4um: Reid’s Gun Control Bill Makes a Missing Firearm a Ticket to Five Years in Prison

- The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation - http://blog.heritage.org -

Reid’s Gun Control Bill Makes a Missing Firearm a Ticket to Five Years in Prison

Posted By David S. Addington On April 4, 2013 @ 10:00 am In Featured,Rule of Law | No Comments

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Newscom

Under Senator Harry Reid’s (D-NV) gun control bill (S. 649), if somebody steals your firearm or you lose it, you can go to prison for up to five years if you have not reported the theft or loss to local police and to Attorney General Eric Holder within 24 hours.

The provision merits ridicule for treating as a felon someone who misplaces a firearm and does not report it to the police and the federal government fast enough.

Section 123 of the Reid bill adds a new provision to section 922 of title 18 of the U.S. Code:

It shall be unlawful for any person who lawfully possesses or owns a firearm that has been shipped or transported in, or has been possessed in or affecting, interstate or foreign commerce, to fail to report the theft or loss of the firearm, within 24 hours after the person discovers the theft or loss, to the Attorney General and to the appropriate local authorities.

It also amends section 924 of title 18 so that a violation of the 24-hour reporting requirement committed “knowingly” is punishable by up to five years in prison or a criminal fine, or both. To punish someone who “knowingly” violates the 24-hour rule might sound reasonable to some people—until you know what a lawyer means by the word “knowingly” when it comes to a criminal statute.

The Supreme Court said in Bryan v. U.S. in 1994 that when a federal statute punishes someone for a crime committed “willfully,” the federal government must prove at trial that the individual knew that his conduct was unlawful. However, the Court also said that, when the statute provides that the government must prove merely that the crime was committed “knowingly,” the government does not have to prove that the individual knew that his or her conduct was unlawful. Thus, an individual who knew his or her gun was missing and did not report it to local authorities and the Attorney General in 24 hours would potentially face five years in prison.

It is not reasonable to send an individual to prison for up to five years for failing to tell local authorities and the federal government, within 24 hours, that his or her firearm is lost or was stolen, given that a reasonable person would never know that failure to make such a report, let alone within 24 hours, is a crime. Even someone who has the presence of mind to report promptly to local police or the sheriff’s office that a firearm is missing would be highly unlikely to know that such a report to local authorities was not good enough and that he or she must tell the Attorney General of the United States, too.

It is one thing to assign a legal duty to a firearms owner to report missing firearms, but it is quite another thing to exercise the draconian power of the federal government to make failing in that duty a federal crime. It is doubly inappropriate to give someone prison time for failing to tell the Attorney General that his or her gun was missing, when no reasonable person would know that failing to make such a report within 24 hours was a federal crime.

Also, the drafters of the legislation failed to take sufficiently into account the nature of rural life and hunting in the United States. Some people who own firearms within the United States do not have the ability to communicate with anybody (let alone the Attorney General of the United States) within 24 hours—think, for example, of a hunter deep in the wilds of Alaska who loses a firearm in a river.

Under no circumstances should Congress make it a federal crime to fail to report a missing firearm within 24 hours to local authorities and the Attorney General. It is an unreasonable use of power to define as a federal crime conduct that no reasonable person would know was a federal crime.

Article printed from The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation: http://blog.heritage.org

URL to article: http://blog.heritage.org/2013/04/04/reids-gun-control-bill-makes-a-missing-firearm-a-ticket-to-five-years-in-prison/

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What Hairy Reed and his cronies are really trying to do is to make firearm ownership so onerous that people are effectively disarmed because they are no longer willing to risk the myriad of obscene laws and penalties aimed at gun owners.(1 image)

#1. To: HOUNDDAWG, Jethro Tull, Lod, James Deffenbach, abraxas, All (#0)

The PTB are getting frantic to disarm the American Public - it is now holding up the New World ~~Order~~ Collective Slave State.

__ There are only two kinds of americans left in the USA those opposed to the tyranny and those that are wrong. Resist propaganda, Support strict constitutional adherence!

