The Omnibus Strikes Again….

The omnibus budget bill strikes once again.

Yesterday, September 26, 2022, A new gun control law went into affect. It was a law nobody, myself included, knew had been passed.  Known as the NICS Denial Notification Act, gun grabbers attempted to pass it as a standalone bill in 2021. They weren’t successful. Never made it out of committee.

So instead, they did what they have done in the past: attached it as an amendment to a massive budget bill. The budget bill was passed.

This new bill, which went into affect yesterday, requires firearms dealers to supply law enforcement with the names and addresses of individuals who are denied on firearms background checks. This is actually done automatically via the NICS background check system.

On the surface, this appears to be a logical system. After all, you wouldn’t be denied on a background check unless you had something criminal in your history. Someone like that shouldn’t be allowed to own guns. 

But here’s the rub: speaking from experience, I can tell you with assurance that the background check system is riddled with an accuracy. 98% of denials are overturned on appeal, meaning that the individual who received the denial was NEVER GUILTY OF ANYTHING in the first place. You may be denied if your name is similar or identical to that of a criminal.  This is especially concerning in a day and age in which identity theft is out of control. You may never have done anything criminal in your life, yet on the basis of this background check you can be denied you’re right to purchase a firearm, and once more, the moment you are denied YOU BECOME LEGALLY INELIGIBLE TO OWN OR POSSESS FIREARMS - period.  In point of fact, at this moment, law enforcement can come to your home and confiscate all of your firearms – even though you personally have done nothing wrong. It is now up to you to prove that you are innocent; there is no presumption of innocence, no innocent until proven guilty.  You are presumed to be guilty until you prove otherwise.

Yes, there is a process to appeal a denial, one that generally takes months to work through, and if law enforcement confiscated your firearms(I fully expect that a number of more “progressive” jurisdictions to take full advantage of this law to do just that), you will, in many instances, have to sue to get them back.