As The Daily Wire has reported, the U.S. House of Representatives last week passed a substantial gun control bill — H.R. 8, dubbed the “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019” — that would expand background checks for private firearm transfers. The Daily Wire noted last Thursday:
[T]he measure, which seeks to implement what gun control partisans on the Left often refer to as “universal background checks,” would expand background checks for firearm sales to also include private firearm transfers. There would be some minor dispensations, including firearm transfers among close relatives and loaning a firearm to be used by a gun owner’s friend or relative while at a shooting range.
H.R. 8 passed the full House by a 240-190 margin. It attracted five Republican co-sponsors, although the vast majority of those voting for the measure were Democrats.
House Democrats last week also passed H.R. 112, which would require federally licensed firearm dealers to wait ten days — as opposed to the prevailing status quo of three days — to receive an answer from the federal government-managed National Instant Criminal Background Check System before proceeding with a legal sale. H.R. 112, dubbed the “Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019,” passed the full House by a 298-228 margin.
At the time, Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), a strong opponent of H.R. 112, indicated his stance that he was not sure whether the bill was motivated more by “incompetence or malice.”
Now, as Nate Madden of Blaze Media reports, Collins is firing back with his own pro-law enforcement gun bill. Collins’ bill seeks to better equip law enforcement with having the tools they might need to prevent mass shootings.
Titled the “Mass Violence Prevention Act,” the bill…seeks to better pre-emptively identify potential mass violence situations and prosecute gun crimes, rather restrict gun transactions between law-abiding citizens, as the two bills passed earlier this week would do.
The bill would further empower law enforcement to enforce the laws that are already on the books with more tools and stronger sentences for lawbreakers and is being presented as an alternative to the gun control measures put forward by House Democrats.
Collins’ office released a press statement last week, which reads in part:
It’s cruel to advance legislation that ignores the factors contributing to gun violence when tragedies like Columbine, Parkland and Aurora, Illinois have showed us again and again what we need to do to keep communities safe. Authorities have missed opportunities to stop mass shootings before they start, and the Mass Violence Prevention Act combats that disturbing trend by ensuring local, state and federal law enforcement can better share information and coordinate responses to potential threats of mass violence. The MVP Act would also reduce the flow of firearms into the black market, where we often see violent criminals buying their weapons and circumventing background checks.
With Republicans now in the House minority and House Democrats already having successfully passed two gun control bills out of Congress’s junior chamber, the Mass Violence Prevention Act faces uncertain legislative prospects.