Gun Control Sneaks by Lackadaisical Republicans
House Republicans were asleep at the wheel this week and missed a major piece of gun control legislation buried deep in the original text of H.R. 6395, a $740.5 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Tuesday—legislation they had unanimously voted out of committee. While the House Armed Services Committee vote to move the bill to the Floor of the House of Representatives two weeks ago went swimmingly for interested parties, the road to the finish line was brutal. Hundreds of amendments were proposed, and the parliamentary proceedings to sort through the mess forced members to physically stand on the chamber floor for a series of votes over the course of two consecutive days—excruciating work indeed. Eventually around 5:30 PM on Tuesday evening, the bill passed, 295-125 with a veto-proof majority. There were 9 Republicans not voting, 108 voting “yea,” and 81 voting “nay.” With this final passage, the U.S. House of Representatives finished its work on this spending “masterpiece,” and more than half of Republicans were now on record in support of “red flag” gun confiscation orders (GCOs) for the Armed Services. On page 343 of 1427 lay a section stating: “a military court protective order issued on an ex parte basis shall restrain a person from possessing, receiving, or otherwise accessing a firearm.”
Understood in context, Section 542 of the bill codified a new “red flag” gun confiscation order program enforceable against any person subject to the United States Code of Military Justice—meaning both active duty military and retirees, among others. Because these would be issued on an ex parte basis, the gun owner would get no notice, no attorney, and no ability to defend himself against the accusations—in short, no due process. You might ask, what is gun control doing in an annual national defense appropriations package? But anti-gunners had asked themselves a better question at least several weeks earlier: why not enact gun control in a national defense bill? Gun owners should count themselves lucky that the final text of the 2021 NDAA will be determined through conference negotiations in the coming weeks with Senate Republicans and the White House.
https://www.houstoncourant.com/houston-voices/2020/gun-control-sneaks-by-lackadaisical-republicans
H. R. 6395 Union Calendar No. 354
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-116hr6395rh/pdf/BILLS-116hr6395rh.pdf
https://republicans-armedservices.house.gov/news/press-releases/thornberry-hasc-passage-fy21-ndaa