United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- Sometimes, legislation is kept under the radar because if the legislation is passed, it might actually solve the problem. Anti-Second Amendment extremists and their allies in the media really don’t want Americans to know that certain provisions already exist in the law. After all, if the American people did know, they’d probably be much less receptive to infringements on our Second Amendment rights.
One such provision is the Armed Career Criminal Act. Enacted in the 1980s, it has a very simple premise: If you’ve been convicted of either three violent crimes or serious drug offenses, you get a mandatory minimum 15-year prison sentence. Or at least, that was the case until the Johnson v. United States ruling. The statute was gutted, and as a result, a lot of very bad criminals were released.
A pair of Second Amendment champions, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Representative David Kustoff (R-TN), have introduced legislation called the Restoring The Armed Career Criminal Act, known as HR 2837 and S 1541 to address that ruling.
According to releases from Senator Cotton’s and Representative Kustoff’s offices, they do this by dispensing with the old definitions of “violent felony” and “serious drug offense” and going with a single “serious felony” that is defined as any offense that lands a person with a potential sentence of at least ten years in prison.
The need for this bill should be obvious, given the constant releases of prisoners we are seeing, and not just from the pandemic. In New York, before the coronavirus was even in the news, they were releasing violent criminals back on the streets. The price that can be paid for letting them out isn’t just in more people being victimized by those who should be locked up.
For decades, the misuse of firearms by criminals has been the preferred pretense to truncate or completely deny our Second Amendment rights. All too often, we see the victims, or family members of the victims of such misuse, wielded as propaganda weapons against our freedoms, We have rightly pointed out the failures to enforce past laws on many occasions, but the failure to fix the Armed Career Criminal Act looms large as a failure of our own making.
We know that enforcing certain laws works. Just look at the results from Project Exile 20 years ago. As a bonus, Project Exile was part of a successful strategy that resulted in a pro-Second Amendment president who put two of the five justices that struck down the D.C. and Chicago handgun bans on the Supreme Court. By pressing for Project Exile, we can reduce the number of propaganda weapons available to those who seek to take our rights away.
Second Amendment supporters should waste no time in contacting their Senators and Representative and politely urge them to support the Restore The Armed Career Criminal Act. It’s time that criminals pay for the crimes they committed with guns, not the law-abiding citizens who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
Holy shit that is scary. If I’m understanding this, if you’ve got three guns with stuck firing pins, like is common with any old SKS – this bill would stick you with a mandatory minimum 15 year sentence on top of the potential 30 for three NFA violations. Next thing we know, they will redefine a full-auto BCG to be a machine gun making most ARs qualify as such. Don’t forget the “loophole” of pistol braces which so many grabbers want to close. Well actually they just want to make any AR pistol, brace or bare buffer tube, qualify as… Read more »
@USA – You hit exactly what I was trying to say. Simply saying “violent crime” is meaningless because to a hoplophobe making a finger gun gesture is a violent crime – even if you do it through video chat with no idea where the other person is IRL. Words or even a look qualify as violence to some of these snowflakes. This is why I find the proposed bill so frightening. They could define not wearing your “muzzle” as a 10-year felony and poof – you don’t just get 10 years for the original “crime” (released in 2 days for… Read more »
For reasons similar to those noted by Finnky and USA, I find this law scary. Congress and state legislatures have gone absolutely apesh*t in classifying crimes and even non-crimes as felonies. The demonstrators at a bar in Ector County, Texas who were arrested Monday were charged with having their weapons on premesis of a bar, which ridiculously enough, in Texas, is a felony. They didn’t shoot anyone, didn’t rob anyone, didn’t even threaten anyone, but now face life labeled as felons thanks to idiot legislators in that state. Occasionally, I read an article about people busted on drug charges who,… Read more »
Harold finally wrote something that I find no fault with. What am I missing?
J337: It is obvious you don’t know what a “Fudd” is. Now, you are correct about my being forgetful sometimes. I like to think it is because of all the information I have crammed into that brain over the years. There are others who would disagree with that assessment. But you know what they say about opinions……
J337: I can tell you that I am much more knowledgeable than you about crime and its punishment. “Why don’t you go sell crazy somewhere else, we’re full up around here.”
