then potentially deployed.

What this bill seeks to do is prevent this member of the military who comes home, either to the Reserve unit or National Guard unit or on Active Duty, from purchasing a rifle that they can use on their own.

My colleagues who support the bill are saying: We trusted you to join the service. We encouraged you to join the service. But then when it comes down to it, we really don’t trust you to go out and purchase that weapon.

It makes no sense.  If the majority is going to snub every veteran in this country by saying: We don’t trust you. Then how can the U.S. Government ask someone to enlist when they don’t trust them to have the same responsibility with their own personal weapon?

Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Georgia):

  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1808, which is just the latest gun-grabbing bill Democrats are dangerously ramming through in their unconstitutional crusade to disarm America.

The ink is barely dry on the anti-gun bill from last month, and here they are pushing another anti-gun bill that proclaims to make us safer but does the exact opposite. It puts citizens at greater risk by taking away the rights of the law-abiding.

This legislation takes aim at our Constitution by banning what the Democrats call assault weapons, which is a vague political term used as a catchphrase to make the public think we are banning guns that assault people. But the truth is that the bill would ban the most popular semiautomatic rifle in America, the AR-15 and what the industry calls a modern sporting rifle.

The Democrats have consistently called them weapons of war and are trying to ban them from being purchased by law-abiding citizens.

But whom does this bill exempt?

The Federal Government. Federal Government agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and down the line.

So if they are weapons of war, as the Democrats call them, what do these departments need with weapons of war?

Is the Department of Education going to use them against the moms and dads who protest against woke local school board policies?

Is the Department of Housing and Urban Development going to use them against the occupants in their housing developments?

You cannot have it both ways. If it is a weapon of war, then ban these Federal agencies, too.

The truth is they are simply semiautomatic rifles the Democrats want to demonize so they can ban more guns and take more of our citizens’ unalienable constitutional rights away.

Democrat ignorance and malice do not justify banning nearly 25 million firearms that Americans, including myself, proudly own and responsibly use.

Now I know the author of this legislation would prefer that I spare him both the prefatory clause and the supremacy clause of the Second Amendment. But it is quite clear: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Shall not be infringed, period, is the supremacy clause. And banning an entire class of firearms, the most popular firearm in common use today, is clearly infringement.

An armed America is a safe and free America. I urge all of my colleagues to stand firm in the fight to protect and preserve the Second Amendment by voting “no” on this unconstitutional and, therefore, illegal piece of legislation.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), Chairman House Second Amendment Caucus:

Mr. Speaker, if facts are the ammunition of debate, I point out that the other side of the aisle entered this room unarmed.

There are so many mischaracterizations or misfires, if you will, about this bill and what this bill does that I don’t know where to start.

But let me start here with the words of the author of this bill. He says it will ban weapons of war only suitable for soldiers in combat.

Is that what it does? Does it ban an M16? It doesn’t ban an M16 or an M4. It bans the most commonly sold rifle in the United States today and for the last several years.

It doesn’t ban weapons of war. It explicitly exempts the M1 Garand. General Patton said the M1 Garand is the finest implement of battle ever devised. Why is it exempted? It is a weapon of war.

It exempts the M1 Carbine. Look at the picture of the soldiers, the marines at Iwo Jima. What were they carrying? The M1 Carbine.

It exempts the quintessential Cold War weapon, the pride of the Chinese and the Communists, the SKS. It is exempted in this bill. These are literal weapons of war that are not in this bill.

Now, they will come back and ban those, but they don’t want to ban them right now because they don’t look scary enough. They have a wooden forestock and a wooden butt. They not made of plastic. They don’t look like the scary stuff on the news, so they have no interest in banning that.

Literal, actual weapons of war are not banned, but the most common firearm sold today is banned.

But let’s take them at their word. Weapons of war. These are weapons of war. We have got to ban weapons of war.

Well, they exempt 80-some Federal agencies from the ban. Literally, every bureaucratic agency in the government can have a weapon of war under this bill; weapons of war as they call them.

So we offered an amendment in the committee. We couldn’t conceive of why the Department of Education would need a weapon of war to complete their mission of educating our children; coming up with the curriculum.

We couldn’t conceive of why the USDA would need weapons of war, so we offered an amendment to exempt the USDA and the Department of Education from being able to have these weapons of war; so-called weapons of war.

Every Democrat, even though they couldn’t give us a good reason of why these agencies would need weapons of war, or with whom they planned to go to war–are they bringing them to the school board? Where are they going to bring these things?

Now, they couldn’t give a good reason why these agencies would need weapons of war. But they all voted to allow these agencies to have weapons of war.

Now, the reason they did, we came to that conclusion is, they aren’t weapons of war. It is the most common firearm sold in the United States today. These are not weapons of war.

There was one Democrat who did articulate a reason. He said, well, they are actually good for defense. You have might need them to defend the Department of Education. Well, that is what the Second Amendment is about.

It is not about making sure that the Department of Education–which, by the way, is unconstitutional–but it is not making sure that the Department of Education could have proper defense; it is for the people to have proper defense. So that is the first falsehood.

Now, here is another reason that gun owners should be concerned about this bill. Maybe you don’t own one of these firearms, but if you own guns, you know about terminal ballistics. You know what are suitable calibers for hunting deer, for hunting coyotes.

We have heard it said here today, and in the committee, and they showed us a video, oh, the terminal ballistics of a .223 round are so dangerous that we need to ban these AR-15s because they shoot .223 rounds.

What they didn’t show you was a video of a deer cartridge, like a .30-06, or a 7-millimeter, or a .308.

If you are banning–if the purpose of this legislation is to ban these firearms because they shoot a cartridge with those terminal ballistics of a .223, then you plan, you absolutely plan to come after deer rifles because they have two and three times as much power; two and three times as much destructive and killing power as the firearm–as the cartridge used in the firearm that you seek to ban here today.

Another falsehood. This bill will save lives. Let me get to this. We heard it here today. I was waiting for it. It was mentioned a couple of times. Even the Speaker of the House mentioned it.

They have said that the 1994-2004 assault weapons ban–so-called assault weapons–reduced crime; that crime went down. Well, guess what? From 1995-2004, there were 2 million of these firearms imported or manufactured and sold. 

The number of these rifles doubled in the United States during your last assault weapons ban. If you think crime went down because of the last assault weapons ban, then you have got some explaining to do because the number of those rifles increased. Maybe, just maybe people became safer.

Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to this bill.

Rep. Jodey C. Arrington (R-Texas):

Too often, Mr. Speaker, we skip over the fundamental principle and precept and driver of the Second Amendment, so let’s reaffirm our faith here.

Our Founders were determined to fight against their own government for our freedom and independence. They stated unequivocally that when there was a train of abuses and usurpations, and the citizens were reduced to absolute despotism, it was our right and our duty to throw off that government.

We wouldn’t have these United States, we wouldn’t be here today, without this sacred Second Amendment. Every law-abiding citizen in America must be able to meet evil with equal or greater force, whether it is a violent criminal, a crazed killer, or a coercive government.

Mr. Speaker, we must reject this attempt to trample the Constitution, to violate the spirit of what those Founders wrote into that sacred document, and disarm our citizens.

Bill Summary:  This legislation provides funding for States to infringe our rights protected by the Second Amendment and to violate our due process guarantees. In particular, it provides funds for states to implement so-called “red flag” laws.

The bill also treats 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old Americans as second-class citizens with respect to gun purchases, and it criminalizes routine gun transactions between family members and friends.”

