Just passed today in the House, H.R. 1446: “Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021.”
Currently, if you buy a gun from a firearms dealer you need to complete a background check. Normally that takes a matter of seconds… your criminal record, if any, is in government computers and shouldn’t take but a split second to pull up. Current law gives the government three days to complete the check, for reasons which are inexplicable; as previously stated, it should take less time than it takes to google “background check.” Back when i lived in Utah, you could go to a gun store or a gun show, find what you wanted, fork over your cash, fill out your paperwork, wait a minute while the dealer calls up the FBI and gets the go ahead… then you collect your new firearm and wander away, a happy citizen.
But H.R. 1446 turns that maximum of three day waiting period into a *minimum* twelve day waiting period. From the summary of the bill:
This bill revises background check requirements applicable to proposed firearm transfers from a federal firearms licensee (e.g., a licensed gun dealer) to an unlicensed person.
Specifically, it increases the amount of time, from 3 business days to a minimum of 10 business days, that a federal firearms licensee must wait to receive a completed background check prior to transferring a firearm to an unlicensed person. (This type of transaction is often referred to as a default proceed transaction.)
If a submitted background check remains incomplete after 10 business days, then the prospective purchaser may submit a petition for a final firearms eligibility determination. If an additional 10 days elapse without a final determination, then the federal firearms licensee may transfer the firearm to the prospective purchaser.
This will largely end gun shows in free states like Utah, since customers will know that they will not be walking out with the product they want. And even for gun stores, the chances are good that it will take a full month (20 business days is four weeks for Monday through Friday… not counting the innumerable Federal holidays) before the bureaucrats get around to giving the go-ahead. It is a safe bet that this process will be used to slow down the firearms business as much as possible… the system that works just fine now in a matter of seconds will very likely be throttled to make sure that it takes as long as governmentally possible. Doubtless the post-ten-day petitioning process will be a nightmare… un-navigable websites, or the requirement to physically fill out paperwork that you can’t actually physically get. I can see the petitioning process requiring the gun buyer to send a physical letter to some distant Federal facility to request the paperwork; it’ll take days for the postal system to get the letter there, it’ll take days for the letter to get processed through the doubtless grossly overloaded front office staffed by people who were suspended from the DMV for working too slowly, it’ll take days more for the postal system to send the buyer the paperwork. Once received, the paperwork will be an incomprehensible mass of gobbledygook, a crummy novella of plot holes and spelling errors. The buyer will spend days trying to fill it out, collecting required data from sources around the country. The post office will spend more days sending it where it needs to go, to face another set of DMV rejects… who will be specially trained to find the flaws in the paperwork, the trick questions that either mean the paperwork is sent back to the petitioner to do over again (after a suitable waiting period)… or just outright rejected. That second ten-day waiting period refers to the period *after* the petition has been received. And it’s clearly possible for the Feds to make sure that it takes a buyer *weeks* to get the petition sent in. Hell, the easiest thing in the world for them to do is simply not set up a petition process. If there’s no way for you to petition… you *can’t* petition.
The lying authoritarian anti-American scumbags who sponsored this bill claim that it will “strengthen” the background check process.” They say this without explaining why the current system is somehow insufficient. The bill now goes to the Senate where it may or may not pass. If it does pass, obviously China’s best buddy will sign the bill into law. At that point a 120 day clock will start ticking down until the law comes into effect. By that point the $1400 “stimulus” payments should have been received. I hope everyone takes that money and that 120 days to go out and buy as many guns as possible.
Alternatively: use your stimulus funds to procure the hardware needed to machine proper firearms or firearm components. Ten people working together would have $12,000 worth of machine tools. I suspect that’s quite sufficient to set up a workshop that will convert plain blocks of aluminum, steel or even titanium into AR-15 receivers.