H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446 passed the House of Representatives yesterday. They’re now onto the Senate where the 50/50 chamber will have its first real test.

There’s still a lot to do to try and defeat these laws, but in the meantime, plenty of lawmakers are going to say stupid stuff. They’re going to misrepresent what the bill does or try and vilify the opposition or any of the usual tricks.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi went for a classic herself. She went with the old, “It’s for the children.”

“Today on the floor, we go to that fourth place, a safe environment in which our children can thrive, by passing the background check legislation. It’s hard to imagine legislation being more popular than the rescue plan– 75%, whatever. This legislation, background checks– closer to 90% bipartisan support across the country, receiving the support of gun owners, hunters, and the rest.”

Oh, so much to unpack in this single paragraph.

First, our children thrive just fine as it is. What represents a threat to our children continuing to thrive are criminals in our inner cities who are permitted to act indiscriminately as their lawlessness terrorizes entire communities. These people aren’t walking into the gun store and walking out with a firearm. They’re also not buying it from the law-abiding citizen across town, either.

No, they’re stealing guns or buying them from those that do.

It’s these criminals who are the threat to our children, and it’s these criminals who will remain unaffected by anything Congress is currently trying to do regarding guns. They’ll continue to buy and sell guns illegally just as they always have. Do you really think the Bloods or MS-13 watched the passage of these two bills and thought, “Well hell, there goes our ability to buy guns” or something? Of course not. They do not care what the law says because they intend to keep doing what they’ve been doing.

As for that claim of this broad support, take a look at those polls. Yeah, people “support” background checks…until they find out they can’t loan a friend a pistol for a few weeks. It’s interesting that universal background checks have such broad support, but pretty much every time they come up for a vote in a given state, they’re soundly defeated.

It’s because most of the people who say they support background checks have an idea that we’re talking about things like the non-existent “gun show loophole.” They think dealers shouldn’t skirt out of the requirements, not realizing how many gun shows happen every weekend where every firearm sold already went through one.

That broad support won’t be very popular for long. Not when people start to understand that those people were already performing background checks, but now you can’t loan someone a firearm or gift one to a friend. Heaven forbid you simply trade firearms with a friend.

Plus, just how many people are going to die waiting for a gun that never comes? Moving the waiting time for a background check from no more than three days to 10 may well cost some people their lives, especially among women who may decide to buy a gun to deal with an abusive partner or stalker.

But hey, who really cares about women or innocent people being killed, so long as Nancy Pelosi gets to tell us all how each and every one of those deaths is really “for the children.”

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