Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC), is disappointed by the enactment of the “gun control” provisions of the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” as into law by the President. We believe these provisions of the new law undermine Americans’ fundamental Constitutional rights, including the Second Amendment protection of our right to bear arms and due process to challenge adverse actions by government denying the right to acquire, possess, and carry firearms. This legislation was irresponsibly rammed through the Senate and the House in the last few days – and without hearings and meaningful public discourse, debate, and deliberation.
In the bill’s attempts to further regulate firearms sales to individuals, it seems to ignore that federal law already prohibits the purchase or possession of firearms by both dangerous and unfit persons, such as criminals, persons with domestic violence convictions, those mentally defective, or unlawful drug users, who would likely pose a danger to others.
In addition, one of the new gun control provisions discriminate against and penalizes young adults, which would include many in our military services, between the ages of 18 and 20 by imposing a longer purchasing waiting period on them than that of older adults, rendering them “second class citizens” in this regard. We note that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the New York Second Amendment case held that “[t]he constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees. We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need…” The new law clearly seems to fail constitutionally in this respect, as well.
In conclusion, enactment of the gun control provisions of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and the ramrod method by which it was passed was unnecessary and a “pure politics” affront to the deliberative and debate processes intended for the Congress.