CRS Summary:

Legislative Vehicle Shown Here (still on 7/3/22):
Passed House (05/18/2022)

This bill designates (1) the Federal Building and United States Courthouse located at 111 North Adams Street in Tallahassee, Florida, as the Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United States Courthouse and Federal Building; and (2) the U.S. Postal Service facility located at 120 4th Street in Petaluma, California, as the Lynn C. Woolsey Post Office Building.

Analysis: Proponents repeatedly argue that this legislation must be regarded as only a first step. Clearly, many legislators are opposed to the Second Amendment and want to ban all private gun ownership. That is a certain path to tyranny and to creating a population unable to protect itself from emboldened criminals.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will not make our communities safer. On the contrary, restricting the ability of law-abiding Americans’ to protect themselves and their families is a step toward chaos leading to government tyranny.

Gun controls do not stop criminals, because criminals have no regard for the law. But this legislation is not misguided as to its real objective. It is part of a calculatingly deceptive agenda to disarm the public by forces that seek our enslavement.

Bill Summary:  This legislation provides funding for States to infringe our rights protected by the Second Amendment and to violate our due process guarantees. In particular, it provides funds for states to implement so-called “red flag” laws.

The bill also treats 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old Americans as second-class citizens with respect to gun purchases, and it criminalizes routine gun transactions between family members and friends.”

CRS Summary:

Legislative Vehicle Shown Here (still on 7/3/22):
Passed House (05/18/2022)

This bill designates (1) the Federal Building and United States Courthouse located at 111 North Adams Street in Tallahassee, Florida, as the Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United States Courthouse and Federal Building; and (2) the U.S. Postal Service facility located at 120 4th Street in Petaluma, California, as the Lynn C. Woolsey Post Office Building.

Analysis: Proponents repeatedly argue that this legislation must be regarded as only a first step. Clearly, many legislators are opposed to the Second Amendment and want to ban all private gun ownership. That is a certain path to tyranny and to creating a population unable to protect itself from emboldened criminals.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will not make our communities safer. On the contrary, restricting the ability of law-abiding Americans’ to protect themselves and their families is a step toward chaos leading to government tyranny.

Gun controls do not stop criminals, because criminals have no regard for the law. But this legislation is not misguided as to its real objective. It is part of a calculatingly deceptive agenda to disarm the public by forces that seek our enslavement.

Bill Summary:  This legislation provides funding for States to infringe our rights protected by the Second Amendment and to violate our due process guarantees. In particular, it provides funds for states to implement so-called “red flag” laws.

The bill also treats 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old Americans as second-class citizens with respect to gun purchases, and it criminalizes routine gun transactions between family members and friends.”

Congressional Research Services Summary:

Legislative Vehicle Shown Here (still on 7/3/22):
Passed House (05/18/2022)

This bill designates (1) the Federal Building and United States Courthouse located at 111 North Adams Street in Tallahassee, Florida, as the Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United States Courthouse and Federal Building; and (2) the U.S. Postal Service facility located at 120 4th Street in Petaluma, California, as the Lynn C. Woolsey Post Office Building.

Analysis: Proponents repeatedly argue that this legislation must be regarded as only a first step. Clearly, many legislators are opposed to the Second Amendment and want to ban all private gun ownership. That is a certain path to tyranny and to creating a population unable to protect itself from emboldened criminals.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will not make our communities safer. On the contrary, restricting the ability of law-abiding Americans’ to protect themselves and their families is a step toward chaos leading to government tyranny.

Gun controls do not stop criminals, because criminals have no regard for the law. But this legislation is not misguided as to its real objective. It is part of a calculatingly deceptive agenda to disarm the public by forces that seek our enslavement.

The excerpts below from the House debates on the measure reenforce our analysis.

From the Congressional Record House of Representatives (6-24-22) [Emphasis added]:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler  (D-New York), Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary:

“But today, Mr. Speaker, we take a historic first step toward ending the epidemic of gun violence in this Nation, the only developed Nation with this problem….

“This cannot be the last step, but we also cannot let another day go by without taking action to make our communities safer and to keep even one more family whole….

“This legislation includes provisions that will save many lives. Like the Protecting Our Kids Act, it includes funding to implement extreme risk protection laws and the prohibition on straw purchasing. It also strengthens background checks for those under 21, makes more sellers responsible for conducting background checks, takes steps to address the boyfriend loophole, and provides significant funding for programs that will make our communities safer.

“Today, we will send legislation to the President’s desk, for the first time in decades, that will make progress toward ending the scourge of gun violence.”

Freedom First Society:  Rep. Nadler emphasizes that this legislation “cannot be the last step” in ending “gun violence.” With other representatives (below), we see a citizen disarmament agenda whose last step is the complete prohibition of private ownership of firearms.  This would void the protection our Founding Fathers gave that right with the Second Amendment.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Committee on the Judiciary:

“But today, [Democrats] are coming after law-abiding American citizens’ Second Amendment liberties.

“Understand what this legislation does. This legislation tells States: Someone who doesn’t like you can report you to law enforcement or to a judge. There will be a hearing, a hearing where you can’t be at, your lawyer can’t be at, you can’t confront your accuser. You didn’t commit any crime, but they can take your property. They can take your guns. They can take away your Second Amendment rights. And then you have to petition to have a subsequent hearing where you get them back. That is what this legislation does.”

Freedom First Society:  Yes, but it is not a partisan problem.  Republicans are building Big Brother government, too.  The Republican Party merely postures as catering to a conservative constituency while continuing the assault, often in different areas.  Or it goes along with Democrat initiatives ostensibly reluctantly.

Remember that is was Republican President Nixon who have us the Environmental Protection Agency and that Republican President Trump negotiated the USMCA taking us down the regional government path like the EU as steppingstones to Insider-controlled world government.

The Republican Party would take a path to the same tyranny as the Democrats only a little more slowly and not always so obvious. For more than a century, the forces seeking to build big government, starting with Insiders closely associated with the international banking firm of J.P. Morgan, have had their fingers in both parties and used the partisan wrestling match to their advantage. According to Establishment historian Carroll Quigley in his monumental Tragedy and Hope, one Morgan colleague allied with the Democrats, Morgan himself and other partners supported the Republicans, and still other Morgan associates had connections with the “extreme Right” and the Left.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Speaker of the House:

 “Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a strong step forward to combat America’s epidemic of gun violence and to protect our precious children….

“All of us who have met with survivors in the wake of the tragedies have heard their message loud and clear. We must do something.

“Today, in their honor, we heed their powerful cry, sending a major gun violence prevention legislation to President Biden’s desk for signature. We send it to the President for his signature, with gratitude for his leadership on this important issue. He was the author of the Brady Law in 1994 and has been a champion ever since.

“This legislation, the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, includes several strong steps to save lives not only from horrific mass shootings, but also from the daily massacre of gun crime, suicide, and tragic accidents.

“Included in this package are two major provisions which we have championed here in the House:

“First, this bill includes significant investments to help States establish Extreme Risk Protection Order Laws, otherwise known as red flag laws….

“Secondly, this bill takes strong action to combat straw purchases, a cause Congresswoman Robin Kelly spearheaded in our Chamber. Although we hear about the notorious mass murders every day on our streets and in our country, murders take place. Doing so will make it illegal to buy guns on behalf of those who cannot legally purchase.”

Freedom First Society:  Rep. Pelosi cleverly supports the Left’s tactic to demonize the weapon (gun violence).  But guns don’t shoot people by themselves.  Instead, we have a crime problem to which government has contributed (see later).  We also have a government problem, with forces working to implement civilian disarmament and make slaves of us all.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana):

“There is a right, however, a crystal-clear right in the Constitution to keep and bear arms. But here we are today. Congress is moving full steam ahead to restrict the right to self-defense for law-abiding gun owners and the right to due process for all Americans….

