Anti-gun Sen. Cory Booker would require licensing of gun owners if elected president. (Screen snip, CNN, YouTube)
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
A sweeping gun control plan from anti-gun Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), one of nearly two-dozen Democrats running for the presidency brought immediate criticism from the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which called his multi-point scheme “outrageous.”
Among the proposals on Booker’s “wish list” are federal licensing of gun owners, renewable every five years, and a national one-handgun-a-month restriction. He would also ban so-called “assault weapons” and their original capacity magazines, mandate microstamping and repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb declared that Booker’s proposal throws the Second Amendment “into the trash.” He was quoted by the New York Times and Washington Times.
“For a person hoping to be elected to the highest office in the land to advocate such an outrageous proposal isn’t just disappointing, it is disturbing,” Gottlieb said in a prepared statement.
Booker, who is trailing current front-runners Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders—and is also behind Kamala Harris, Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg—has traditionally been an anti-gunner. However, his gun control plan garnered some headlines and at least put his name back in front of the public.
But Second Amendment activists aren’t impressed.
Booker’s plan also includes “Extreme Risk Protection Order” (ERPO) laws, which have become a lightning rod issue since a Maryland man was fatally shot by police when they tried to serve such an order early one dark morning late last year. Several states have adopted such laws, which allow authorities to seize someone’s firearms after a hearing at which the gun owner may not be present.
Only after such a seizure is the affected gun owner allowed a hearing, which translates to having to prove one’s innocence while the government presumes them guilty, or at least temporarily disqualified from being able to possess a firearm.
Gottlieb has insisted that any such laws have strong due process provisions
Another tenet of his proposal is so-called “universal background checks.” According to Gottlieb, the Booker proposal looks like a combination of every popular gun control idea to come along in recent memory. The CCRKBA chairman says that it would turn the right to keep and bear arms into a heavily-regulated privilege.
Seattle-area morning talk host John Carlson at KVI challenged his audience to think about a right that could be suspended every five years under Booker’s licensing scheme.
“Proposals like this underscore why American gun owners are increasingly distrustful of Democrats,” Gottlieb observed. “Booker’s plan is demagoguery on steroids, and it once again targets the wrong people. He doesn’t want to crack down on criminals, he wants to create new ones with the stroke of a pen.”
That seemed to be an opinion shared by several activists on social media.
Author Emily Miller, whose Emily Gets Her Gun described her travails to obtain a handgun permit in Washington, D.C. a few years ago and earned a couple of awards, chimed in on Facebook with this observation: “Cory Booker says that when he is president, he will mandate every American get a ‘gun license’ to own. He said it’s like a driver’s license. It’s not clear he’s aware of the Second Amendment.”
Under Booker’s plan, according to the website, “Individuals could seek a gun license at a designated local office, widely available in urban and rural areas, similar to applying for or renewing a passport. They would submit fingerprints, provide basic background information, and demonstrate completion of a certified gun safety course.”
The provision is reminiscent of language in a 2018 citizen initiative passed by voters in Washington State that raised the age limit for purchasing any kind of semiautomatic rifle to 21, and requires training before such a purchase can be made. That measure also classified all semi-auto rifles as “semiautomatic assault rifles.” A similar attempt to attach a training requirement to obtaining a concealed pistol license died in the legislature earlier this year.
The website quotes Booker’s promise when he declared his candidacy.
“We will pass universal background checks,” he said. “We will ban assault weapons and close the loopholes that allow people who should never have a gun to get one. We will bring a fight to the NRA like they have never ever seen before. And we will win.”
Gottlieb said while Booker’s scheme is disturbing, “what is even more alarming is that not one other Democrat now in the race denounced the plan.”
“If they all agree with Booker,” he suggested, “they need to admit it now so voters realize they are all willing to trample on the Bill of Rights.”
