A bill under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives that would ban firearms at federal election sites is just another effort to demonize gun owners and the Second Amendment, according to a major gun-rights group.
Ostensibly advertised as an effort to improve safety during federal elections, House Resolution 7965 was introduced by California Rep. Raul Ruiz and is co-sponsored by D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, both rabid gun-ban advocates. The measure prohibits “unauthorized possession of a firearm” at a federal election site.
But the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) says the authors of the measure have far more nefarious reasons for filing the resolution.
“They deliberately want to lower gun owner turnout during important federal elections,” CCRBKA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said in a press release on the measure. “Democrats talk about discouraging voters by requiring identification, yet here they are trying to discourage gun owners from voting by intimidation. The hypocrisy is monumental.”
Gottliebe said the wording used by the measure’s authors—“unauthorized possession of a firearm” is notable.
“That’s an interesting choice of words,” Gottlieb observed, “which I’m certain Ruiz and Norton didn’t think through, because we could reasonably argue that a concealed carry permit or license authorizes someone to possess a firearm in a public place. In a constitutional carry state, the law essentially authorizes every citizen to carry a protective sidearm, without a permit or license. So, the logical question to Ruiz is, what’s the point of your bill?”
Gottlieb then answered that question himself.
“The answer, which you’ll never get from the sponsors, is that the point is to instill some kind of fear or concern among voters that another citizen, exercising his or her right to bear arms, is automatically some kind of threat,” he noted. “We’ve got news for Ruiz and Norton. Legally armed citizens have civil rights, too, including the right to vote in a federal election.”
As Gottlieb further pointed out, on any given day, people might walk right past an armed citizen going about his or her business and not even realize it.
“The same thing would happen at a polling place,” he added. “Let’s look at this from a far different viewpoint. The presence of a few legally armed citizens at a polling place might actually be a deterrent to violence. More than once, an armed citizen has intervened and prevented a mass shooting, but all Ruiz and Norton want to accomplish with this bill is to make American voters afraid of their neighbors.”
Gottlieb concluded: “It’s a deplorable attempt to create unnecessary fear of armed citizens, and the constitutional provision which protects their right to keep and bear arms.”
The measure has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.