“President Biden and his administration are already disobeying laws that we have on the books to revoke firearm dealer licenses over simple clerical errors. This legislation is going to make that worse. This is not going to help anything. It is going to lead to more errors, more false flags, more backlogs in the NICS system. There is nothing in this bill to fix that. There is nothing in this bill to increase school safety.

“Two weeks ago, I had a very moving conversation with Pastor YJ Jimenez. He is a pastor on the ground ministering to the people of the Uvalde community who have suffered such an unspeakable loss….

“He said, You know what, we need to address the root causes of all this bloodshed. He said America’s problem is not guns. America’s problem is a heart problem. And he is exactly right.

“Today we are seeing the results of decades of decline in the secularization of American society and the open assault on our institutions: family, religion, morality, the breakdown of law and order….

“We need to address the root causes.”

Freedom First Society: Amen.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas):

“I and many other members of Congress have introduced commonsense gun safety legislation to make communities safer — over and over, year after year, Congress after Congress. Until now, we have been unable to pass any meaningful legislation.

“After more than twenty years of drafting and repeatedly introducing gun safety legislation, like my bill, the Mental Health Access and Gun Violence Prevention Act to increase access to mental health treatment and promote reporting of mental health information to the background check system, I am encouraged by the steps we are taking today but wish we did not have to lose so many lives to reach this point….

“Two weeks ago, this body proved to the American people that a compromise could be reached on sensible gun safety measures when we passed the ‘Protecting Our Kids Act.’ That legislation, which I introduced along with Chairman Jerry Nadler and Representative Mike Thompson, encompassed decades of our hard work and proved to be the catalyst for the bill we are considering today. [That bill did not get past Senate]….

“With the passage of this bill, we make a significant step forward in the fight to end gun violence. But we must keep working to find reasonable solutions to other problems that contribute to gun violence in this country that are not addressed in this bill….

“23 years after Columbine when I first began introducing gun safety legislation, and hundreds of thousands of gun deaths later, we continue to mourn the unnecessary loss of life. Enough is enough….

“The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act would inject $4.5 billion in critical funding into various state agencies and programs through the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Education to:   Expand community mental health services for children and families, and fund school-based mental health services and supports; Implement evidence-based school violence prevention efforts; and Encourage and support evidence-based, community violence intervention programs and crisis intervention services, including the implementation of vital Red Flag Laws — which have been proven to reduce the firearm suicide rates in states that have already enacted such laws.”

Freedom First Society:  Again, the campaign for civilian disarmament masquerades as a campaign to “end gun violence” and make us safer (actually, anything but safer).

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona):

“This bill infringes on the constitutionally protected rights of law-abiding Americans, and it provides funding for States to infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment rights and violate their due process rights.

“It treats 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old Americans as second-class citizens. The Ninth Circuit recently held that the Second Amendment applies to 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old Americans just like it does to Americans over the age of 21.

“This bill criminalizes routine gun transactions between law-abiding Americans.

“Justice Alito, in his concurrence, highlighted the flawed logic used by the supporters of this bill. Alito said: ‘Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atrocities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in his case obviously did not stop that perpetrator.’

“The essence of this is gun controls do not stop criminals because criminals have no regard for the law. That is the definition of a criminal.

“This bill will restrict law-abiding Americans’ ability to purchase firearms and protect themselves and their families. It violates a basic God-given right.”

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.):

“Mr. Speaker, instead of treating law-abiding citizens as if they were criminals, maybe we should start treating criminals as if they were criminals. Stop the plea bargains, put gun predators behind bars until they are old and gray, and execute the murderers.

“Those measures worked until a generation of soft-on-crime judges, woke district attorneys, and politically correct police commissioners made a mockery of our laws….

“They could come before a judge to challenge the findings in open court, submit evidence on their behalf, and face their accuser, but not under the red flag laws this bill promotes….

“Just laws hold people accountable for their own actions; unjust laws hold them accountable for other people’s actions. This is an unjust law.”

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland), House Majority Leader:  

“The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was overwhelmingly passed by the United States Senate, and which I am pleased to bring to the floor today, is a step in the right direction to take action.

“This legislation includes measures that will reduce the threat of gun violence and save lives across the country. It will help implement red flag laws that empower law enforcement officers to keep guns out of the hands of people at risk of using them to harm themselves or others. Closing the so-called boyfriend loophole in this bill will prevent people convicted of domestic abuse in a dating relationship from possessing deadly firearms. If they have displayed violence, they ought to be prohibited from getting weapons that will make mass violence more probable and possible. It will also require more thorough background checks for Americans under the age of 21 who seek to purchase a gun….

“The Court’s decision to make it even easier for bad actors to carry dangerous concealed guns without restrictions should serve as a reminder that we need to take additional active steps to protect our communities and our kids, actions that are supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people.

“If we fail to do that, if we allow this legislation to be the end instead of the beginning, parents will continue to receive that dreaded, unfathomable call that they will never see their children again, and new monuments honoring victims will continue to pop up in communities across the country.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas): 

“Do you know what?

“When our colleagues say things like what the President said, that whether it is a 9-millimeter pistol or a rifle, I am going to continue to push to eliminate the sale of those things. When it is Representative Mondaire Jones saying that semi-automatic weapons would qualify as assault weapons and these things should be banned. Or when the Democrats tweeted that semi-automatic rifles are weapons of war, then we should believe you.

“We should believe you that you want to take those weapons. That is what you are saying. That is what my colleagues are saying.

“Here is the thing: my colleagues say, oh, don’t worry, this is just money for mental health.

“Do you know what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and some academics say?

“They have put out stories talking about how supposedly conservatives are suffering from mental health issues and that Republicans have become the cult of the mentally ill.

“‘Is political conservatism a mild form of insanity?’ writes Psychology Today…. “What do you think you want to do with the mental health money? What do you think you want to do?

“You want to come after our ability to defend ourselves against the very tyranny you want to undermine by taking away the weapons we can use to defend ourselves against that tyranny. That is the purpose.

“My colleagues on this side of the aisle — the handful who are going along with it — should be ashamed of themselves because right now, today, we have a duty to stand up here and defend our right to defend ourselves against the very tyranny that you ignore.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wisconsin):

“Current extreme risk protective orders that exist in 19 States do not come close to providing adequate due process protections. We cannot support the use of taxpayer funds to implement more such unconstitutional laws without specific and ironclad assurances that due process rights will be protected.”

Rep. Thomas B. Tiffany (R-Wisconsin):

“Mr. Speaker, America does not have a gun problem. America has a crime problem.

“Mr. Speaker, law-abiding Americans do not want more laws chipping away at the Second Amendment. They do not want to see their right to bear arms eliminated on the installment plan.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colorado):

“Mr. Speaker, it is estimated that legal guns save 162,000 lives annually and prevent 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 crimes every day. By their own admission, criminals fear armed citizens more than they fear the police.

“Up to 90 percent of criminals who commit crimes with a gun do not acquire that firearm legally.”

Rep. Mark E. Green (R-Tenn.):

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this flagrantly unconstitutional gun control act. This bill is yet another attack on our God-given rights to self-defense.

“For instance, the bill would provide taxpayer dollars for State-level gun confiscations without due process….

“Our Founding Father, George Mason, who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights on which our Constitution’s Bill of Rights is based, once said: To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them.”

