By Paul Lathrop | Contributing Editor
We knew it was coming, and on Tuesday, Democrats in both the U.S. House and Senate introduced legislation that would begin the process of restricting Americans’ ability to keep and bear arms.
The legislation, entitled the “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021,” has a stated purpose of requiring a federal background check for every firearm sold in the United States.
According to Vice, the bill would “require a background check on all firearm sales. Under the current law, only licensed gun dealers must perform background checks for those looking to purchase a firearm. That excludes gun sales from unlicensed gun dealers, gun shows, or online retailers.”
Here is the catch. Online sales of firearms do currently require a federal background check to be legal.
TGM spoke with Cheryl Todd, who, along with her husband Danny Todd, are the owners of AZ Firearms near Phoenix, Arizona.
“The process is that the firearm is shipped from one FFL (Federal Firearms Licensee) that would be a store like myself to another FFL of that persons choosing in that persons’ state,” Todd explained about the process of buying a firearm from an online retailer. “That person then goes into their local FFL, does the 4473 paperwork, goes through the background check, and it’s the exact same process as if they had walked into any store where then the FBI background check gets the release gives them the go-ahead, the delay, or the deny. So the statement that people are just mailing guns off to other people’s homes, that is simply not legal and not happening to my awareness.”
Even more alarming in the Vice article is Democratic Whip Jim Clyborn’s statement that he plans to introduce legislation that would close the so-called “Charleston loophole.” The current law states that an FFL may release a firearm after three days if the federal background check is not completed.
Should the time for completing a background check be extended indefinitely, the only thing necessary to essentially stop the transfer of firearms would be to not fully staff the FBI department that processes the background checks, thereby grinding the release of firearms sales to a near halt.
We have seen instances in the application for concealed carry permits where a process that should take days has in some cases extended into many months, as in the Wayne County, Michigan case where the wait to get an appointment for a permit recently stretched out to nine months, according to WJBK News in Detroit. That is something that could become a reality while purchasing a firearm should Clyborn’s proposal become law.