August 18, 2022
By Mark Chesnut
With the ill-conceived ban on so-called “assault weapons” passed last week by the U.S. House of Representatives now headed to the U.S. Senate, FPC on Wednesday sent a fiery letter to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee reminding them that abrogating fundamental rights are not within their purview.
“For a legislative body to suppose that it can abrogate the human rights of the very people that delegate limited, enumerated powers to it is the height of conceit,” FPC wrote in the letter. “Especially following the United States Supreme Court decision of N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen , 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), to even propose such a measure is to show unbridled recalcitrance and disrespect to the people the Congress serves. And to consider this legislation, which would if enacted increase state violence by orders of magnitude and put peaceable people in government cages for exercising their rights, is an act of tyranny.
“We urge you to terminate this awful and contemptible legislation.”
The organization wrote that after reviewing the legislation, the only conclusion it could make is there isn’t anything good that could be said about the measure.
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“FPC Law, the nation’s first and largest public interest legal team focused on the right to keep and bear arms, and the leader in the Second Amendment litigation and research space, has reviewed H.R. 1808 and found it to be grossly violative of the rights of the people protected under the United States Constitution,” it wrote. “FPC thus strongly opposes H.R 1808 on its merits and rejects its contempt for the natural rights of the people.”
Indeed, not only would the legislation—if passed by the Senate and signed by President Joe Biden—ban many rifles, shotguns and handguns, but it also bans common, standard-capacity magazines that are used in those firearms. Included in the ban are some 24 million privately owned modern sporting rifles (MSRs), according to a recent estimate by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF ).
“The deluge of rhetorical and legislative assaults on the fundamental rights of the people by our governmental institutions—rights that are inseparable from those same people—erodes public trust in governmental institutions,” FPC wrote. “Indeed, if Congress does not respect the law, then the people are sure to follow that example.
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“…by whatever term a legislative body chooses to label these arms—be they pejoratively described as ‘assault weapons’ or characterized by their true nature as protected arms—the people are entitled to possess and use them for lawful purposes.”
FPC conclude its letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee by calling out the audacity of politicians who attempt to ban firearms that are obviously protected under the Second Amendment.
“While H.R. 1808 seeks to create irrational classes of ‘good guns’ and ‘bad guns,’ and ‘good features’ and ‘bad features,’ at bottom, the policies represent an arrogant belief that the Congress has the authority to regulate and restrict these constitutionally protected instruments,” FPC wrote. “It does not. Not only does Congress not have the powers to engage in such regulations (through interstate commerce or otherwise), the right to keep and bear these arms pre-exists the government itself.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to begin considering the legislation soon, but in the recent past Senate Republicans have managed to block such legislation. We’ll update this story when we have more information.
About the Author Freelance writer and editor Mark Chesnut is the owner/editorial director at Red Setter Communications LLC. An avid hunter, shooter and political observer, he has been covering Second Amendment issues and politics on a near-daily basis for more than 20 years.