Rep. Ben Cline (R-Virginia): 

“I rise in defense of our Constitution today, in defense of law-abiding American citizens, and against this Senate gun control bill.

“This legislation takes the wrong approach in attempting to curb violent crimes. It turns our system of due process on its head. You will now be found guilty and your guns taken away until you can prove your innocence.

“It has vague language containing insufficient guardrails to keep guns out of the hands of criminals or prevent mass violence.”

Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Georgia):

“Now, regarding this gun control bill before us today, this bill would have done nothing to curb the actions of illegal-minded criminals intent on harming our children. But it will harm the law-abiding citizens of this great Nation by violating their Second, Fourth, Fifth, and 14th Amendments, specifically, their due process rights.”

Rep. Dan Bishop (R-North Carolina):

“The renewed assault on the Second Amendment is more than sufficient grounds to oppose this bill, but even the constitutionally permissible components repeat the terrible misjudgment that has afflicted this type of legislation for far too long.

“I have said before that you are not grappling with the issue: 60 years of targeted destruction of the American culture by the secular and postmodernist left. Foremost in that destruction has been the unrelenting assault on the family.

“So what does this ‘do something’ bill do?

“It displaces families further by building a massive new mental health delivery bureaucracy into public school agencies; it connects Medicaid and CHIP directly to schools for early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment services in schools; and it supports the provision of culturally competent and trauma-informed care in school settings.

“Washington has yet to recognize that it is the author of the devastation we confront, and Washington is still failing to grapple with the core issue. They are taking another step down the long path we have trod that has transformed America just as they want.”

Freedom First Society: Some actors recognize and intend that they are the authors of the devastation, but naturally they don’t admit it.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky):

“Almost everybody on the other side of the aisle today said, it doesn’t go far enough. What do they mean? Well, it is a red flag law bill, and they want to take all of the guns from some of the people.

“It doesn’t go far enough for them because it doesn’t yet take all of the guns from all of the people. That is their goal….

“This bill is ineffective, unconstitutional, and ill-conceived without consideration for the dangerous unintended consequences.

“Did the drafters consider that changing the definition of ‘gun dealer’ to be more ambiguous is going to make every American a gun dealer when they transfer a gun to a friend or a family member?”

Freedom First Society:  Or perhaps the consequences are intended.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Committee on the Judiciary:

“Mr. Speaker, experience has taught me when you have to say a bill is constitutional, it is probably not. When you have to say a bill adheres to due process, it probably doesn’t. And this bill certainly doesn’t…. 

“Mr. Speaker, again, I urge a ‘no’ vote on this legislation.

“Proponents say that this bill doesn’t violate due process. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“You haven’t been charged with a crime, but there is a hearing, a hearing that you are not allowed to be at. You can’t be present at a hearing where you don’t have a lawyer and a hearing where a judge can take your property.

“Again, just to underscore this, you haven’t been charged with a crime, but there is a hearing where your property and your rights are at stake.

“You are not allowed to be there; your lawyer is not allowed to be there; and you can’t confront your accuser. But they can take your gun; they can take your property; and they can take your Second Amendment liberty.

“Here is the scariest part of all: As my friend from Kentucky just pointed out, the Democrats say this is just the first step, that this doesn’t go far enough. Holy cow. So that kind of proceeding doesn’t go far enough when it comes to your Second Amendment liberties?…

“You can say all day long that it doesn’t violate due process, but as I said just a few minutes ago, every time I hear that, experience has taught me that it most certainly does. When you have to say it, it probably does. In this case, it is certainly violating due process.

“There are other problems, but for that reason alone, we should vote ‘no.’

“Again, the scariest thing of all is that they are saying: “Oh, this is just the first step. This doesn’t go far enough.” Imagine where they want to take us.

“Their beef is with the Second Amendment. They want it to go away. Don’t let it happen. I urge a ‘no’ vote.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler  (D-New York), Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary:

 “Mr. Speaker, the difference between this country and other countries is only that in this country do we have mass shootings and mass murders of children. No other country has them.”

Freedom First Society:  If so, we should reject a liberal culture that generates such criminals.  Rep. Nadler also would have us overlook mass shootings in other countries, such as one that recently occurred in a shopping mall in Copenhagen, the capitol of Denmark.  Denmark has some of the strictest gun controls of any nation in Europe.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon): 

“The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will help to protect Americans and make gun sales safer. The most effective way to protect communities from gun violence is to keep guns out of the hands of individuals who are a danger to themselves and others.”

Bill Summary:  This legislation provides funding for States to infringe our rights protected by the Second Amendment and to violate our due process guarantees. In particular, it provides funds for states to implement so-called “red flag” laws.

The bill also treats 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old Americans as second-class citizens with respect to gun purchases, and it criminalizes routine gun transactions between family members and friends.”

Congressional Research Services Summary:

Legislative Vehicle Shown Here (still on 7/3/22):
Passed House (05/18/2022)

This bill designates (1) the Federal Building and United States Courthouse located at 111 North Adams Street in Tallahassee, Florida, as the Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United States Courthouse and Federal Building; and (2) the U.S. Postal Service facility located at 120 4th Street in Petaluma, California, as the Lynn C. Woolsey Post Office Building.

Analysis: Proponents repeatedly argue that this legislation must be regarded as only a first step. Clearly, many legislators are opposed to the Second Amendment and want to ban all private gun ownership. That is a certain path to tyranny and to creating a population unable to protect itself from emboldened criminals.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will not make our communities safer. On the contrary, restricting the ability of law-abiding Americans’ to protect themselves and their families is a step toward chaos leading to government tyranny.

Gun controls do not stop criminals, because criminals have no regard for the law. But this legislation is not misguided as to its real objective. It is part of a calculatingly deceptive agenda to disarm the public by forces that seek our enslavement.

The excerpts below from the House debates on the measure reenforce our analysis.

From the Congressional Record House of Representatives (6-24-22) [Emphasis added]:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler  (D-New York), Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary:

“But today, Mr. Speaker, we take a historic first step toward ending the epidemic of gun violence in this Nation, the only developed Nation with this problem….

“This cannot be the last step, but we also cannot let another day go by without taking action to make our communities safer and to keep even one more family whole….

“This legislation includes provisions that will save many lives. Like the Protecting Our Kids Act, it includes funding to implement extreme risk protection laws and the prohibition on straw purchasing. It also strengthens background checks for those under 21, makes more sellers responsible for conducting background checks, takes steps to address the boyfriend loophole, and provides significant funding for programs that will make our communities safer.

“Today, we will send legislation to the President’s desk, for the first time in decades, that will make progress toward ending the scourge of gun violence.”

Freedom First Society:  Rep. Nadler emphasizes that this legislation “cannot be the last step” in ending “gun violence.” With other representatives (below), we see a citizen disarmament agenda whose last step is the complete prohibition of private ownership of firearms.  This would void the protection our Founding Fathers gave that right with the Second Amendment.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Committee on the Judiciary:

“But today, [Democrats] are coming after law-abiding American citizens’ Second Amendment liberties.

“Understand what this legislation does. This legislation tells States: Someone who doesn’t like you can report you to law enforcement or to a judge. There will be a hearing, a hearing where you can’t be at, your lawyer can’t be at, you can’t confront your accuser. You didn’t commit any crime, but they can take your property. They can take your guns. They can take away your Second Amendment rights. And then you have to petition to have a subsequent hearing where you get them back. That is what this legislation does.”

