A House Judiciary Committee markup session was held on Tuesday, March 25, advancing several pro-Second Amendment measures for a full vote in the United States House of Representatives. Notably, the long-awaited “Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act” was among the bills, however, H.R. 2184, known as the “Firearm Due Process Protection Act,” was also looked upon favorably by the committee as it also advances for full House consideration.
H.R. 2184 is sponsored by Republican Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota’s 6th District, who also serves as House Majority Whip. The bill seeks to provide law-abiding Americans, improperly denied their right to legally purchase a firearm due to administrative errors during a background check, with legal recourse, for which there is shockingly no provision at this time. It is designed to enforce accountability within the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) by mandating finalized decisions on record correction requests within 60 days.
“Thousands of Americans every year are being prevented from exercising their constitutional rights not because they are criminals, but because of bureaucratic errors. The Firearm Due Process Protection will provide important recourse to Americans whose Second Amendment freedoms are being restricted through no fault of their own. We are grateful to our over fifty colleagues who stand in support of this common-sense fix,” says Emmer.
If passed on the House floor, the “Firearm Due Process Protection Act” will move to the Senate, where speculation exists regarding bipartisan support since the bill focuses on correcting procedural issues within existing law. I wouldn’t personally hold my breath on Democrats backing anything that supports gun rights for any reason, but I suppose we’ll have to cross that bridge when we get there.
“Rep. Emmer’s bill would help protect gun owners from the broken National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The system disproportionately targets minorities and individuals with common last names, either rejecting background checks due to cultural spellings of names or falsely flagging individuals as criminals because they share a common last name. To remediate this failure, Rep. Emmer’s bill allows for affected individuals to seek recourse through litigation,” according to Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs for Gun Owners of America.
The government expects citizens to be accountable for their actions but practices “rules for thee and not for me,” which has become a .gov staple throughout history. I’ll confess to a small sigh of cautious optimism for any measure that secures Americans’ rights and holds the feet of our institutions to the proverbial fire when it comes to their accountability to the public, arguably more important than vice versa. Don’t get me wrong. While any person or system can err from time to time, a procedure in place for so long without provision for due process when denying a Constitutionally guaranteed right to law-abiding Americans is indicative of a system designed that way on purpose. A statutory assurance of timely resolutions goes a long way in addressing and hopefully closing that due process gap which has frustrated many American gun buyers for years.
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