House Resolution 127 and Gun Control in the United States

House Resolution 127 aka the Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act was introduced into the House on February 4, 2021 by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18).  This act, if it becomes law, will significantly impact gun ownership in the United States and will target nearly every gun owner in America.

  

Here is the lead page of H.R. 127:

 

For those of you who are not aware of Sabika Sheikh, she was a 17 year old Muslim exchange student from Pakistan who was killed along with seven other students and two teachers during a shooting by a 17-year-old student at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe in May 2018.

 

Let's look at some of the highlights starting with the licencing of firearm and ammunition possession and the registration of firearms:

 

"The Attorney General, through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, shall establish a system for licensing the possession of firearms or ammunition in the United States, and for the registration with the Bureau of each firearm present in the United States."

Under the Firearms Registration System, we find this:

"Under the firearm registration system, the owner of a firearm

shall transmit to the Bureau—

(A) the make, model, and serial number

of the firearm, the identity of the owner of the firearm, the date the firearm was acquired by the owner, and where the firearm is or will be stored; and

(B) a notice specifying the identity of any person to whom, and any period of time during which, the firearm will be loaned to the person."

The deadline for supplying this information to the ATF is as follows:

  

"(A) in the case of a firearm acquired before the effective date of this section, within 3 months after the effective date of this section; or

‘‘(B) in the case of a firearm acquired on or after the effective date, on the date the owner acquires the firearm."

 

The information on all registered firearms and ammunition will be stored on a database established and maintained by the Attorney General.  The database will be accessible to all members of the public, all Federal State and local law enforcement authorities, all branches of the United States Armed Forces and all State and local governments.

 

In order to get a gun licence, individuals will have to meet the following requirements:

 

"The Attorney General, through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, shall establish a system for licensing the possession of fire- arms or ammunition in the United States, and for the registration with the Bureau of each firearm present in the United States.

 

(i) has attained 21 years of age; 

 

(ii) after applying for the license—

 

(I) undergoes a criminal back- ground check conducted by the national instant criminal background check system established under section 103 of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, and the check does not indicate that possession of a firearm by the individual would violate subsection (g) or (n) of section 922 or State law;

 

(II) undergoes a psychological evaluation conducted in accordance with paragraph (2), and the evaluation does not indicate that the individual is psychologically unsuited to possess a firearm; and

(III) successfully completes a training course, certified by the Attorney General, in the use, safety, and storage of firearms, that includes at least 24 hours of training; and

 

(iii) demonstrates that, on issuance of the license, the individual will have in effect an insurance policy issued under subsection (d)."

 

For military-style weapons, the psychological evaluation is even more rigorous:

 

(A) the evaluation is conducted in compliance with such standards as shall be established by the Attorney General;

 

(B)  the evaluation is conducted by a licensed psychologist approved by the Attorney General;

 

(C) as deemed necessary by the licensed psychologist involved, the evaluation included a psychological evaluation of other members of the household in which the individual resides;

And

 

(D) as part of the psychological evaluation, the licensed psychologist interviewed any spouse of the individual, any former spouse of the individual, and at least 2 other persons who are a member of the family of, or an associate of, the individual to further determine the state of the mental, emotional, and relational stability of the individual in relation to firearms."

 

Firearms licences may be denied to individuals that:

 

1.) have a chronic mental illness or disturbance

 

2.) are addicted to a controlled substance or alcohol

 

3.) have attempted to commit suicide

 

4.) the individual has engaged in conduct that posed a danger to self or others

 

A licence can also be suspended for individuals who are under indictment for crimes that are punishable for a term exceeding one year in length.  

 

The legislation also requires that individuals who have applied for a licence must have an insurance policy that insures the firearm owner against liability for losses or damages resulting from the use of any firearm by the person.  The annual fee for this firearm liability insurance is $800.

 

All firearms owned by individuals must be registered; those individuals who do not register their firearms will be subject to a fine of not less than $75,000 and not more than $150,000 and imprisoned for not less than 15 years and not more than 25 years or both.

 

In closing, let's look at a few of the potential issues that face American firearms owners. First, none of this should be surprising to anyone given Joe Biden's campaign promise as shown here:

 

Second, the heavy use of psychological assessments allowed under H.R. 127 will potentially discriminate against anyone who has ever seen a therapist, had to get treatment for mental health issues relating to being a victim of abuse and veterans suffering from PSTD.  

 

Third, the annual fee of $800 for "government firearms insurance" will discriminate against poorer Americans who are highly unlikely to be able to afford the insurance premiums which are certainly going to rise in the future.  

