Statement from GOA:

Springfield, VA – Executive Director of Gun Owners of America (GOA) Erich Pratt made the following statement after the House Judiciary Committee’s actions on concealed carry reciprocity and background check legislation:
“Over 1.5 million law-abiding Americans who make up Gun Owners of America commend the House Judiciary Committee for reporting H.R. 38, the concealed carry reciprocity bill.

“GOA applauds the committee passage of H.R. 38 and encourages the House leadership to take up the bill right away. This legislation will allow decent Americans to carry in any state in the country with confidence that they would not become entrapped by the fascist gun laws of anti-gun states.

“GOA also sends special kudos to Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who shot down an attempt by Democrats to delete the Constitutional Carry protections in the bill.  Gun Owners of America opposed the amendment that sought to only limit concealed carry reciprocity to permit holders and was happy to see that provision go down to an inglorious defeat.

“Finally, Gun Owners of America condemns the committee’s approval of the ‘Traffic Ticket Gun Ban’ (H.R. 4477).  This deceptive legislation would add hundreds of thousands of additional names into the NICS system, thus blocking thousands of lawful gun owners from purchasing guns for offenses as slight as unpaid traffic tickets. Not only that, it would lay the groundwork for an anti-gun administration to troll every government health and welfare program for the purpose of imposing gun bans on recipients with PTSD, ADHD, and Alzheimer’s — the latter would jeopardize the inheritance of many valuable gun collections.  The Obama administration already tried to do this with Social Security disability.  In the future, there may not be a pro-gun Congress to disapprove similar moves or a pro-gun president to sign it.”

But then there is this from reddit/firearms.

From The Military Arms’ Channel page:

I have spoken to GOA again today and here is an email as of about 15 minutes ago.

“Tim,

To clarify several things.

First, recent gun politics has been a very fluid situation, with a lot of different statements from different people on the Hill.

On the combination of reciprocity and fix NICS – currently, we do expect the House Rules Committee to combine the bills Tuesday.

On the YouTube video you sent. I believe this YouTuber mistook the markup transcript (this document) for what was actually passed by the Judiciary Committee. That document, which is over 300 pages in length, is the a transcript of the hearing, not what was passed by the Judiciary Committee. The two amendments that were added, (here and here) are not certainly 300 pages in length, nor are they killer amendments. The standalone reciprocity bill is still a clean bill.

Again, this is a very fluid situation, why don’t we talk tomorrow for a game plan?

Thanks for your activism!”

In the end, what came out of the committee is a pretty clean HR 38. They added two amendments which aren’t “poison pills” in the view of the GOA.

Now for the bad news.

GOA does now expect the House Rules Committee to combine the bills on Tuesday. It’s not done yet, but at this time it does look like Massie’s concerns are valid as the GOA are now saying they expect the HRC to try and merge them into one bill.

If this does happen, sadly, we will have to defeat the legislation. It will be another Hughes Amendment at that point. Since Bill Clinton was on the only U.S. President to have “line item veto” power for a short time before it was ruled unconstitutional in 1998, Trump won’t be able to fix a broken bill… just like Reagan couldn’t. And just like with Reagan, the NRA will likely tell Trump to sign the bill into law if it makes it to his desk as they’re strong advocates for the NICS system (they wrote the original law for Clinton).

If we pass a combined bill, we will have to accept the fact that NICS will get a whole lot worse and you can expect a whole bunch more delays and denials coming out of the NICS system.

If you ever talked to your doctor about being depressed, you’re not able to own a firearm. If you have been diagnosed with ADHD, you’re no longer eligible to buy a firearm. Have you sought help with your finances before? You’re no longer eligible to own a firearm. Are you over 65? You may no longer be eligible to own a firearm. Hell, if you have an unpaid traffic ticket, you’re no longer eligible to buy a firearm under HR 4477.

Sooo…

Blow up the phones on Monday. I’ll see if I can get a stream going with the GOA to talk about it Monday. We’ll have to do what we can to try and stop the House Rules Committee from merging them. The reality is, there’s little we can do given how fast and fluid this process has been. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

Then there are the reddit commenters who call BS on the GOA take on things.

As for my own take, I have none at the moment.  I will offer up two remarks on this and in fact any other bill that comes to my attention.  First, I absolutely do not support any bill I haven’t read in its entirety.  I have not read this one.  Second, I do not support any bill, ever, under any circumstances, for any reason whatsoever, that includes more gun laws.  I do not believe in compromise.

If readers have spent more time studying this than I have, please feel free to weigh in via comments.