Freedom First Society:  Yes, but it is not a partisan problem.  Republicans are building Big Brother government, too.  The Republican Party merely postures as catering to a conservative constituency while continuing the assault, often in different areas.  Or it goes along with Democrat initiatives ostensibly reluctantly.

Remember that is was Republican President Nixon who have us the Environmental Protection Agency and that Republican President Trump negotiated the USMCA taking us down the regional government path like the EU as steppingstones to Insider-controlled world government.

The Republican Party would take a path to the same tyranny as the Democrats only a little more slowly and not always so obvious. For more than a century, the forces seeking to build big government, starting with Insiders closely associated with the international banking firm of J.P. Morgan, have had their fingers in both parties and used the partisan wrestling match to their advantage. According to Establishment historian Carroll Quigley in his monumental Tragedy and Hope, one Morgan colleague allied with the Democrats, Morgan himself and other partners supported the Republicans, and still other Morgan associates had connections with the “extreme Right” and the Left.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Speaker of the House:

 “Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a strong step forward to combat America’s epidemic of gun violence and to protect our precious children….

“All of us who have met with survivors in the wake of the tragedies have heard their message loud and clear. We must do something.

“Today, in their honor, we heed their powerful cry, sending a major gun violence prevention legislation to President Biden’s desk for signature. We send it to the President for his signature, with gratitude for his leadership on this important issue. He was the author of the Brady Law in 1994 and has been a champion ever since.

“This legislation, the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, includes several strong steps to save lives not only from horrific mass shootings, but also from the daily massacre of gun crime, suicide, and tragic accidents.

“Included in this package are two major provisions which we have championed here in the House:

“First, this bill includes significant investments to help States establish Extreme Risk Protection Order Laws, otherwise known as red flag laws….

“Secondly, this bill takes strong action to combat straw purchases, a cause Congresswoman Robin Kelly spearheaded in our Chamber. Although we hear about the notorious mass murders every day on our streets and in our country, murders take place. Doing so will make it illegal to buy guns on behalf of those who cannot legally purchase.”

Freedom First Society:  Rep. Pelosi cleverly supports the Left’s tactic to demonize the weapon (gun violence).  But guns don’t shoot people by themselves.  Instead, we have a crime problem to which government has contributed (see later).  We also have a government problem, with forces working to implement civilian disarmament and make slaves of us all.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana):

“There is a right, however, a crystal-clear right in the Constitution to keep and bear arms. But here we are today. Congress is moving full steam ahead to restrict the right to self-defense for law-abiding gun owners and the right to due process for all Americans….

“President Biden and his administration are already disobeying laws that we have on the books to revoke firearm dealer licenses over simple clerical errors. This legislation is going to make that worse. This is not going to help anything. It is going to lead to more errors, more false flags, more backlogs in the NICS system. There is nothing in this bill to fix that. There is nothing in this bill to increase school safety.

“Two weeks ago, I had a very moving conversation with Pastor YJ Jimenez. He is a pastor on the ground ministering to the people of the Uvalde community who have suffered such an unspeakable loss….

“He said, You know what, we need to address the root causes of all this bloodshed. He said America’s problem is not guns. America’s problem is a heart problem. And he is exactly right.

“Today we are seeing the results of decades of decline in the secularization of American society and the open assault on our institutions: family, religion, morality, the breakdown of law and order….

“We need to address the root causes.”

Freedom First Society: Amen.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas):

“I and many other members of Congress have introduced commonsense gun safety legislation to make communities safer — over and over, year after year, Congress after Congress. Until now, we have been unable to pass any meaningful legislation.

“After more than twenty years of drafting and repeatedly introducing gun safety legislation, like my bill, the Mental Health Access and Gun Violence Prevention Act to increase access to mental health treatment and promote reporting of mental health information to the background check system, I am encouraged by the steps we are taking today but wish we did not have to lose so many lives to reach this point….

“Two weeks ago, this body proved to the American people that a compromise could be reached on sensible gun safety measures when we passed the ‘Protecting Our Kids Act.’ That legislation, which I introduced along with Chairman Jerry Nadler and Representative Mike Thompson, encompassed decades of our hard work and proved to be the catalyst for the bill we are considering today. [That bill did not get past Senate]….

“With the passage of this bill, we make a significant step forward in the fight to end gun violence. But we must keep working to find reasonable solutions to other problems that contribute to gun violence in this country that are not addressed in this bill….

“23 years after Columbine when I first began introducing gun safety legislation, and hundreds of thousands of gun deaths later, we continue to mourn the unnecessary loss of life. Enough is enough….

“The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act would inject $4.5 billion in critical funding into various state agencies and programs through the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Education to:   Expand community mental health services for children and families, and fund school-based mental health services and supports; Implement evidence-based school violence prevention efforts; and Encourage and support evidence-based, community violence intervention programs and crisis intervention services, including the implementation of vital Red Flag Laws — which have been proven to reduce the firearm suicide rates in states that have already enacted such laws.”

Freedom First Society:  Again, the campaign for civilian disarmament masquerades as a campaign to “end gun violence” and make us safer (actually, anything but safer).

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona):

“This bill infringes on the constitutionally protected rights of law-abiding Americans, and it provides funding for States to infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment rights and violate their due process rights.

“It treats 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old Americans as second-class citizens. The Ninth Circuit recently held that the Second Amendment applies to 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old Americans just like it does to Americans over the age of 21.

“This bill criminalizes routine gun transactions between law-abiding Americans.

“Justice Alito, in his concurrence, highlighted the flawed logic used by the supporters of this bill. Alito said: ‘Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atrocities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in his case obviously did not stop that perpetrator.’

“The essence of this is gun controls do not stop criminals because criminals have no regard for the law. That is the definition of a criminal.

“This bill will restrict law-abiding Americans’ ability to purchase firearms and protect themselves and their families. It violates a basic God-given right.”

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.):

“Mr. Speaker, instead of treating law-abiding citizens as if they were criminals, maybe we should start treating criminals as if they were criminals. Stop the plea bargains, put gun predators behind bars until they are old and gray, and execute the murderers.

“Those measures worked until a generation of soft-on-crime judges, woke district attorneys, and politically correct police commissioners made a mockery of our laws….

“They could come before a judge to challenge the findings in open court, submit evidence on their behalf, and face their accuser, but not under the red flag laws this bill promotes….

“Just laws hold people accountable for their own actions; unjust laws hold them accountable for other people’s actions. This is an unjust law.”

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland), House Majority Leader:  

“The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was overwhelmingly passed by the United States Senate, and which I am pleased to bring to the floor today, is a step in the right direction to take action.

“This legislation includes measures that will reduce the threat of gun violence and save lives across the country. It will help implement red flag laws that empower law enforcement officers to keep guns out of the hands of people at risk of using them to harm themselves or others. Closing the so-called boyfriend loophole in this bill will prevent people convicted of domestic abuse in a dating relationship from possessing deadly firearms. If they have displayed violence, they ought to be prohibited from getting weapons that will make mass violence more probable and possible. It will also require more thorough background checks for Americans under the age of 21 who seek to purchase a gun….

“The Court’s decision to make it even easier for bad actors to carry dangerous concealed guns without restrictions should serve as a reminder that we need to take additional active steps to protect our communities and our kids, actions that are supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people.

“If we fail to do that, if we allow this legislation to be the end instead of the beginning, parents will continue to receive that dreaded, unfathomable call that they will never see their children again, and new monuments honoring victims will continue to pop up in communities across the country.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas): 

“Do you know what?