 

Fourth, there is no grandfathering clause for any of the proposals listed under H.R. 127, essentially creating a subclass of "criminals" who were formerly regarded as lawful gun owners under current firearms laws.  Under this legislation, after the three month effective date of this legislation, all gun owners will be considered criminals until they declare all of the details of their firearms to the federal government.

Fifth, given the record number of Firearms Background Checks during 2020 and the first month of 2021 as reported on the FBI's NICS website as shown here:

...there are going to be significant headwinds to the Democrats' proposal for gun control and registration.

Sixth, given this:

...it is very clear which voters House Resolution 127 is targeting.

In closing, the bill has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary for its input.

Cornering the Market on Guns

Updated August 2019

While we frequently hear stories about the pervasiveness of gun ownership in the United States, we rarely see a comparison to gun ownership rates in the rest of the world.  Thanks to the 2018 edition of the Small Arms Survey we have a good idea of how many small arms are privately owned by civilians in 56 nations across the globe.

The authors of the survey used the following sources to calculate their final estimate of civilian firearms ownership:

"1. Where relevant national statistics were available, they were used to establish the number of registered firearms. If only the number of persons licensed to own a fire- arm was available, this number served as a minimum estimate for registered firearms, with the assumption that each person with a licence owns at least one firearm.

2. If population surveys were available, a mean estimate of the number of firearms was calculated, using the most recent reliable survey of households and individuals in each country/territory. Each estimate was then adjusted for annual increase to make results comparable and aligned to the reporting year.

3. Expert estimates were analysed and mean estimates of the number of civilian firearms in each country/territory were produced. Each estimate was then adjusted for annual increase to the reporting year, making up for the difference between the year of the original estimate and the reporting year. Highest and lowest expert estimates were discarded if they were too extreme.

4. Survey- and expert-based mean estimates were averaged out for each country/territory, if they were available.

5. Attrition (known actions that would deflate numbers) since the reference year was considered; that is, any known figures were deducted related to civilian disarmament, firearms collection programmes, seizures, destruction, etc. from the mean estimate derived from expert assessments and survey-based estimates.

6. In countries/territories where no information from sources (1), (2), or (3) was available, firearms numbers were estimated using analogous rates from comparable countries and territories where the research team, guided by available research and media reporting, appraised whether analogous comparisons were plausible."

The authors also assumed that the annual change in total civilian ownership of at least one percent per year was the same in each nation with the exceptions of the United States where gun ownership rates are documented as being higher than 1 percent and Japan where gun ownership rates are documented as being lower than 1 percent.

The authors of the study concluded the following for the end of 2017:

1.) There were approximately 857 million civilian-owned firearms throughout the world.

2.) Approximately 100 million or 12 percent of the total civilian firearms were registered.

3.) Law enforcement owned 22.7 million firearms.

4.) Military forces owned 133 million firearms.

5.) Annual gun ownership rates increased by 4.16 percent in the United States in recent years.

Here is a table showing the 25 nations with the most civilian-owned firearms, both legal and illicit:

The authors also found that national gun ownership rates per 100 residents varied widely by nation as shown on this table:

In both cases, the United States comes out far ahead of its peers when it comes to both total civilian gun ownership and civilian gun ownership rates, in fact, the United States has the distinction of having 45.9 percent of the world's total inventory of civilian-owned guns with the United States having 4.3 percent of the world's total population.

Let's take a closer look at the United States.  Here is a graphic showing the number of firearms acquired on an annual basis by type going back to 2000 (in millions):

Firearms sales patterns have changed dramatically over the past decade with pistols and semi-automatic rifle sales growing at far higher rates than other types of firearms, in fact, in 2012, 13 percent of all American purchases of firearms were semi-automatic rifles.

Let's close with three additional graphics from Statista.  Here is a graph showing the percentage of U.S. households that own firearms:

Here is a graph showing the number of registered weapons by state:

Here is a graph showing the number of firearms manufactured in the United States in 2015 by category:

In case you don't have a calculator handy, a total of 9,356,661 firearms were manufactured in the United States in 2015.

I will let you draw your own conclusions from the data in this posting, however, it is undeniably an  interesting exercise to put American gun ownership into a global context. 

