HF2609 clarifies that the “trigger activator" ban covers semiautomatic firearms with a “binary firing system” and expands the crime of a “straw purchase” to involve the transfer of “all firearms” to an “ineligible person.”
The House passed HF2609 on May 17, 2024, by a vote of 69 to 60. We have assigned pluses to the nays because the Second Amendment-protected rights of law-abiding citizens are not subject to a government-approved list of what firearms a person may own or who may own them. This unconstitutional bill restricts the right to “keep and bear Arms” to exclude certain types of firearms (e.g., automatic firearms) while effectively forcing universal background checks for all firearms purchases or transfers. Moreover, persons convicted of less serious, non-capital crimes, who have made just restitution for their past wrongs, ought to have their constitutionally protected rights restored. The Second Amendment expressly declares that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” whereas the Fifth and the 14th Amendments prevent “any State” from depriving or denying “any person” of their “liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
