David Hogg and March for Our Lives have unveiled a breathtaking catalog of proposals called Peace Plan for a Safer America. The six-part plan, if enacted, would make firearm ownership solely a privilege of the passionate collector of means rather than a right practiced by many. The plan doesn’t stop at the ambitious Christmas list of all manner of gun bans, confiscations, and restrictions; it includes plans to see firearm manufacturing shut down, to specifically punish the NRA (by name), and to pack the Supreme Court with anti-gun activist judges.
Right License to Keep and Bear Arms
In a coordinated release with The Washington Post, Mr. Hogg announced the proposal on his twitter feed, saying, “[w]e need a Peace Plan for Safer America.” The plan starts with the establishment of a new federal license to own guns. Those licenses would be granted only to people who undergo “in-person interviews, personal references, rigorous gun safety training, and a waiting period of 10 days for each gun purchase.” If awarded, the licenses would be good for a single year, with renewals requiring annual training and certification.
License applicants would be responsible for costs, which include punitive (as stated) fees for “bulk” purchases of ammunition. New York City currently charges $340 to issue or renew a handgun license. How high would the federal fees be? No dollar amount is stated, but given that the goal of the fee imposition is to punish those who wish to keep and bear arms, it stands to reason they will be quite steep. New York also offers another thing we could expect to see nationally: handgun licensing consulting firms. The city has made the process so complicated and fraught with pitfalls a cottage industry has sprung up to help shepherd people through it. The same would almost certainly be true with this plan, with the same result. Gun ownership becomes a province of wealthy collectors, celebrities, and those with powerful friends.
All Modern Rifles Will Be Confiscated
The licensing provisions, along with the many other new gun ownership restrictions, take care of the demand side of gun ownership. Make it so onerous and costly in time and money, and who will go through with it? Another facet of the plan’s attack on American’s rights is to target and kill the supply side. They mean to, starting with gun confiscation with compensation. Have an AR-15 or any centerfire magazine-fed rifle? Expect a knock on the door. That’s it – those millions and millions of guns are to be seized and destroyed. Of course, there is a magazine ban as well.
Novel provisions to be added to our laws include a complete ban “on any and all online firearm and ammunition sales or transfers, including gun parts.” The plan's authors are gunning for manufacturers and sellers of firearms, ammunition, and accessories. The sales and ownership restrictions come with a repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which prevents gun makers from being held civilly liable for the criminal acts of others. If you are hit by a drunk driver, you can’t sue Toyota because they should have known some people will misuse their car. Such legislation would lead to no car manufacturers. It will lead to the same with firearms, as it was designed to do.
First Responder Responds
Scott Mitchell is a police officer who trains other officers how to shoot. He is a member of the police department whose members responded bravely to the massacre scene at Marjory Stoneman Douglas – David Hogg’s alma mater – while the Broward County Sheriff’s deputy assigned to protect the school hid during the attack. Asked his thoughts about the proposed law, he says:
“Much of this plan is centered around what they call ‘assault weapons.’ Presumably, they mean rifles like the AR and AK patterns. This is really where the true failure of the plan is obvious to me. Virtually all of our gun crime is committed, sadly, in our minority communities, in our population centers, surrounding gang criminality and street crime, and with very cheap handguns.
Fewer than 2% of all gun crimes are committed with shoulder-fired weapons of all types, and the ARs and AKs are but a subset of those. We know that more people are murdered with hands, fists, and feet than with so-called “assault rifles.” This plan doesn’t even try to address what gun crime actually looks like in the US.”
Officer Mitchell recounted a town hall he attended with former DNC head and congresswoman Debbie Wassermann Schultz (D-FL) some weeks after the Florida school massacre:
“She publicly revealed her proposal for a mandatory buyback of all modern firearms, not just the evil AR-15 but ALL semi-automatic firearms, using a diminishing tax credit. When gun owners are told that ‘no one wants to take your guns,’ that’s just false.”
What’s likely to result in the unlikely event the Peace Plan becomes law? “Mass non-compliance by otherwise law-abiding Americans and universal non-compliance by all criminals.”
Can David Hogg refute any of these points? Before we confiscate billions of dollars of merchandise, take a wrecking ball to a fundamental right, and empower the government to unheard-of levels of power and authority, he should have to. Keep in mind this article only covers some of the provisions in the law. The scope of power and autonomy it strips from the people and hands to the federal government is truly staggering. You can read the whole plan at the organization’s website.
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Read more from Scott D. Cosenza.
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