GOSAFE Act Introduced to Ban Semi-Automatic Firearms with Detachable Magazines

The treason is strong in Democrats, as the House and Senate get acquainted with the Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearms Exclusion (GOSAFE) Act. The measure intends to outlaw all semi-automatic firearms that feed from a detachable magazine, eliminating most modern rifles and handguns on the market, especially those commonly owned for self-defense. 

Known in the House as H.R. 2790 and in the Senate as S.1370, the GOSAFE Act feels like a federal version of Colorado’s SB25-003, which was recently signed into law as a back-door permit-to-purchase scam, but had its origins steeped in the almost identical nonsense this dumpster fire seems intent on burning.

Introduced by Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Representative Lucy McBath from Georgia, who didn’t get the memo that Colorado replaced its version of this abomination because legislators knew it was too extreme for Governor Jared Polis to sign into law, the GOSAFE Act summons pure audacity with its subversive defiance of the United States Constitution. The bill also flips the bird at the Supreme Court, as it ignores any consistency with the historical tradition of firearm regulation as required by the landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen.

In its perversion of the Second Amendment, the GOSAFE Act would limit Americans to semi-automatics with low-capacity fixed magazines, revolvers, single/double-shot firearms, and manually cycled bolt, lever, or pump actions. The bill targets firearms with any manner of detachable magazine that operate via direct impingement, short or long-stroke gas piston, blowback, or recoil-operated systems, with exemptions for rimfire chambered firearms in .22 caliber or smaller. It also carves out exceptions for shotguns, rifles, and handguns that feature permanently fixed magazines, with capacities limited to ten rounds or less for shotguns and rifles and fifteen rounds or less for handguns.

Senator Henrich regaled New Mexico anti-Second Amendment sycophants about how GOSAFE targets “underlying mechanical principles that make some firearms so much more dangerous, while still protecting Americans’ right to own a firearm for legitimate self-defense, hunting, and sporting purposes.”

But who is this clown to decide what a legitimate self-defense, hunting, or sporting purpose is? Certainly, such restrictions would end most of the sporting competitions I participated in growing up, but the Second Amendment isn’t about competing or hunting. It is about preserving life in the face of a tyrannical government, much like the one Führer Heinrich is helping to establish. With the Founders intending to place citizens in a defensible position to replace such a government, any argument that handicaps Americans against the capability of authorities working at the behest of those claiming to represent the public is illiterate at best and boldly treasonous at worst.

The GOSAFE Act has garnered endorsement from the usual brown shirt brigades like Everytown, Giffords, March for Our Lives, and Brady, with twenty-six Democratic co-sponsors in the House and thirteen in the Senate, including Independent Senator Angus S. King Jr. of Maine. With Republicans holding a very narrow majority in both chambers and having the propensity for crossing the aisle mysteriously on controversial gun control measures, passing the GOSAFE Act is not entirely out of the question. 

I know what you’re thinking. President Trump would veto the measure anyway. If I had to bet on that today, I’d agree, but it is important to recall an August 2019 conversation in which Trump told aides, “I don’t know why anyone needs an AR-15,” while flying on Marine One to the White House, according to someone in attendance. Of course, this came after the 2018 uproar, as conservatives were already upset with Trump’s willingness to take a look at Diane Feinstein’s proposed assault weapons ban. 

Democrat-run states and their federal colleagues in the House and Senate have stepped up the gun control agenda since President Trump took the helm for a second term. I am not sure how this plays for them leading up to the midterm elections, as the 2024 Presidential election put them on blast as to the nation’s ebb towards individual liberty after four years of Biden administration authoritarianism and the weaponized use of the Department of Justice and federal agencies. Democrats spent that time not only attacking the Second Amendment, but also did all they could to stamp out the First Amendment. The problem, however, is that Americans historically demonstrate short memory between election cycles, which, combined with short-sightedness, keeps the United States in a perpetual cycle of one-step-forward, two-steps-back politics, and there's some pretty easy math available for anyone interested in finding out where that disaster leads.

Darwin Nercesian is a long-time gun rights advocate and shooter of targets far, far away. As a News Field Editor at Firearms News, Darwin writes about the Second Amendment, firearms, and related gear. Follow him on Instagram, X, and YouTube @DTOE_Official.

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