“There doesn’t appear to be a willingness or time provided to read, understand, debate, or amend this bill.”
As the Senate passed a gun control bill this week with fifteen Republicans siding with Democrats, Senator Rand Paul noted that no one had time to even read the legislation because it was “assembled in secret.”
“Unfortunately, this legislation was assembled as many are — in secret, absent well-placed leaks to journalists,” Paul tweeted, adding “There doesn’t appear to be a willingness or time provided to read, understand, debate or amend this bill.”
The Senator further vowed to try to introduce amendments to the bill to “correct the constitutional deficiencies.”
The Senate voted 64-34 Tuesday night to advance the bill.
How can any elected official sincerely decide on legislation without reading it or debating it?
In a further interview, Paul noted “They didn’t even give us the actual bill to vote on it. They gave us a blank piece of paper and said, ‘Vote on this and trust us as to what the legislation will be when it comes forward and trust that there’ll be an actual amendment process.’”
Paul further stated that he takes issue with the so-called ‘red flag laws’, whereby law enforcement is sanctioned to remove firearms from a person who they believe may be a danger to themselves or others.
There are no federal-level red flag laws in the current legislation moving into the House, but it does propose $750 million in kickback grants to states that implement their own.
“These are called ex-parte hearings where a judge hears an accusation. In some states, the accusation is actually from an anonymous source. So under no condition would I think that your second amendment rights should be taken away with an accusation by an anonymous person,” Paul urged.
The Senator added, “I could be persuaded to vote for some aspects of this bill, but you’d have to have an amendment process to try to cure the constitutional deficiencies.”
He continued, “I don’t think you can take guns away without letting someone have a lawyer and without letting someone actually be accused of a crime in court in public. You have to be notified of what you’re being accused of. You can’t just have your gun rights taken away without even having a lawyer present.”
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