Short Stuff: HR8 Gun Legislation

the Bipartisan Background Checks Act. It is a bill that originated in the House in the United States to try and close loopholes on gun purchase background checks. And uh, we thought this might be a good way to dip our toe into the gun debate after the events at Valdi and uh, here we go. Yeah, the the you've all the shooting is definitely if you've paid any attention, what's over to the news really kind of breathed some um energy into the concept of background checks and some

bills that were already out there, like that HR eight. Um, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act one was introduced in March, and now all of a sudden, it seems like it's got some legs like it didn't have before because of that shooting, which is surprising to me, Chuck, because like, we didn't do anything after Sandy Hook somehow, I don't know. Maybe two is too many now, Um, who knows, But it does seem like the zeitgeist is kind of shifted after you've all the Yeah, I think so. Uh, just

nuts and bolts of the bill. It passed the US House, uh, like you said last March to two oh three, but of course died in the Senate, as so many bills do, because it gets filibustered by the Republican Party and they won't even talk about it. And there's a fifty fifty chamber right now. We want to thank Patrick Kaiger at how stuff works for this uh, for this Newsy article again, and um, you know, Democrat wanted to. I think they were hopeful that they could at least put it on

the UH Senate Democrats on the legislative calendar. That has not happened. But let's talk for a minute on how people buy guns in the US. Hey, UM, So when you buy a gun, especially if you buy a gun from a federally licensed gun dealer, Um, they say, here, fill out this form, and this form is submitted to the National instant criminal background check system, and it has a bunch of different questions on it, rather personal questions, but they make sense when you're buying a gun in

that context. They say, have you ever been indicted for a felony, have you ever been convicted of a felony UM? Have you ever used drugs? Um? Have you ever been committed to a mental institution by a court order? Or have you ever been dishonorably discharged by the military. Have you been convicted of domestic violence? Are you a legal

resident of the US? Are You're gonna fill this out and then the fire armstealers going to turn around, contact the FBI, s n i c S Service and they're going to run a background check on you, that's right, and see if everything checks out and if you are eligible to buy that gun. This was created in with the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act because if we all remember, after UH Ronald Reagan had an assassination attempt on his life, there was gun legislation and they actually did something back

then about it, including Ronald Reagan and Republicans. Well, yeah, because Brady was one of his staffers and he was paralyzed UM as a result of that that assassination attempt, and so any any gun control legislation that came after that usually bears his name. That's right. We are in a different place these days. It's a different um Republican party and Savir emails. We're not just picking on one party over the other. This is just straight up facts

on how these bills go down. UM a lot of people and eventually we're going to get around to an

n r A episode in full. I guess a lot of people will a lot of people will blame the n r A, But I personally believe, and I've seen articles sort of backing this up these days that like the n r A has already sort of done its job, and even if they went away completely, things would still be about the same, because what they have created is a situation where a more moderate Republican who might be in favor of common sense gun legislation that anywhere from

sixty nine of Americans are in favor of UH won't even consider this legislation because they want to hold onto office because they will get primaried out by a further right Republican who says, I will not touch any gun legislation, So vote for me, and that's kind of where we are today. So so back to background checks like that and i c S service UM started. Um, there just wasn't background checks before then. And since then they've done

three hundred million plus background checks for gun purchases. So that means that at least three hundred million guns have been sold legitimately since in the US, and that out of those three hundred million, chuck one point five million were flagged and were denied um that the ability to purchase that firearm because they didn't pass the n i c S background check. And so on the one side, a lot of people say one point five million out

of three hundred that's pretty good math. On the other side, they say, yeah, like a bunch of that one point five million people were denied unfairly. There was, it was ungrounded and there is a process to appeal your denial if you are actually denied. But the point is is society is saying there are certain kinds of people that we don't trust with firearms, and we're trying to root them out. In the best place to root them out

is when they go to buy a gun. It makes sense, but there's a loophole to this that is so huge that anybody, including convictive felons, can walk right through it and purchase a gun on the other side. That's right, We're gonna take a break, let you ponder that ridiculousness, and we will talk about that loophole right after this, all right. The big loophole is that there is a lot of gray area of what constitutes a licensed or

a non licensed gun dealer. Uh. They talk about occasional sales or purchases being exempt from the background check requirement, and there is no real clear line establishing what that even means. It's a rule of thumb. It's very vague. Uh that someone who just sells a lot of guns and they want to make their living selling guns or make a profit selling guns. Yeah, not even make a living, make a profit selling guns, has to be licensed to

conduct these background checks. But you've heard about gun shows and the internet and things like that. If you sell guns at a gun show, you can claim to not be like, you know, like, hey, I'm just an occasional seller. I just go to these gun shows and sell tons and tons of guns for profit. And that enables people to walk in there and buy a gun without having any kind of background check. Yeah, so if you sell guns,

you're still selling a gun. But if you say I only do it occasionally, the government basically has to say, Okay, well you don't need a license, and there's no requisite, there's no definition, there's no Like you said, it's a very great area on what constitutes occasional or who who's required to have a federal license. But if you aren't a federally licensed gun dealer, that means that you can go sell a gun without doing a background check. Right,

