Senators from Illinois and New York are making a bid to bring back legislation that would make selling guns to a prohibited possessor worth 20 years in federal prison.
The proposal, to be filed this week in Washington, is sponsored by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, and co-sponsored by Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. It is a repeat of a failed bid last session to make gun trafficking a crime.
The earlier attempt by the same two lawmakers, the Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2013, never made it out of committee but Gillibrand is more hopeful this time around.
“I am not willing to throw my hands in the air and say nothing can be done while lives are being senselessly lost due to weapons being in the hands of criminals,” Gillibrand told the New York Daily News. “We all have a moral obligation to make our voices heard and say enough is enough.”
The new bill, termed the Hadiya Pendleton and Nyasia Pryear-Yard Gun Trafficking and Crime Prevention Act of 2015, is named after two teens killed in New York with guns traced to out-of-state origins.
Kirsten Gillibrand’s website has a press release regarding proposed legislation to curb “illegal gun trafficking” into New York. The press release has quotes from a lot of public officials in New York including the mayors of Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Binghamton and Buffalo and Monroe County DA Mike Green.
Take a look at this blog post on the Snowflakes in Hell website which has a nice summary of their proposal with some thoughts on each point.
Yet another proposal that addresses actions that are already illegal and has as much gray area as any law we already have.
There are five main points described in the press release.
It looks like #5 is a lame attempt to appease legal gun owners while not really accomplishing anything.
You can contact Kirsten Gillibrand through her website here. You can contact Carolyn McCarthy through her website here.