South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Connecticut US Senator Richard Blumenthal were given massive coverage in the media this week to push their new tyrannical gun control law. “The Ammunition Background Check Act of 2021,” would require all citizens who wish to purchase ammo for their already-legal firearms to undergo background checks first.
The law is also called “Jamie’s Law,” named in honor of Jaime Guttenberg, one of 17 victims in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.
On Thursday, the congresswoman from Florida took to shamelessly exploiting the Parkland tragedy to push even more senseless gun control measures.
“No person should endure the agonizing pain of losing someone they love to gun violence. Families in towns and cities across the country who have been touched by this agonizing epidemic are joining Fred Guttenberg and other gun safety advocates to demand Congress address this public health crisis,” said Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz. “Jaime’s Law is a crucial piece of the multifaceted approach needed to end the gun violence epidemic. Closing the ammunition loophole and requiring background checks for ammunition purchases can save lives.”
Jamie’s father all released a statement to push the bill.
“My daughter Jaime was murdered over 3 years ago. Since then, our failure to address the reality of gun violence has only become more challenging as we see more instances of gun violence. The gun surge unleashed during the pandemic has resulted in over 400,000,000 weapons on our streets,” said Fred Guttenberg, founder of Orange Ribbons For Jaime. “Unfortunately, as we are seeing every day now, many in the hands of someone who intends harm and wants to kill. The way to deal with this reality is to pass Jaime’s law and extend background checks to ammunition. The reality of gun violence in America will not fix itself. We need this life saving legislation or we will continue to face our current daily reality of gun violence and loss of life. We are better than this. THE TIME IS NOW!!! Let’s save lives together and pass Jaime’s Law.”
As CBS Miami reports, with Democrats in control of Congress, Guttenberg feels there is a great chance of passage this year.
“The gun lobby is weakened and this is the year to pass legislation,” he says.
While Guttenberg’s loss is certainly tragic, requiring background checks for ammunition would not have prevented Nikolas Cruz from shooting up Parkland. There were over a dozen red flags authorities completely overlooked and Cruz was allowed to buy a gun despite committing multiple felonies prior to committing mass murder.
But citing Cruz as the reason for advocating the erosion of the 2nd Amendment is commonplace for the the anti-gun activists who constantly claim he should’ve had his guns taken which would have prevented the tragedy. Sadly, however, they are ignoring the fact that he was accused of multiple felonies—and should’ve never been able to purchase a gun in the first place—but law enforcement failed to act on any of it.
According to a report by CNN, records obtained from the sheriff’s office by CNN show the law enforcement agency received at least 45 calls for service relating to Cruz or his brother from 2008 to 2017.
As TFTP previously reported, Cruz warned that he was going to shoot up a school and kill people and the FBI did nothing. “I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” A YouTube user named Nikolas Cruz commented on a video on Sept. 24, 2017. The video was posted on the channel “Ben The Bondsman,” and the owner, Ben Bennight, immediately took a screenshot and submitted it to the FBI. Nothing happened.
While this is bad enough, the Sheriff’s department records show that police were given this exact same warning—a year before—because Cruz had been declaring his wishes to shoot up the school publicly.
According to the records, in 2016, a neighbor warned police that Cruz posted on Instagram that he said he “planned to shoot up the school.” The person who made that call came forward in March and said that she begged the sheriff’s office to intervene. Instead of intervening though, police told her that they couldn’t act until Cruz actually did something.
The incompetence is staggering, especially given the fact that making a direct threat of violence is illegal.
A few months after he said he wanted to shoot up the school on Instagram—because the police failed to heed this warning and the dozens of other ones—Cruz bought the rifle he would use in the shooting—none of the gun control laws or the actual laws on the books designed to stop him from getting a gun worked.
In Florida, if a person making death threats intends for the victim to fear for his or her safety, specifically fearful of death or bodily harm, it is considered a credible threat under the law, which changes the crime from stalking, a first-degree misdemeanor, to aggravated stalking, a felony of the third degree. Cruz was reported at least 4 times for this very crime before he bought his AR-15 — and police did nothing.
The reactionary nature of disarming Americans because deranged psychopaths kill people is dangerous and only serves to keep the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens. Moreover, deranged psychopaths don’t even need guns to cause mass death.
This bill, like all gun control bills before it, do nothing to address the reason people go on killing sprees and only attempt to remove a single tool while laying waste to the rights of tens of millions of law-abiding individuals.