The National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre and America's Elite

On February 22, 2018 at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Wayne LaPierre, current CEO and Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association, made the following comment regarding the gun control debate that has once again flared up after the Florida school shooting that left 17 dead ( 1 minute 58 second mark):

"They hate the NRA.  They hate the Second Amendment.  They hate individual freedom.  In the rush of calls for more government, they've revealed their true selves.   The elites don't care not one wit about America's school system and school children.   If they truly cared, what they would do is they would protect them.  For them, it's not a safety issue, it's a political issue." (my bold)

Here is his speech in its entirety:

 

In this posting, I'd like to focus on the highlighted section of Mr. LaPierre's speech in the excerpt that I have provided in the second paragraph, where he refers to the elites, a clear tactic to divide the United States into two contrasting parts, the haves and have nots as you will.  

While Mr. LaPierre and his viewpoints do make the news cycle on a fairly regular basis, what is rarely discussed, is how much he is paid to proffer his opinions by the National Rifle Association.  Given that he refers to "the elites", let's just look at some interesting data that will help us put Mr. Lapierre and his disgust with "the elites" into perspective.  From the United States Census Bureau, we find the following information on the median household income in the U.S.:

In 2016, the median income for American households was $57,617 but, as you can see, the median ranges widely wider as shown on this table:

In fact, median household income in 2016 ranged from a low of $44,344 in Arkansas to a high of $78,945 in Maryland

Let's look at the average hourly earnings of all private sector employees in the United States and how they have grown over the past decade:

On average, at the end of 2015, the average private sector employee was earning $25.95 per hour.

Now, thanks to the laws that apply to organizations that are exempt from paying income tax, we can get some inside information on the finances of these non-profits from their annual Form 990 filings.  In the case of the National Rifle Association, the entire filing for the 2015 tax year can be found here. Let's look at the first page of the NRA's 990:

At the bottom of this page, you will note that, on average, Wayne Lapierre spends 60 hours per week on NRA business:

Now, let's look at Mr. Lapierre's compensation for 2015 along with the compensation for the rest of the NRA's executive team:

In 2015, as the NRA's Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President, Mr. LaPierre's base compensation was $1,090,515.  In addition, he earned $15,000 in bonuses and incentive compensation, $3,810,734 in other reportable compensation, $19,605 in retirement and deferred compensation and $40,131 in nontaxable benefits for a grand total of $5,110,985.  This is up substantially from 2014 as shown here:

...and 2013 as shown here:

As I noted, according to the NRA's 990 filing, Mr. LaPierre worked an average of 60 hours per week on "company" business.  In 2015, his average hourly earnings worked out to $349.52 per hour if we use his base salary and $1638.14 per hour if we use his total compensation package.

Given that Mr. LaPierre's total compensation for 2015 was 89 times that of a median American family and that his hourly earnings were 63 times that of an average private sector worker, it begs the question, who are really the "elite" in Wayne LaPierre's world?  If it's not someone who is making seven figures in a year, then I don't know who it could possibly be. 

Mass Shootings in America

Updated February 2016

A website, Shooting Tracker, examines the number of mass shootings in the United States.  Shooting Tracker tracks the number of mass shootings which are defined as shootings where four or more people are shot but not necessarily die as a result of their injuries.  All of the data is sourced from reliable media coverage of the events.

Let's start with a list of the mass shootings thus far in 2016:

So far in 2016, there have been 33 mass shootings in the United States with a total of 51 people killed and 131 people injured.

Rather than looking at the details for 2013, 2014 and 2015, I will just provide you with a summary for each year:

2015

Number of mass shootings: 330

Average number of mass shootings per day: 0.90

Number of people killed: 367

Number of people injured: 1317

Average number of casualties per mass shooting: 5.1

2014

Number of mass shootings: 336

Average number of mass shootings per day: 0.92

Number of people killed: 383

Number of people injured: 1239

Average number of casualties per mass shooting: 4.83

2013

Number of mass shootings: 363

Average number of mass shootings per day: 1.0

Number of people killed: 502 

Number of people injured: 1266

Average number of casualties per mass shooting: 4.87 

In the past three years alone, mass shootings in the United States have taken the lives of 1332 people.

Let's close this rather sobering posting with a bit of data.  Here is a bar graph from Open Secrets showing how much the gun rights lobby has spent on lobbying in Washington each year going back to 1998:

So far in 2015, the gun rights lobby has spent $8.402 million.  At its peak, the gun rights lobby spent $15.292 million on lobbying in 2013.  Here are the top 8 gun rights lobbying clients and how much each has spent:

In sharp contrast, here is a bar graph showing how much the gun control lobby has spent on lobbying in Washington each year going back to 1998:

So far in 2015, the gun control lobby has spent $1.258 million.   At its peak, the pro-gun control lobby spent $2.218 million on lobbying in 2013.  Here are the top 6 pro-gun control lobbying clients and how much each has spent:

Now we have some idea why it is highly unlikely that anything will change.