Brady Bill fee drawing fire of potential gun buyers

When hunters were reading the tracks of the Brady Bill, which originally was aimed at the purchase of handguns and became federal law in 1993, they obviously overlooked signs showing that, five years down the road, the law would include rifles and shotguns.

For the most part, gun buyers realized that, according to the Brady law, the five-day waiting period and personal background checks mandatory to purchasing handguns would be eliminated by instant, computerized checks beginning in December 1998. Because the instant checks will provide for immediate purchase of firearms – and because the majority of buyers have nothing to hide – there is scant opposition to the law.

More than a few hunters, however, were surprised to learn the expanded Brady law would apply to the purchase of rifles and shotguns come December. But, again, because the majority have nothing to hide, that aspect of the law hasn’t resulted in a magnum charge of opposition. What seems to have put the fat in the fire, though, is announcement of a pending $16 fee to fund the instant checks.

Aside from bagging more money to hang on the government game pole, I see the fee as a gun-control ploy to discourage the purchase of guns and thereby cripple firearms manufacturers. On principle, many potential gun buyers would refuse to pay the fee, which surely would be increased once it was established. Although the antis’ trails are old, their tracks and signs are glaringly clear: Bill Clinton is the most anti-gun president this country has ever produced. Additionally, his congressional anti-gun clones – Schumer, Feinstein, Boxer, Moynihan, Kennedy, and the like – have declared their intentions to rid the nation of all guns. Not surprisingly, the equally obsessed anti-hunting organizations are ensconced in the anti-gun camp.

Yet Clinton, politician that he is, had the hypocritical gall to go hunting votes by impersonating a duck hunter. You may recall his one-time trip to the Chesapeake Bay’s famed Eastern Shore gunning grounds and the highly publicized picture of him holding a duck that looked like it had been shot a week earlier. Don’t underestimate “Slick Willie,” though, he manages to fly through the tightest patterns of political shot.

In its overall context, I read the Brady law’s tracks as an anti-gun measure aimed at maintaining political volleys that will chip away at private gun ownership in this country. Make no mistake about it, Sport, people in high places have their sights set on abolishing your constitutional right to own firearms. Obviously, they have no qualms whatsoever about depriving you and me and millions of other sportsmen of the hunting traditions, cultures, and heritage that are historically and symbolically American.

Here I’ll say no one is more appalled or disturbed by the totally unconscionable and horrifying random shootings pervading this nation than I am. Particularly in schools. Something is terribly and dreadfully wrong when children, without any show of remorse, shoot and kill teachers and classmates. It is inconceivable, incomprehensible, and totally mind-boggling to see this happening in this country. But the question begs: Why now? Why, after hundreds of years of guns being as common as coffee pots in American households, is this happening now?

Rather than list all the social issues, which are conveniently ignored by anti-gun activists, I’ll say, without hesitation, that blaming guns is ludicrous. To take it a step further: Blaming guns for the random shootings occurring in this country makes about as much sense as blaming cameras for the violence shown in movies and television.

Like hundreds of thousands of Maine sportsmen, I was introduced to guns at an early age. Although safety was emphasized first and foremost in the handling of firearms, I don’t recall anyone’s gun cabinet ever being locked and if trigger locks existed back then, I never heard of them. I will say, however, that gun cabinets were actually guarded because none of us went home to empty houses.

Hence, none of us ever took a gun without permission, nor did we ever use or see a gun used for anything other than hunting or target shooting. The reason being that we were taught discipline, responsibility, accountability, and respect for others and ourselves; and therein lies the answer to ending the gun-related violence that, unbelievably, has become old news in this country. Until people begin practicing respect and self-control, and until criminals are prosecuted to the full extent of the law, the insanity we’re witnessing will continue – guns or no guns. Like all laws, gun-control affects only law-abiding people.

Admittedly, I was among the hunters who didn’t read all the signs written in the Brady Bill’s tracks. Therefore, I was somewhat taken aback when I realized rifles and shotguns eventually would be included in the law. Personally, I have no problem with the instant background check. But the imposed fee rankles me as being nothing more than a cheap shot fired by anti-gun poachers. Chance are, however, the fee, which is the target of magnum charges of opposition, will be shot down before December. And well it should be. Americans shouldn’t have to pay, in any way or form, to keep their constitutional right to own firearms.

Tom Hennessey’s column can be accessed on the BDN Internet page at: www.bangornews.com.