Just last week US representative Nydia Velázquez(D-NY) introduced the Protecting Americans from Gun Violence Act of 2022 which would create a $1 fee for every background check conducted.
This legislation has raised a plurality of concerns as many feel this is the introduction to a coming financial burden on the Second Amendment. $1 certainly seems like a small price to pay to conduct a background check, in fact it might be easy for a moderate to justify the fee under the guises that this will cover the cost of the NICS system. Don’t be fooled, if this bill were to pass the fee would not remain at $1 for very long.
The NICS system was billed as a low cost solution when it was initially created with the passing of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, lawmakers were told that this system would come at no-cost to the gun buyer and that the FBI does not charge a fee for running the check. This legislation would dramatically change this.
If this legislation were to pass, it would be very easy to expand the $1 fee to $5 and later $25 or even more. While some might still argue that the amount of funds raised by the $1 would be insignificant, consider that over 1 million NICS checks have been conducted every month since July of 2019. If this legislation had theoretically been passed in July of 2019 then there would have been roughly $31,000,000 raised.
These funds are important to consider as the bill outlines exactly where the money will go. The legislation dictates that the first $10,000,000 raised would go to the CDC for the gun violence prevention research and the next $5,000,000 would go to the NICS system fund, after this the funds would be funneled directly into the Attorney General’s office.
There are other aspects to this legislation that should also be considered, the legislation would make it a crime for firearm owners to not report the theft of their firearms to the police within 24 hours of discovering that the firearm is missing. The legislation would make neglecting to report a stolen firearm a federal crime and it would come with a hefty $10,000 fine and or 1 year in prison for each stolen firearm.