“When our colleagues say things like what the President said, that whether it is a 9-millimeter pistol or a rifle, I am going to continue to push to eliminate the sale of those things. When it is Representative Mondaire Jones saying that semi-automatic weapons would qualify as assault weapons and these things should be banned. Or when the Democrats tweeted that semi-automatic rifles are weapons of war, then we should believe you.

“We should believe you that you want to take those weapons. That is what you are saying. That is what my colleagues are saying.

“Here is the thing: my colleagues say, oh, don’t worry, this is just money for mental health.

“Do you know what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and some academics say?

“They have put out stories talking about how supposedly conservatives are suffering from mental health issues and that Republicans have become the cult of the mentally ill.

“‘Is political conservatism a mild form of insanity?’ writes Psychology Today…. “What do you think you want to do with the mental health money? What do you think you want to do?

“You want to come after our ability to defend ourselves against the very tyranny you want to undermine by taking away the weapons we can use to defend ourselves against that tyranny. That is the purpose.

“My colleagues on this side of the aisle — the handful who are going along with it — should be ashamed of themselves because right now, today, we have a duty to stand up here and defend our right to defend ourselves against the very tyranny that you ignore.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wisconsin):

“Current extreme risk protective orders that exist in 19 States do not come close to providing adequate due process protections. We cannot support the use of taxpayer funds to implement more such unconstitutional laws without specific and ironclad assurances that due process rights will be protected.”

Rep. Thomas B. Tiffany (R-Wisconsin):

“Mr. Speaker, America does not have a gun problem. America has a crime problem.

“Mr. Speaker, law-abiding Americans do not want more laws chipping away at the Second Amendment. They do not want to see their right to bear arms eliminated on the installment plan.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colorado):

“Mr. Speaker, it is estimated that legal guns save 162,000 lives annually and prevent 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 crimes every day. By their own admission, criminals fear armed citizens more than they fear the police.

“Up to 90 percent of criminals who commit crimes with a gun do not acquire that firearm legally.”

Rep. Mark E. Green (R-Tenn.):

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this flagrantly unconstitutional gun control act. This bill is yet another attack on our God-given rights to self-defense.

“For instance, the bill would provide taxpayer dollars for State-level gun confiscations without due process….

“Our Founding Father, George Mason, who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights on which our Constitution’s Bill of Rights is based, once said: To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them.”

Rep. Ben Cline (R-Virginia): 

“I rise in defense of our Constitution today, in defense of law-abiding American citizens, and against this Senate gun control bill.

“This legislation takes the wrong approach in attempting to curb violent crimes. It turns our system of due process on its head. You will now be found guilty and your guns taken away until you can prove your innocence.

“It has vague language containing insufficient guardrails to keep guns out of the hands of criminals or prevent mass violence.”

Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Georgia):

“Now, regarding this gun control bill before us today, this bill would have done nothing to curb the actions of illegal-minded criminals intent on harming our children. But it will harm the law-abiding citizens of this great Nation by violating their Second, Fourth, Fifth, and 14th Amendments, specifically, their due process rights.”

Rep. Dan Bishop (R-North Carolina):

“The renewed assault on the Second Amendment is more than sufficient grounds to oppose this bill, but even the constitutionally permissible components repeat the terrible misjudgment that has afflicted this type of legislation for far too long.

“I have said before that you are not grappling with the issue: 60 years of targeted destruction of the American culture by the secular and postmodernist left. Foremost in that destruction has been the unrelenting assault on the family.

“So what does this ‘do something’ bill do?

“It displaces families further by building a massive new mental health delivery bureaucracy into public school agencies; it connects Medicaid and CHIP directly to schools for early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment services in schools; and it supports the provision of culturally competent and trauma-informed care in school settings.

“Washington has yet to recognize that it is the author of the devastation we confront, and Washington is still failing to grapple with the core issue. They are taking another step down the long path we have trod that has transformed America just as they want.”

Freedom First Society: Some actors recognize and intend that they are the authors of the devastation, but naturally they don’t admit it.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky):

“Almost everybody on the other side of the aisle today said, it doesn’t go far enough. What do they mean? Well, it is a red flag law bill, and they want to take all of the guns from some of the people.

“It doesn’t go far enough for them because it doesn’t yet take all of the guns from all of the people. That is their goal….

“This bill is ineffective, unconstitutional, and ill-conceived without consideration for the dangerous unintended consequences.

“Did the drafters consider that changing the definition of ‘gun dealer’ to be more ambiguous is going to make every American a gun dealer when they transfer a gun to a friend or a family member?”

Freedom First Society:  Or perhaps the consequences are intended.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Committee on the Judiciary:

“Mr. Speaker, experience has taught me when you have to say a bill is constitutional, it is probably not. When you have to say a bill adheres to due process, it probably doesn’t. And this bill certainly doesn’t…. 

“Mr. Speaker, again, I urge a ‘no’ vote on this legislation.

“Proponents say that this bill doesn’t violate due process. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“You haven’t been charged with a crime, but there is a hearing, a hearing that you are not allowed to be at. You can’t be present at a hearing where you don’t have a lawyer and a hearing where a judge can take your property.

“Again, just to underscore this, you haven’t been charged with a crime, but there is a hearing where your property and your rights are at stake.

“You are not allowed to be there; your lawyer is not allowed to be there; and you can’t confront your accuser. But they can take your gun; they can take your property; and they can take your Second Amendment liberty.

“Here is the scariest part of all: As my friend from Kentucky just pointed out, the Democrats say this is just the first step, that this doesn’t go far enough. Holy cow. So that kind of proceeding doesn’t go far enough when it comes to your Second Amendment liberties?…

“You can say all day long that it doesn’t violate due process, but as I said just a few minutes ago, every time I hear that, experience has taught me that it most certainly does. When you have to say it, it probably does. In this case, it is certainly violating due process.

“There are other problems, but for that reason alone, we should vote ‘no.’

“Again, the scariest thing of all is that they are saying: “Oh, this is just the first step. This doesn’t go far enough.” Imagine where they want to take us.

“Their beef is with the Second Amendment. They want it to go away. Don’t let it happen. I urge a ‘no’ vote.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler  (D-New York), Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary:

 “Mr. Speaker, the difference between this country and other countries is only that in this country do we have mass shootings and mass murders of children. No other country has them.”

Freedom First Society:  If so, we should reject a liberal culture that generates such criminals.  Rep. Nadler also would have us overlook mass shootings in other countries, such as one that recently occurred in a shopping mall in Copenhagen, the capitol of Denmark.  Denmark has some of the strictest gun controls of any nation in Europe.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon): 

“The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will help to protect Americans and make gun sales safer. The most effective way to protect communities from gun violence is to keep guns out of the hands of individuals who are a danger to themselves and others.”

Bill Summary:  As we write, the Congressional Research Services still hasn’t updated its summary from the bill’s vehicle: the Haiti Development, Accountability, and Institutional Transparency Initiative Act.  So read our analysis.

Freedom First Society Analysis:  The leaders of either party were not chosen because they would pursue limited constitutional government.  And they don’t.

At a bare minimum, good government demands the accountability of regular order —  separate votes on the 12 individual appropriations bills.  Instead, combining the bills encourages support for greater and unconstitutional spending as promoted by party leaders.

Congress certainly has time for 12 separate votes, despite convenient deadline pressure driving compromise.  Responsible congressmen should insist on separate votes and vote no on omnibus or minibus appropriations.

