Almost as a “parting shot” as she prepares to leave office, Connecticut Democrat Rep. Elizabeth Esty has filed legislation that would require people to obtain a “handgun purchaser license” before they are able to buy a handgun.
The measure, H.R. 5490, has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
Esty is leaving office at the end of the year, noted the Connecticut Mirror, “deciding to quit Congress after members of her own party blasted her handling of a former chief-of-staff accused of abuse.”
Under provisions of Esty’s legislation, the attorney general would award grants to states, local governments and Indian tribes “for the development, implementation, and evaluation of handgun purchaser licensing requirements.”
Esty, who earned an “F” rating from the National Rifle Association for her perennial support of gun control measures, includes a misleading assertion in the bill’s opening “findings” segment that “In 2013, more than 33,000 Americans were killed by guns and almost 90 percent of the firearms used in these deaths were handguns.” That would only be accurate by lumping all suicides, homicides and accidental deaths together.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2013 there were 11,208 homicides involving firearms, 21,175 suicides involving guns and 505 fatal firearms accidents, bringing the actual total to 32,888.
Interestingly, the FBI Uniform Crime Report for the same year shows 8,454 firearms-related slayings, of which 5,782 involved handguns.
So, is Congresswoman Esty playing fast and loose with the facts on her way out the door? Combining homicide, suicide and accidental firearms-related death statistics is nothing new for anti-gunners. The news media rarely challenges this deceptive math, allowing the gun prohibition lobby to perpetuate the impression that there is a violent crime wave in progress.
By requiring purchaser licensing, authorities would be able to delay indefinitely the purchase of handguns by just allowing the paperwork to gather dust. A handful of states, most notably New Jersey where a woman named Carol Bowne had been waiting for several weeks to get her permit to purchase approved by the Berlin Township police, when she was brutally stabbed to death in her own driveway by a man against whom she had a restraining order.
Esty’s legislation is just one of several gun control efforts to surface in the wake of the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Fla.