I hope that most people won't willingly give up their weapons. I know that people who know a little history won't.

No. At this point surrendering our weapons means an inevitable pogrom and likely millions to hundreds of millions murdered - not just here but elsewhere. They cannot show their murderous hand elsewhere without alerting too many people here thus they have to disarm and subjugate us before they can indulge their desire to commit mass murder openly.

And the funny thing is they can't really figure out why. They are blinded to reality by their materialist blinders. What they cannot comprehend, and will not admit - even to themselves, is that they are being fought on a spiritual level - soul to soul. In their warped universe that cannot exist therefore it doesn't - even though it does. Even if they have some dim awareness of what is going on at levels to which they are blind they still cannot see it and cannot really believe it.

Can you imagine all the murder and mayhem in this country, all perpetrated by government goons under orders from Obama or some fascist prick just like him, if gun owners just voluntarily shrugged their shoulders and said "Yeah, you can have my weapons. I know the government will take care of me." I would be inclined to let them have some ammo if you nome sayin'.

Bingo. It is like the old sick joke: "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." Yeah, right, uh huh. Lots of helpful people in the government. "Know what I mean Vern?"

Solzhenitsyn said: "During an arrest, you think since you are not guilty, how can they arrest you? Why should you run away? And how can you resist right then? After all, you’ll only make your situation worse; you will make it more difficult for them to sort out the mistake. And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! We did not love freedom enough. Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.”

And Turner Diaries author William Pierce fantasized in his racist bedtime story that when the dreaded Cohen Act became law millions of tough talking, "From my cold dead fingers" types meekly surrendered their arms, unaware of the horror that was being staged upon completion of the gun raids....

We may just have to endure several years of an egalitarian Utopia in order to steel the backbones and spirits of those who will not sacrifice until fighting is better than cooperating....Ask the Afghans about Soviet tanks crushing villages, wives and children on the outside chance that the missing men were rebels.

It would appear that the Hon. Senator Harry Reid is wormy and corrupt and he harbors a burning hatred for dummies who think they can (and he should) resist the shadow banker world govt. He's just like former Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum, who fantasized about delivering up a disarmed America for most of his career. Howard is gone and Americans are better armed than ever. And every time they make a grandstand play it bites them on their asses sooner or later. I'm just waiting for the govt to demand the guns of all who receive govt entitlements. I hope their frustration results in the drafting of a bill to that effect. That may just be what the doctor ordered to break the power of incumbency in the US Senate.

Pings to some of the good peeps that I missed. (But who do not necessarily support or agree with the views presented and should not be blacklisted for it. They may be acquaintances who ran over my skateboard many years ago)

I fear you may be right. I keep resisting accepting it because the likelihood is that if the darkness is not pushed back then humanity will spend some considerable amount of time under the grinding heel of our self-styled "betters". While Sir Winston had his failings when I am on this subject I can never but think of this quote:

Thanks for the ping, HD. I'm fairly sure that I didn't run over your skateboard. Here are some comments at the article site that I thought were of interest:

About the ATF comment...does Harry Reid want us to call the local Police, the ATF and the Attorney General? Is there anything in his bill to pay us some money for relaying info in duplicate/triplicate that the Police could forward to the ATF and they could forward along to the AG, since they're already getting paid for doing clerical duties?

"They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC

Thanks for the ping, Dawggie, but enough is enough. I said I was sorry about the skateboard. That was over 40 years ago, get over it already. Jeeze.

About the now ongoing confiscation, the people discussed in the articles I've read have NO criminal history, and NO diagnosed dangerous mental disorders. BTW, exactly how does a nut bar go about making the PTB aware that h/she is a nut? Can you say Obamacare with your friendly physician being the gatekeeper? They are citizens with rights. Rights guaranteed by the Constitution and now being forcibly stripped from them by an oppressive, tyrannical, government. This is exactly what socialism delivers and it's exactly what will happen everywhere unless they are utterly and completely defeated at every opportunity. This isn't going to end pleasantly.

