FPC Statement on Senate Gun Control Agreement

Firearms Policy Coalition issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Senate’s release of the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act”:

In closed-door Senate gun control negotiations and after-hours release of the text, the United States Senate has failed the People yet again in both their cowardly process and on the measure’s merits, which seeks to abrogate the fundamental rights of the People. The two-party system has fallen miserably short of protecting the rights of the People since its inception, and this tradition of treachery continues today.

The proposal seeks to chill the right to keep and bear arms by incentivizing local disarmament proceedings, of which many states currently employ secret ex-parte hearings, massive penalties and enhancements reminiscent of the mass incarceration of the so-called war on drugs, naked discrimination against young adults, and an aggressive assault on peaceable conduct.

This proposal is an act of violence against the fundamental rights of the People. Should this package be adopted, it will result in the imprisonment, injury, and death of peaceable people. Those who vote in opposition to human liberty terrorize the People who must choose to be disarmed or take the risk of incarceration, locked in a cage, and separated from their families, their career, and their agency–for peaceably keeping and bearing arms–which is their inalienable right.

The arrogance of the Senators negotiating on behalf of the People forgets that inalienable rights can not be negotiated and can not be voted on. Fundamental rights are not subject to the tyranny of the majority, and thus, we reject this measure and those who would sic the dogs of tyranny on their own people.