‘‘Federal Firearm Licensing Act’’

Introduced by Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

Except as provided in subsection (d), it shall be unlawful for any individual to purchase or receive a firearm unless the individual has a valid Federal firearm license.

The license will be issued if the Attorney General feels like issuing it, only after the prospective gin owner has completed a lengthy, inconvenient and expensive series of bureaucratic red tape procedures. And even then, the license will only be for *one* gun (the serial number of which will be recorded with the Feds, thus creating a Federal gun registry, just the thing for when they decide to confiscate), and only last for five years. So you’ll have to spend probably around a thousand dollars every five years for each firearm you own.

This does not *technically* strip a person of their right to keep and bear arms, but it *effectively* will do so. For starters, a vast number of people won’t be able to take time off from work to drive the fifty miles to take a multi-day series of classes and tests, nor will they be able to pay the exorbitant fees. They certainly won’t be able to do this every five years for a number of guns. And since issuing the license will be at the discretion of the Feds, *after* the prospective gun owner has lost work and spent money, receiving the license will doubtless end up being a matter of who you know, how politically connected you are, how skilled you are at greasing palms.

This new law would require that this process be carried out for private transfers as well, including gifts and inheritance. You will no longer be able to sell your shotgun to your neighbor; you’ll have to go through the process *and* transfer the firearm through a federal firearms dealer, often many miles away.

What’s better: for each license, the prospective gun owner will need a background check. In the list of things that would automatically strip you of the right to such a license is included this nugget:

any recent acquisition of firearms, ammunition, or other deadly weapons

You will be barred from buying a gun if you’ve recently bought *ammunition.*