Larry Pratt's Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Crime
Gun Owners of America urges the Congress to repeal the Brady Registration Law. H.R. 2721, "The Second Amendment Restoration Act," will truly bury the threat of unconstitutional taxes and gun owner registration that is inherent in the Brady Instant Check.
There are other bills that, in some ways, will take us closer to removing the unconstitutional yoke that
has been placed around gun owners' necks. And thus, for the sake of comparison, two bills that deal with the
dismantling of the Brady Law are listed below:
| Rescinding the Brady Registration Check |
H.R. 2721 (Paul) |
H.R. 3949 (Barr) |
|---|---|---|
| Repeal the illegal Brady tax1 | Yes | Yes |
| Definitively stop the registration of gun owners 2 | Yes | ? |
| End the harassment of long-gun buyers3 | Yes | No |
| Stop the BATF from collecting Social Security Numbers of gun owners4 | Yes | No |
| Preclude the "instant" check from becoming a three day check5 | Yes | No |
1 Congress has appropriated virtually unlimited funds to build the National Police Computer known as NCIC. The citizen-checking portion passed under the Brady law has its own allotment of $200 million. Despite this, the "authorities" plan to tax the public for each use, but only if local police aren't cooperating-- states with FBI-approved police departments will pay no tax. The tax is imposed by the FBI, although issued as a BATF regulation, a concept that raises its own disturbing concerns. There is no authority for the tax in Brady Part 1 or Part 2. Both bills would end this illegal tax.
2 H.R. 2721 stops gun owner registration by repealing the Brady Law in its entirety. H.R. 3949 contains language to stop this registration and to criminalize violations. But H.R. 3949 does not stop background checks from taking place; and that could still allow an open door. As long as government authorities have to check out gun buyers before the purchase of a firearm, the POTENTIAL for creating a registration list will always exist. As stated by the Justice Department in 1989, "Any system that requires a criminal history record check prior to purchase of a firearm creates the potential for the automated tracking of individuals who seek to purchase firearms."
Indeed, there have been several recent examples of privacy abuses that have occurred both at the federal and state levels-- all without reprisals or official sanctions. For example, under the Brady Law (Part I), some states-- including Ohio and Texas-- were shown to be keeping lists of gun buyers. To date, no prosecutions have resulted. At the federal level, the FBI abused the privacy of about 900 individuals in what has become known as "Filegate." No prosecutions have ensued.
Regardless of whether gun owners' names are officially allowed to be kept for 24 hours (as under H.R. 3949) or for 18 months (as per the FBI regulations), can anyone really be sure the names of gun buyers will not indefinitely remain on a back-up disk somewhere?
3 Part II of the Brady Law forces buyers of long-guns to go through the background check as well. H.R. 2721 is the only bill that ends background checks on both handgun buyers AND long-gun buyers.
4 In February, the BATF made it clear in their proposed regulations that they want gun dealers to collect the Social Security Numbers of gun buyers. H.R. 2721-- by repealing this onerous law-- would stop the BATF from collecting this "registration" information. Brady registration checks would still continue under H.R. 3949.
5 The BATF regulations make it clear that the feds will have "up to three business days" to respond to each background check request. Since weekends are not typically considered business days, the "three business days" can easily impose a five day waiting period for weekend gun sales-- or a six day waiting period if there is a holiday on a Friday or Monday. This would adversely impact all gun dealer sales at all weekend gun shows. Once again, repealing the entire law (as H.R. 2721 does) eliminates this problem.