What a way to run a government!  The federal government’s fiscal year doesn’t start until October 1 of the preceding calendar year, giving Congress nine months, ostensibly enough time, to do the appropriations work.  But apparently the federal government has grown so large, or Congress has otherwise become so slow, that nine months no longer suffice.  Congress needed in excess of 14 months this time to get its act together, including almost half of the 2022 fiscal year.  (Further evidence that the federal monster needs to be put on a diet to reduce its size.)

Worse yet, all the work is stuffed into a last-minute omnibus, eliminating effective accountability. Many congressmen are apparently pleased that constituents let them get way with passing legislation that can get little voter scrutiny. The omnibus measure also makes it easy for lawmakers to attach unrelated measures known in appropriations parlance as “ash and trash.”

Some senators objected properly that $13.6 billion in emergency “supplemental appropriations” for Ukraine aid should have been considered separately rather than being used to stampede regular appropriations.

Congressmen in both parties also found it advantageous to reintroduce “earmarks,” after an 11-year absence, to reward their constituents with over 4,000 special projects.  According to The Hill (3-10-22): “Some of the earmarks provide millions of dollars more than what the Biden administration requested. [For example,] [t]he omnibus includes $5.9 million for Dunkirk Harbor on Lake Erie, $5 million more than the $680,000 requested by the administration.”

No Respect for Constitutional Limits
But the worst feature of the appropriations omnibus is the lack of any emphasis by congressmen in either party on returning to constitutional limits. Instead, the argument between the two parties is over parity between increases to defense (GOP) and non-defense (Democrats) spending.

Of course, there is huge unconstitutional spending in the non-defense area that needs to be rolled back. This package included a 6.7% increase in non-defense spending compared to FY2021.  According to The Hill (3-9-22): “Democrats are touting the package for having the biggest increase to nondefense discretionary spending in four years, with historic funding boosts for education, science, research and development, and climate change.’

Clearly, voters must be much better informed and organized if they are to obtain a Congress that will reign in the federal monster and preserve freedom.

CBSnews.com (3-9-22) reported, “White House Acting Budget Director Shalanda Young urged Congress to send the legislation to Mr. Biden for his signature ‘without delay.’ ‘The bipartisan funding bill is proof that both parties can come together to deliver for the American people and advance critical national priorities,’ she said in a statement.”

No, the bipartisan bill is proof that Congress is not controlled by the American people to their benefit. Congress is marching to a different tune under cover of collectivist propaganda, i.e., the ruse that government leadership is necessary for any significant progress in society.

Rather than progress, we are witnessing the destructive impact of government. We need congressmen who will work to get government off our backs and out of our pockets rather than giving us another government program.

Bill Summary:  As we write, the Congressional Research Services still hasn’t updated its summary from the bill’s vehicle: the Haiti Development, Accountability, and Institutional Transparency Initiative Act.  So read our analysis.

Freedom First Society Analysis:  The leaders of either party were not chosen because they would pursue limited constitutional government.  And they don’t.

At a bare minimum, good government demands the accountability of regular order —  separate votes on the 12 individual appropriations bills.  Instead, combining the bills encourages support for greater and unconstitutional spending as promoted by party leaders.

Congress certainly has time for 12 separate votes, despite convenient deadline pressure driving compromise.  Responsible congressmen should insist on separate votes and vote no on omnibus or minibus appropriations.

What a way to run a government!  The federal government’s fiscal year doesn’t start until October 1 of the preceding calendar year, giving Congress nine months, ostensibly enough time, to do the appropriations work.  But apparently the federal government has grown so large, or Congress has otherwise become so slow, that nine months no longer suffice.  Congress needed in excess of 14 months this time to get its act together, including almost half of the 2022 fiscal year.  (Further evidence that the federal monster needs to be put on a diet to reduce its size.)

Worse yet, all the work is stuffed into a last-minute omnibus, eliminating effective accountability. Many congressmen are apparently pleased that constituents let them get way with passing legislation that can get little voter scrutiny. The omnibus measure also makes it easy for lawmakers to attach unrelated measures known in appropriations parlance as “ash and trash.”

Some senators objected properly that $13.6 billion in emergency “supplemental appropriations” for Ukraine aid should have been considered separately rather than being used to stampede regular appropriations.

Congressmen in both parties also found it advantageous to reintroduce “earmarks,” after an 11-year absence, to reward their constituents with over 4,000 special projects.  According to The Hill (3-10-22): “Some of the earmarks provide millions of dollars more than what the Biden administration requested. [For example,] [t]he omnibus includes $5.9 million for Dunkirk Harbor on Lake Erie, $5 million more than the $680,000 requested by the administration.”

No Respect for Constitutional Limits
But the worst feature of the appropriations omnibus is the lack of any emphasis by congressmen in either party on returning to constitutional limits. Instead, the argument between the two parties is over parity between increases to defense (GOP) and non-defense (Democrats) spending.

Of course, there is huge unconstitutional spending in the non-defense area that needs to be rolled back. This package included a 6.7% increase in non-defense spending compared to FY2021.  According to The Hill (3-9-22): “Democrats are touting the package for having the biggest increase to nondefense discretionary spending in four years, with historic funding boosts for education, science, research and development, and climate change.’

Clearly, voters must be much better informed and organized if they are to obtain a Congress that will reign in the federal monster and preserve freedom.

CBSnews.com (3-9-22) reported, “White House Acting Budget Director Shalanda Young urged Congress to send the legislation to Mr. Biden for his signature ‘without delay.’ ‘The bipartisan funding bill is proof that both parties can come together to deliver for the American people and advance critical national priorities,’ she said in a statement.”

No, the bipartisan bill is proof that Congress is not controlled by the American people to their benefit. Congress is marching to a different tune under cover of collectivist propaganda, i.e., the ruse that government leadership is necessary for any significant progress in society.

Rather than progress, we are witnessing the destructive impact of government. We need congressmen who will work to get government off our backs and out of our pockets rather than giving us another government program.

CRS Summary:
Not immediately available.  The 2,741 page package was released early morning, ahead of the House vote.  Most reps were unaware of all that was in the recently negotiated package. For the bill’s Division 1 (Defense, etc.), which we are not scoring, much of the discussion regarded bipartisan support for $13.6 billion in emergency aid to the Ukraine.

Freedom First Society Analysis:  Good government demands the accountability of regular order —  separate votes on the 12 individual appropriations bills.  Instead, combining the bills encourages support for greater and unconstitutional spending.

The House certainly has time for 12 separate votes, despite deadline pressure driving compromise.  Responsible congressmen should insist on separate votes and vote no on omnibus or minibus appropriations. In July of last year, House Democrats, over GOP objection, passed nine of the bills by regular order, but their bloated appropriations bills went nowhere in the Senate.

The House, this time, took up a FY2022 omnibus in two pieces, using a procedure known as dividing the question. This allowed representatives to vote on a portion consisting of the Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Homeland Security spending bills plus the defense portions of the Ukraine supplemental, intelligence authorization and the Israel relations measure, separately from the rest of the package.  The two parts were then combined before sending the omnibus to the senate.

What a way to run a government!  The federal government’s fiscal year doesn’t start until October 1 of the preceding calendar year, giving Congress nine months, ostensibly enough time, to do the appropriations work.  But apparently the federal government has grown so large, or Congress has otherwise become so slow, that nine months no longer suffice.  Congress needed in excess of 14 months this time to get its act together, almost half of the 2022 fiscal year.  (Further evidence that the federal monster needs to be put on a diet to reduce its size.)

Worse yet, all the work is stuffed into a last-minute omnibus, eliminating effective accountability. Many congressmen are apparently pleased that constituents let them get way with passing legislation that can get little voter scrutiny. The omnibus measure also makes it easy for lawmakers to attach unrelated measures known in appropriations parlance as “ash and trash.”

