Fix NICS

Rep Thomas Massie of Kentucky warns us.

Don't vote for Reciprocity, as Schumer has thrown a NICS expansion amendment in the Bill that will expand prohibited people.  A Poison Pill.

Massie is right.  That would be bad.  And I already don't trust Schumer.  But who is Massie of Kentucky?  I don't know him.  And HIS constituents already have Shall Issue CCW.  Why should I listen to him?  Maybe he is crying wolf.  Maybe he is just in the Establishment and doesn't care about my civil rights?  Or maybe he cares too much.  A 2nd Amendment proponent so ardent, that insists on permitless machinegun carry and votes no if the law isn't that expansive.

The devil, as they say, is in the details.

Is breitbart blowing smoke up my skirt, and this isn't really what Massie is on about?

Maybe Massie just a tool.  I dunno him.

The NRA has always had the position of accepting NICS and using it to keep prohibeted persons from purchasing.  And a fix that alerts the system about felons or adjudicated crazies that were slipping through the cracks is just fine by me.  But if it is adding, at the whim of some bureaucrat, folks to the NICS list for cashing their first Social Security check or getting a check up at the VA hospital, then that is unacceeptible.

So adjust the amendment to take out the judgement of the bureaucrat, Massie.

"[It] encourages administrative agencies, not the courts, to submit more names to a national database that will determine whether you can or can’t obtain a firearm. "

That's fine if the bureaucrat is going "hey, this felon we just dispensed with should be on the NICS list.  I wasn't alerting anyone before, but maybe I should have been.  And heck now the laws says I must" because we know the bureaucrats were letting things slide up til now anyway.  Fix NICS can be done properly.

If this law was passed in 2007, how would the Obama administration have abused it?  That's the test before the vote.  Hold the tack-ons proverbial feet to the fire, legislatively.

Let's see the language.  The final language is only final at the vote, and I don't trust Schumer not to insert a clause in the last 5 minutes that turns the whole thing against us.  But lets see the likely final language.

"What final language T-Bolt?"  Correct, fair reader.  Schumer is in the Senate and the bill hasn't left the originating house to go to the other wing of the Capitol yet.  Pelosi can't add any amendments from her perch, the Harpy.  No merging with another bill has happened yet.

And I would be supportive of a proper fix to NICS merged with the reciprocity bill in order to get 60 votes in the Senate.   If we could give someone like Senator Tester of Montana an excuse to go against Schumer in an election year and get us cloture that way, that'd be great.

[Addendum after scheduling:  Oh look, I'm not the only one seeing shennanigans. Even ostensible allies wanna queer the deal, for some reason. Wrote this on the 6th.  Probably OBE when it publishes on the 8th, but such is blogging ahead of time.]

{Update again.  HR 38 passes 231-198. 225 Republicans and 6 Democrats voted yea, 14 Republicans and 184 Dems voted no.}