Each day under the Biden Administration and Speaker Pelosi’s leadership, we experience a new attack on our Constitution. In President Biden’s recent Joint Address to Congress, he admitted that he believes “no amendment to the Constitution is absolute.”
I respectfully, and strongly, disagree. But this flawed mindset explains why the Administration and Democrats in Congress continue to push policies that trample all over our Second Amendment rights.
Congresswoman Ashley Hinson (IA-01)
The President’s statement came shortly after he announced several executive actions intended to make it more difficult, expensive, and time consuming for law-abiding citizens to purchase a gun. His Administration has called for an assault weapons ban, targeted gun manufacturers with legal action, and nominated a gun control activist to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Meanwhile, House Democrats have advanced legislation that allows the government to delay the sale of a firearm for an indefinite period, as well as a bill that criminalizes the everyday transfers of lawfully purchased guns—all without taking meaningful action to address gun violence or prevent bad guys from illegally purchasing guns, like providing additional resources to law enforcement to keep criminals from getting black market weapons. This is on top of even more radical proposals to create a mandatory license and registration process for all guns with an $800 annual fee, including those currently in circulation, create a national federal gun registry, raise the age to purchase and license a gun to 21, and make certain types of ammunition and magazines illegal.
Make no mistake, these proposals aren’t about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals; they are gun grabs. Amid these attacks on our Second Amendment, I am working to ensure Iowans’ right to keep and bear arms is protected. Yesterday, I introduced the Repealing Illegal Freedom and Liberty Excises (RIFLE) Act.
Under current law, there is a $200 tax on the transfer and purchase of guns regulated under the National Firearms Act—this is an intentional, federally-mandated financial barrier on the Second Amendment. The rights of Americans cannot and should not be infringed by a federal financial burden. My bill would remove this unconstitutional and unfair tax that dictates gun ownership based on income level.
Those who believe we can chip away at the Second Amendment without diluting our other Constitutional liberties are misguided. Each of our Constitutional rights is absolute and inalienable. But the liberties enshrined in the Second Amendment protect all other freedoms we enjoy as Americans.
Our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, and the Second Amendment, to serve as an everlasting check on a power-hungry government. Having fought and won against oppression themselves, they foresaw the potential for centralized leadership to become powerful to the point of tyrannical, and therefore the need for the Second Amendment as the citizens’ enforcement mechanism preserving all other rights. Our right to keep and bear arms is our inherent guarantee that the government will never be able to overpower its citizens.
I will continue working to ensure this right, and all our other freedoms, shall not be infringed.