Congressmen in both parties also found it advantageous to reintroduce “earmarks,” after an 11-year absence, to reward their constituents with over 4,000 special projects (more than $4.2 billion for representatives). According to The Hill (3-10-22): “Some of the earmarks provide millions of dollars more than what the Biden administration requested. [For example,] [t]he omnibus includes $5.9 million for Dunkirk Harbor on Lake Erie, $5 million more than the $680,000 requested by the administration.”

No Respect for Constitutional Limits
But the worst feature of the appropriations omnibus is the lack of any emphasis by congressmen in either party on returning to constitutional limits. Instead, the argument between the two parties is over parity between increases in defense (GOP) and non-defense (Democrats) spending.

Of course, there is huge unconstitutional spending in the non-defense area that needs to be rolled back. This package included a 6.7% increase in non-defense spending compared to FY2021.  According to The Hill (3-9-22): “Democrats are touting the package for having the biggest increase to nondefense discretionary spending in four years, with historic funding boosts for education, science, research and development, and climate change.’

Clearly, voters must be much better informed and organized if they are to obtain a Congress that will reign in the federal monster and preserve freedom.

CBSnews.com (3-9-22) reported, “White House Acting Budget Director Shalanda Young urged Congress to send the legislation to Mr. Biden for his signature ‘without delay.’ ‘The bipartisan funding bill is proof that both parties can come together to deliver for the American people and advance critical national priorities,’ she said in a statement.”

No, the bipartisan bill is proof that Congress is not controlled by the American people to their benefit. Congress is marching under cover of collectivist propaganda — the ruse that government leadership is necessary for any significant progress in society.

Rather than progress, we are witnessing the destructive impact of government. We need congressmen who will work to get government off our backs and out of our pockets rather than giving us another government program.

CRS Summary:
Not immediately available.  The 2,741 page package was released early morning, ahead of the House vote.  Most reps were unaware of all that was in the recently negotiated package. For the bill’s Division 1 (Defense, etc.), which we are not scoring, much of the discussion regarded bipartisan support for $13.6 billion in emergency aid to the Ukraine.

Freedom First Society Analysis:  Good government demands the accountability of regular order —  separate votes on the 12 individual appropriations bills.  Instead, combining the bills encourages support for greater and unconstitutional spending.

The House certainly has time for 12 separate votes, despite deadline pressure driving compromise.  Responsible congressmen should insist on separate votes and vote no on omnibus or minibus appropriations. In July of last year, House Democrats, over GOP objection, passed nine of the bills by regular order, but their bloated appropriations bills went nowhere in the Senate.

The House, this time, took up a FY2022 omnibus in two pieces, using a procedure known as dividing the question. This allowed representatives to vote on a portion consisting of the Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Homeland Security spending bills plus the defense portions of the Ukraine supplemental, intelligence authorization and the Israel relations measure, separately from the rest of the package.  The two parts were then combined before sending the omnibus to the senate.

What a way to run a government!  The federal government’s fiscal year doesn’t start until October 1 of the preceding calendar year, giving Congress nine months, ostensibly enough time, to do the appropriations work.  But apparently the federal government has grown so large, or Congress has otherwise become so slow, that nine months no longer suffice.  Congress needed in excess of 14 months this time to get its act together, almost half of the 2022 fiscal year.  (Further evidence that the federal monster needs to be put on a diet to reduce its size.)

Worse yet, all the work is stuffed into a last-minute omnibus, eliminating effective accountability. Many congressmen are apparently pleased that constituents let them get way with passing legislation that can get little voter scrutiny. The omnibus measure also makes it easy for lawmakers to attach unrelated measures known in appropriations parlance as “ash and trash.”

Congressmen in both parties also found it advantageous to reintroduce “earmarks,” after an 11-year absence, to reward their constituents with over 4,000 special projects (more than $4.2 billion for representatives). According to The Hill (3-10-22): “Some of the earmarks provide millions of dollars more than what the Biden administration requested. [For example,] [t]he omnibus includes $5.9 million for Dunkirk Harbor on Lake Erie, $5 million more than the $680,000 requested by the administration.”

No Respect for Constitutional Limits
But the worst feature of the appropriations omnibus is the lack of any emphasis by congressmen in either party on returning to constitutional limits. Instead, the argument between the two parties is over parity between increases in defense (GOP) and non-defense (Democrats) spending.

Of course, there is huge unconstitutional spending in the non-defense area that needs to be rolled back. This package included a 6.7% increase in non-defense spending compared to FY2021.  According to The Hill (3-9-22): “Democrats are touting the package for having the biggest increase to nondefense discretionary spending in four years, with historic funding boosts for education, science, research and development, and climate change.’

Clearly, voters must be much better informed and organized if they are to obtain a Congress that will reign in the federal monster and preserve freedom.

CBSnews.com (3-9-22) reported, “White House Acting Budget Director Shalanda Young urged Congress to send the legislation to Mr. Biden for his signature ‘without delay.’ ‘The bipartisan funding bill is proof that both parties can come together to deliver for the American people and advance critical national priorities,’ she said in a statement.”

No, the bipartisan bill is proof that Congress is not controlled by the American people to their benefit. Congress is marching under cover of collectivist propaganda — the ruse that government leadership is necessary for any significant progress in society.

Rather than progress, we are witnessing the destructive impact of government. We need congressmen who will work to get government off our backs and out of our pockets rather than giving us another government program.

Congressional Research Services Summary:
Shown Here:
Passed House (02/08/2022)

Further Additional Extending Government Funding Act

This bill provides continuing FY2022 appropriations for federal agencies and extends several expiring authorities.

Specifically, the bill provides continuing FY2022 appropriations to federal agencies through the earlier of March 11, 2022, or the enactment of the applicable appropriations act.

It is known as a continuing resolution (CR) and prevents a government shutdown that would otherwise occur if the FY2022 appropriations bills have not been enacted when the existing CR expires on February 18, 2022.

The CR funds most programs and activities at the FY2021 levels with several exceptions that provide funding flexibility or additional appropriations for various programs. For example, the CR includes provisions that address

• the President’s authority to draw down defense articles and services to respond to unforeseen emergencies,
• procurement of the Columbia-class submarine,
• the Department of Defense’s response to the contamination of drinking water near the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in Hawaii, and
• the Department of the Interior’s implementation of enterprise cybersecurity safeguards.

The bill also extends several expiring authorities, including

• the authority for the Department of Health and Human Services to make certain appointments for the National Disaster Medical System,
• the special assessment under the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 on nonindigent people or entities convicted of certain criminal offenses (e.g., sexual abuse and trafficking),
• the temporary scheduling order issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration to place fentanyl-related substances in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, and
• the current Medicaid federal matching rate (also known as the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage or FMAP) for certain territories.

Freedom Society Analysis:  Fiscal year 2021 ended on September 30th.  Fiscal year 2021 appropriations included massive unconstitutional programs and spending.  No representative, respecting his oath to obey the Constitution, should vote to extend such spending, unless a serious plan to begin rolling back such spending was imminent (which it was not). This is the third such transgression, extending FY 2021 level of spending until March 11, 2022 (unless appropriation enacted earlier, which they will not be).

We would like to post some comments here from the recorded debate, but there don’t appear to be any that are germane.  All time was taken in discussing failed amendments dealing with extraneous subjects such as vaccine mandates.  Apparently, CRs are business as usual and not worthy of comment, even though 27 senators voted Nay.