Dems Oppose Bill Alerting ICE To Illegal Immigrants Trying To Buy Guns

I get that Democrats are fond of illegal immigrants. I get that. While I don’t like it, I can at least understand that they do.

But they also tend to hate guns. After all, hasn’t the last year been filled with rhetoric about how guns are a major problem and how we need “sensible gun control” immediately if we want to stop our streets from running red with blood?

Advertisement

It would stand to reason that Democrats would support anything that would try to keep guns out of the hands of people who aren’t supposed to buy them. More than that, though, you’d think they’d support measures that would notify the authorities if people who weren’t allowed to buy them tried to anyway.

Well, you’d be wrong.

Democrats this week approved legislation to require background checks for essentially all sales and transfers of firearms — but rejected GOP-led efforts to amend the legislation to alert law enforcement authorities when gun buyers, including illegal immigrants, fail those background checks.

Republicans in the House charged that H.R. 8, known as “The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019,” should have included Florida Rep. Greg Steube’s proposed amendment to require that law enforcement be notified “when an individual attempting to purchase a firearm fails a federal background check.” (H.R. 8 was numbered in honor of former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot in Arizona on Jan. 8, 2011 by a mentally ill gunman.)

“Clearly, the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee don’t care about preventing gun violence, they simply are playing politics with Americans’ Second Amendment rights,” Steube, a Republican, said after the vote. “The fact that Democrats do not want law enforcement notified if an individual attempting to purchase a firearm fails a background check is truly troubling.”

He continued: “In rejecting this amendment, the Democrats have shown their true colors. It is clear they are not interested in preventing gun violence or stopping the illegal purchase of firearms, but rather they are only interested in limiting the rights of law-abiding citizens to advance their own political agenda.”

Advertisement

Steube’s statement is, of course, correct.

If guns are truly a problem, Democrats wouldn’t oppose notifying ICE when an illegal immigrant tried to purchase one illegally. Instead, they want to continue allowing illegal immigrants to blow off American laws with no repercussions.

Basically, their desire to pander to those who support illegal immigrants is more important to them than gun control.

However, it’s also important to note that Steube’s amendment appears to not differentiate between illegals trying to buy guns and convicted felons attempting to do the same thing. It basically said that law enforcement should be called when someone who shouldn’t be trying to buy guns does it anyway.

If it was really about keeping guns out of the wrong hands, this amendment should have been a slam dunk.

The fact that it wasn’t tells you all you need to know about how much House Democrats care about preventing gun violence. At the end of the day, they don’t want to alienate their voter base, which they apparently think consists of illegal immigrants and convicted felons but not law-abiding gun owners.

Advertisement

Let that sink in for a little while.

Join the conversation as a VIP Member