On Monday Cory Booker released his plan to curb gun violence in the United States. From various news articles it's a 14 point plan and the broadest gun control proposal yet to be brought forward. Wanting to see the whole plan, I went looking for a press release or a written statement of the plan from Mr. Booker. None was to be found, I'm starting to wonder how this extensive gun control plan was "released". I read about a dozen articles, hoping one would provide a link to the proposal but found nothing. I checked his presidential website but found nothing defining this proposal. The fact is, on his website (corybooker.com) I found no information at all on what he stands for. Certainly there are areas to check on events someone might want to attend, donate money, or buy a t-shirt but nothing about what he would stand for as a president. Even google searches couldn't come up with a press release of this "plan".
One of the central parts of this plan is to establish a national gun licensing program. This involves getting a license approved by the FBI to either buy or own a gun that expires after 5 years. My personal opinion is that gun legislation is not one of the enumerated powers delegated to Congress in the Constitution so Federal gun laws should be unconstitutional. But here are some arguments against this type of licensing program.
To get this new federal gun license, I would assume a person would need and existing government issued photo ID. This would be discriminatory based on
- Millions of Americans Lack ID. 11% of U.S. citizens – or more than 21 million Americans – do not have government-issued photo identification.
- Obtaining ID Costs Money. Even if ID is offered for free, voters must incur numerous costs (such as paying for birth certificates) to apply for a government-issued ID.
- Minority voters disproportionately lack ID. Nationally, up to 25% of African-American citizens of voting age lack government-issued photo ID, compared to only 8% of whites.
These points may look familiar to you. These are the same points the ACLU uses to fight against voter ID laws. Notice the hypocrisy here? It's acceptable to discriminate to infringe on our right to own firearms but not acceptable to have people prove they are citizens before they can vote.
The other argument made by the ACLU is that voter ID laws are a solution in search of a problem, that voter fraud is not a huge issue. Although gun violence is a huge problem in the U.S., a similar argument can be made about gun control. The group Small Guns Survey estimates there are 393 million legal and illicit guns in the United States, that is 120 guns for each 100 people. Of the 393 million guns owned I would think the vast majority of them have never been fired at a person or been used in an armed robbery, or been used in a suicide. The vast majority of people that own guns are honest, law abiding people, just like the vast majority of voters that would never be involved in voter fraud.
Mr. Booker, and the rest of the bus load of Democrats seeking to be president want to reduce gun violence, need to focus on the portion of the 393 million guns in the U.S. that are considered "illicit" rather than on the average people that own guns for protection, hunting, or just because they enjoy a trip to a shooting range. By the way, if Mr. Booker and most of the other bus load seeking to be president want to curb gun violence, most of them are currently in Congress. Maybe they should be spending time putting together a realistic proposal that might actually help with gun violence rather than trying to punish the average gun owner.