Pelosi Asks Trump to Call a Senate Vote on House-passed Gun Control
by Bob Adelmann
TheNewAmerican.com
Friday, 09 August 2019
During Friday morning’s free-ranging meeting with the press, President Trump once again reiterated his determination to pass “meaningful,” “common sense” background checks and red flag laws.
When asked about resistance from the National Rifle Association, Trump quipped, “They’ll come around.” (After all, following Trump’s demand that his ATF ban bump stocks, there was nary a puff of resistance from the NRA.)
This is the opening that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is using to demand that President Trump call back the Senate from summer recess to vote on further infringements of the Second Amendment.
Pelosi referred to that opening in her demand letter:
It is with deep sadness and great urgency that I write following the horrific loss of life that occurred in Gilroy, El Paso, Dayton and Chicago, after which you said, “I think background checks are important. I don’t want to put guns into the hands of mentally unstable or people with rage or hate, sick people. I’m all in favor of it.”…
Today, as Speaker of the House, I am writing in good faith to request that you call the United States Senate back into session immediately … to consider House-passed bipartisan violence prevention legislation.
During his address following the mass shootings in Texas and Ohio over the weekend, Trump said, “We must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms and that if they do, those firearms can be taken through rapid due process. That is why I have called for red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders [ERPOs].”
As if that wasn’t clear enough, a high-level administration official told the Washington Examiner that the president is still determining “the best way to do it: legislatively, by executive action, engagement with states … and the private sector, or a mix.” In preparing for his move, Trump has already “had his administration look at issues related to law enforcement, mental health, culture, and policies around guns.”
Red flag laws, or ERPOs, have raised great concerns among constitutionalists, gun owners, and pro-gun organizations. In an opinion piece at Fox News, Judge Andrew Napolitano said it would be “exquisitely unfair, profoundly unconstitutional and historically un-American for the rights of law-abiding folks … to be impaired in the name of public safety.” He called the laws “horrific”:
These horrific statutes permit police or courts to seize guns from those deemed dangerous. Red flag laws are unconstitutional. The presumption of innocence and the due process requirement of demonstrable fault [under the Fourth Amendment] as a precondition to any punishment or sanction together prohibit the loss of liberty on the basis of what (em)might(/em) happen in the future.
The Rest…HERE
