Today I received an e-mail asking me to sign yet another petition to Congress. This time it was about prohibiting sales of firearms to those convicted of hate crimes and to to suspected terrorists.
A person convicted of any crime for which the maximum possible sentence is more than one year of confinement is ineligible to purchase or even possess a firearm. Violent crimes generally carry a greater sentence and federal hate crimes legislation imposes a maximum ten-year sentence on those convicted of hate crimes.
The law against firearm sale to convicted felons went into effect on June 30, 1938. That’s about 78 years ago. It is called the National Firearms Act of 1938 and it’s also the law that first required firearm sellers to be licensed and to keep records of sales.
Congress can only pass federal legislation, so in this case, Daily Kos readers are being asked to sign a petition that is redundant.
Far better to petition those states that do not have hate crime legislation to enact measures. Google your state to see if yours is among those.
Not all violent crime is felonious, so laws need to be passed making a hate crime an aggravating circumstance that elevates a misdemeanor to a felony.
The problem with the second demand, no sales to suspected terrorists, is that it is unconstitutional — not under the Second Amendment, but the Fifth. The government cannot deprive a person of their civil liberties without due process. This means that the government has to do more than suspect; it has to have sufficient evidence of intent or conspiracy to commit a crime or have evidence that the suspect has committed a crime.
When the “no-fly, no-buy” debate was going on in the Senate, proposals were introduced that would work around the limitation by allowing the FBI to delay the sale and obtain a court order to deny it. That might have met the constitutional challenge, but it didn’t pass, either.
So the Daily Kos petition is a waste of time. Part of it has been the law of the land for more than three-quarters of a century, so no need. The other part won’t survive a constitutional challenge, so there’s no point in spending any time on it.
Why not reword it to ask for a valid law restricting sale or possession of a firearm by a terrorist? Even the NRA agrees with that.