And uh, that's the most recent stat we have. Uh, they estimated gun owners bought their weapon within the previous couple of years without going through a background check. It is undoubtedly bigger now because whenever there are mass shootings, there is a rush on buying guns in the United States. Uh, people don't back off from buying them, they buy more of them. So I don't know what the percentages now, but if even if we go with that's a lot

of people buying guns without a background check. So if you're a person who you know that you are going to be like you're going to be flagged by the n i c S background check, all you have to do is find yourself a gun show, or go on the internet and find somebody who's selling guns on the internet and buy from an unlicensed firearm dealer, and that that ends up. And like I said, like with background checks, were saying, society doesn't want certain people to have We

don't we don't trust them with firearms. And one of those people are again convicted felons. They're not legally allowed to own a firearm in the United States after they've been convicted of a felony, unless I believe that there um, they are granted clemency by the president or the governor. Right.

So um, there's a kind of an unnerving stat then that that ties into that, and that is that in that same two thousand, fifteen Annals of Internal Medicine study, they found that nineties of prison inmates who had been previously prohibited from owning a gun and that that was the gun that they used in the crime that they were in prison for. Now they'd obtain that gun from an unlicensed seller. And that is a big problem for every law abiding citizen of these United States, right, and

every law abiding gun owner. Frankly the citizens too. That's right, if you are a UM, if you're thinking like, well, there should be exceptions to this, like you should be able to hand your gun down to your child if you're a hunter, or sell your gun to your uncle, if you know, instead of them having to go to a gun shop. They can do that. They have carved out some exceptions in h R eight that still hasn't passed. UM.

Law enforcement obviously could transfer guns without background checks. Family members could gift them to family members or sell them to family members. You could inherit a gun without a background check, or like in the movies, if the zombies are coming in and you throw somebody the gun and they go, I don't know how to use this thing, and they say, just pointed at them and squeeze the trigger. You can even do that, uh, and not have to, you know, face a penalty as long as after the

zombies are are killed off, they say, here's your gun back. Right, Because anybody can agree the zombies would get to you and eat your brain during the background check process. It's not that fast, so they carved it out, especially if there's a ten day waiting period, which is another House bill that might be voted on in the Senate soon along with HR eight, Right, um, this is not And when it comes to polling the American public, this isn't something where it's like, oh, it's it's like fifty six

percent in favor of UH. Pole after pole comes in April. Uh, can a PIAC University poll? Can it? PIAC? How do you pronounce that? Can? Can a pack? Okay, it's one of those eight nine percent of Americans favored universal or nearly universal background checks. Pole in March from Morning consult h including seventy seven percent of voting Republicans, and then a gallop pole the CRIM deal, a CRIM of poles UH found that Americans favored mandatory background checks by to seven.

The role of our elected officials is supposedly to act on their constituents desires. But again this is not happening because of the things that I mentioned earlier. Now and again I think it really bears repeating. There's nothing about closing the guns show loophole for background checks that is taking guns from people who have guns, preventing um UH legal law abiding citizens from buying as many guns as

they want under the law. It's simply saying we're going to shut down this huge loophole that allows people who shouldn't have guns to go buy guns as many as they like. Um, And yeah, that's just common sense, that's extremely mainstream thinking. And it doesn't violate the constitutional rights given by the Second Amendment in any way, shape or form. And again it has the backing of the public. And so again it's a it's about to go die in public. They actually tied a blindfold around it and gave it

a last cigarette as they're shoving it out into the Senate. Um, and it's just not going to go anywhere. But Joe manchin Um apparently was quoted as saying he believes that the Uvaldi shooting is going to is going to impel the Senate to actually start cutting deals and that something will get past, even if it's not exactly hr eight. Yeah, I'm reading this on an hourly basis, and there are

bipartisan talks that seem promising. Uh, so we'll see, I mean I read uh some someone in Congress was quoted as saying, like, I've been here for many years and I've never seen this, this genuine bar bipartisan conversation about this in my life and my whole career. So it does feel like things might be a little different now, but yeah, we'll see. It's also possible that nothing will

change again. I know it's hard to even talk about quiet Slee, and I don't think anyone is fool enough to think that this and other gun legislation laws will completely stop something like a mass shooting or in gun violence. But it is something that can help curb these horrific acts. And these these people in the Senate will have to live with themselves for the rest of their lives if they continue to sit on their hands. For sure, I agreed. Uh,

you got anything else, Chuck? Nothing? Well, since Chuck said nothing, short Stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.