Harold is a cuck sucking RINO, that’s what you’re mssing. That and the fact that Project Exile is one of the NRA’s greatest compromising appeasements ever. Supporting the enforcement of infringement in the name of no more infringement.
To answer your question about fuddery, here’s the textbook definition:
Ya know, that policy position is something that Trump likely has ZERO knowledge or understanding of, he being a New Yorker; and also it was probably pushed in there by 2A compromising RINOs. We all know Trump is surrounded by bad actors with agendas that war against the Constitution.
The part where Control=Infringe
I hate to say it, but it looks as though Harold is up to his old tricks, again.
🙁
Mandatory sentencing is not a good thing. Judges, being human beings, although many would argue that, make mistakes, but a few are also capable of reason and compassion. Mandatory sentencing ties judges hands removing the ability to consider mitigating circumstances of a case. Sometimes, a crime is not a crime, but a necessary act brought about by extenuating circumstances and if a judge can only consider the “letter of the law” and not be allowed to use discretion in adjudicating a case, then justice cannot be served.
Sometimes mercy brings real justice and sometimes it does not. Each case needs to be considered individually, not as a mandatory “group”.
There is something they can easily do…..if the executive and judicial branches of government would work together. I am pretty sure we all feel background checks on gun purchasers are a good thing. Currently, only felony (convictions) or domestic assault convictions, will keep a person from legally buying a firearm. Yet. a person can be charged with felonies multiple times, only to have the charges reduced to misdemeanors, which will still allow this person to legally buy a firearm. So….let’s change the system. Do NOT allow felony charges to be plea bargained and be reduced to misdemeanors. Yet….allow the plea… Read more »
I already own several guns as millions of others do, why should we have to have a backgroung check?, If a person is not considered safe to society, why is he allowed to be in public?..theres thousands of other ways to kill!
@USA, If you check your copy of “A Uniform System of Citation” you will note that the proper abbreviation for the United States Supreme Court is S. Ct.
The necessary list should be of those already forbidden to buy a gun, not the law-abiding.
@DarryH – You are calling for rather drastic changes to the system.. As it currently is, mandatory minimum sentences would absolutely preclude your concept. Additionally a DA can only negotiate on what crimes to charge, they have no power to negotiate punishment as that is set by the judge (following guidelines).
Our whole system is based on an adversarial approach, with defense and prosecutor working toward opposite goals. While a cooperative approach may be utopian, throwing out a system that works reasonably well for one that might work better is a rather poor choice.
@DH, It does not say anything about background checks in the Constitution. So, no… I can not agree with you. You are misinformed.
Charge reduction, that you suggest, can not be done legislatively nor similarly throughout the many court jurisdictions throughout the country. Why not just go back to the Constitution.
Finally, we see legislation for the right and proper “gun control”.It’s about time perps be the ones exclusively held accountable for the mayhem that can be caused by firearms. I would add to it, further legislation addressing, irresponsible gun handling, as well as negligent storage in presence of irresponsible minors and others. This is the right direction to address public safety with regard to guns.
@So you are in favor of unspoken life sentences, even though that is contrary to American tradition? Whatever could negligent storage be?
Wild Bill. I should have been more specific: I regard as appropriate legislation, on the state level, heavy imprisonment for negligent gun storage in the presence of irresponsible minors and irresponsible adults in residences. Too, “unspoken life sentences”? What is that? You needn’t answer. I think we’re both gun rights stalwarts, or you wouldn’t be reading Ammoland.
@W, when a statute eliminates gun ownership or stock market participation, for life, after the term of imprisonment and parole, then it is a life sentence. American jurisprudential tradition, restores all civil rights after one’s debt to society is paid. Life firearms bans did not occur until the NFA.
Wass: I agree Wass, you should not be in charge of passing any legislation regarding the storage of firearms.
So you support the draconian enforcement of existing unconstitutional infringements on otherwise law-abiding people? Thanks for telling us what camp you stand in, bootlicker.