Noting here that a diagnosis of mental disorder and/or criminal history can be scurrilously conntrived but, even if accurate, the Second Amendment says, "shall not be infringed" -- not that it can be infringed for "outcasts" on a case by case basis. Gungrabbers seem to think that they can demand such infringement but without the government so much as having to then become the legal guardian of all those it alleges to be too unfit for their right to be armed in self- defense, with all that guardianship includes responsibilitywise financially for their care and liabilitywise for their transgressions. Even then, some could be counted as Political Prisoners.

"They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC

We should all be livid. Stop acting like docile, mentally castrated pussies and grow a pair. It's time to get in their face. Why should we speak in hushed tones and act all polite when we are being raped every day?

Remember, all of your firearms were lost or stolen prior to the date of the enactment of this law. ;)

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken

FedGov has been the enemy of the Republic since 1861. Only now is the whip-hand of tyranny being openly displayed again.

The vampire squids have told me they've had just about enough of your humans are sentient beings given free will crap.

"I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I donâ€™t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it." - William S Burroughs

The PTB are getting desperate and they are now going to push it as far as they can. With no pushback they are getting bolder.

Yeah, and old, corrupt senators who aren't accustomed to resistance have heard too many people say that "...If they come for my guns they'll find that "they were stolen by some person from an economically depressed area about ten minutes ago, and I'm agonizing over my legal obligation to report it because I don't want to press charges against a fellow Democrat and likely Obama supporter."

Although I didn't approve of what the Brits did to the Boers any more than what they did to us (everyone knows they burned farms but many don't know they press ganged American seaman into the Royal Navy, preceding the War of 1812) Churchill was a young man when he became separated from his unit in Sud Afrika and had to cross hostile turf and make his way to safety alone and on foot.

I hadn't yet read your post when I typed up #24 below. We're on the same wave length I see.

The truth is we should just take it to the streets and bring the country to a screeching halt. Just watch how quickly the bastards shelve any such legislation intended to reduce us to absolute despotism.

Solzhenitsyn was speaking from experience. And senseless deaths meant nothing to politicians, KGB or the gulag guards who did the commies' dirty work.

I agree. And, after 150 years of eekwalitee, sharing the cultural enrichment with Southern blacks and their ancestors who came Nawth looking for love from white wimmen I doubt that they could raise another Union Army now.

In fact, during that same period when Sharpton was stabbed in Bensonhurst KLANWATCH reported that all incidents of racial violence were in the North for several years.

Of course when a Florida man with a healthy suspicion of blacks shot and killed a YBM who attempted to disarm him, well, he has to be tried for his political views because, A) he's white and, B) he's well acquainted with the nature of the YBM. (GASP! People can quote him-he warned others about the dangers)

That's not to say that he didn't make some mistakes and judgement errors, but the YBM didn't have to react so predictably and respond with violence without pondering the consequences of failure.

A really messed up event, but I do not believe that young T'von was out to the local Stop&Rob for some chips and ice tea at that time of night.

Well, Mr. Lod, the criminal arrest data strongly supports the belief that many YBMs are opportunistic predators, and if one wanders through my backyard I'd probably assume that he's window shopping. You know, looking for unattended gold, guns, consumer electronics and white wimmen!

I'm just pleased with myself that I have avoided the Instant ~~background check~~ gun registration system.

And you know those poor Oh'ba-a-a-a-a-ama supporters - they's jus' too deprived.

No, the Boer War was one long War Crime and Sir Winston was no humanitarian. However, he did have a way with words.

That'd be a fatal mistake in my neck of Texas. And, there's very little chance there'd even be a trial.

Because it will be so delightful to watch the surprised look on their face as the knife comes poking out of their chest.

The British took notice of what Gen. Sherman did to the South and added to it: they established the first concentration camps and they torched farms, slaughtered livestock, poisoned water wells, and salted the earth in the Boers' crop fields.