Gun Reform Bills Three of Top Ten for Congress Attention

As the Trump administration continues to exceed expectations and keep promises, Second Amendment supporters look to Congress to see what bills may be moving.  

The amount of interest is a rough gauge of public support for these bills.  In the Congressional web site that tracks the ten top most viewed bills, three are gun law reform bills.

The second most viewed bill is H.R. 367, To provide that silencers be treated the same as long guns. It has 40 co-sponsors. It is the reintroduced Hearing Protection Act. It is textually the same as the H.R. 3799, the Hearing Protection Act of 2015, that was introduced by Congressman Matt Salmon of Arizona.  He retired with the 114th Congress.

The fifth most viewed bill is the same Hearing Protection Act of 2015. In the top five most viewed bills, two are Hearing Protection Act bills that are textually the same. It had 10 co-sponsors.

The ninth most viewed bill is H.R. 38, the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017. The NRA-ILA backs this bill. Gun Owners of America backs this bill. The Second Amendment Foundation's Alan Gottlieb has applauded the bill. The NSSF backs this bill. It currently has 67 co-sponsors. A similar bill in the last congress gathered 216 co-sponsors.

Representative Richard Hudson (R. N.C.), who introduced H.R. 38, says the bill would apply to permits issued to non-residents by some states.

“My legislative intent is to ensure a non-resident carry permit is recognized, and I’ve confirmed this with legislative counsel and Judiciary Committee staff,” Hudson said.

Text of the bill is not yet posted on the Congressional web site.  Here is a summation of the bill.  From freebeacon.com:

Hudson’s bill would require states to recognize the validity of every other state’s gun carry licenses, but it would require concealed carriers to follow the specific laws of whatever state in which they are carrying. The bill mostly mirrors national reciprocity bills introduced by Hudson in previous years but adds language designed to ensure that those in Constitutional Carry states, where no permit is required to concealed carry, are protected by the legislation. The bill would also allow concealed carry in the National Park System, the National Wildlife Refuge System, and on lands under the authority of the Bureau of Land Management, Army Corps of Engineers, and Bureau of Reclamation.

 Here is a screen shot of the most viewed bills web page.

Views on the Congressional web site are not votes in the House or Senate. The ratings and views are watched by members of Congress.  On gun law reform issues, the views are a pretty good indication of the intensity of voter support for the bills.

Second Amendment supporters consistently show 3-7 times as much support on the Internet as do gun haters.  On clearly worded issues, the support has gone as high as 20 to 1.  These bills are more clearly understood than many Internet polls.


©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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