Opinion by Marion Hammer
Florida – -(AmmoLand.com)- HB 135 – Transfers of Firearms by Rep. Margaret Good (D) prohibits the TRANSFER of a firearm from one law-abiding citizen to another without first having a background check performed by a licensed firearms dealer.
Transfer means sale, giving, lending, renting, or simply handing a firearm to another person or any action that causes a firearm to be transferred from one law-abiding person to another law-abiding person.
In other words, you must go to a licensed firearms dealer to have a background check done on your best friend just to lend him a hunting rifle to go on a hunting trip. You must also pay the dealer an administrative fee PLUS the background check fee charged by FDLE.
Then, before before your best friend can return the firearm to you, you must go back to the dealer and the dealer must do a background check on YOU to simply give you back your own gun — AND pay another set of fees.
The bill also contains a “head-fake.” Right up front, is a definition: “Adult family member means an individual’s spouse, parent, child, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, niece, nephew, first cousin, aunt, or uncle who is over 21 years of age.”
As must have been anticipated, many folks wrongfully think there is an exemption that allows you to lend or otherwise transfer a firearm to “an adult family member.” A careful reading of the bill shows that the exemption ONLY applies if that person LIVES WITH YOU and the transfer is for NO MORE THAN 14 DAYS.
Even though HB-135 requires the person transferring the firearm to pay a licensed firearms dealer any amount of fees demanded by the dealer, nothing in the bill requires any dealer, anywhere to do background checks on private transfers, period!
The bill sponsor must assume that dealers will be eager to accommodate this gun control measure because they have an opportunity to make as much money as they choose while implementing the liberal left’s gun control schemes. Then there’s this:
Confiscation of Firearms Under HB-135
Pretend your name is John Smith and you want to give a family shotgun to your son, John Smith, Jr. (It doesn’t matter what your name is, this could happen to you and FDLE’s or NCIC’s mistake could result in your gun being confiscated).
STEP 1. You go to your local licensed gun dealer for a background check on your son, as required by this bill.
STEP 2. You must then sign over ownership of your shotgun to the dealer before he can legally run a background check.
STEP 3. The dealer charges you $50 (or more – as much as he chooses) to do the background check on your son.
STEP 4. FDLE’s background check on your son confuses him for a John Smith with a criminal record: FDLE denies a transfer.
STEP 5. Before the shotgun can be returned to you, the dealer must first do a background check on you.
STEP 6. The dealer charges you $50 (or more – as much as he chooses) to do a background check on you.
STEP 7. FDLE confuses you with the same John Smith as your son, so FDLE denies the transfer of your gun back to you.
STEP 8. Your shotgun must then be CONFISCATED by the dealer.
STEP 9. Within 24 Hours, the dealer must deliver your shotgun to the Sheriff. (After doing a background check on the Sheriff)
STEP 10. FDLE does nothing to correct the mistake.
STEP 11. Unless YOU can PROVE that FDLE made a mistake, in 6 months your shotgun is forever forfeited to “the state” with
no compensation whatever. There is no mandate that your shotgun be properly maintained while in “custody.”
BOTTOM LINE: You have paid a dealer $100; you and your son have been labeled criminals by FDLE; your shotgun has been confiscated. That’s only some of what Rep. Good’s bill would do if it passes.
READ THE BILL HERE:
https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Documents/loaddoc.aspx?FileName=_h0135__.docx&DocumentType=Bill&BillNumber=0135&Session=2019
The State Atty General should determine the proposal is Unconstitutional and it should not proceed.
Why do they push these stupid bills that become law until overturned, because they can get away with it,
they have unlimited legal resources as the taxpayers foot the bills for the lawsuits.
Gov. most likely would not sign the bill.
someone with a big a** & a bigger mouth trying to determine what other people “need”
SO I guess i have to have a background check done on my son before i can hand/give him a pellet rifle. I hope GOD will let the right hand smack the left hand and straighten it out to see the truth
SUBUDDY remind this eedjit that the shooter whom I refuse to name, he of Parlkland infamy, PASSED his background checks for ALL of his rifle purchases.. in SPITE of the fact that he had, and was known to have, committed at least three, and most likely four felony level crimes prior to his shootemup, but because the school district, as corrupt as they come, preferred to receive a $54,000,000 PRIZE for reducing their ARREST ratE of high school age students. No one ever asked, and they did not volunteer, whether they reduced their CRIME rate during the same time. Had… Read more »
This is a lot of fuss over something that doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of passing but then again the Parkland thing caused a flurry of anti gun laws just because the Sheriff and the FBI were sleeping at the switch. The progressives are trying to turn Florida into a snowflake state and with all the nor easterner snowbirds invading it is going to be difficult to hang on to the gun rights.
to be expected from lra (lawyer-run america) despite a few good ones in the craft. Luke 11:46
Notice that this bill applies only to “law-abiding adults”? Criminals and law breakers need not comply! How do such bills even get written, let alone get through legislative review??
Apparently Ms. Good was born and raised in California before moving to Florida!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Florida?
Exactly how will this be enforced in a state without (AFAIK) universal gun registration?
With a reasoning process like this, how the hell did this bitch Good get elected? We need total backgrounds on all political candidates in all 50 states prior to allowing them to run for any office. Idiots at best.