GOP Senator Pushes Bill Barring State, Municipal Usage of Federal Funds for Gun Registries

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) is pushing the Gun-owner Registration Information Protection Act (GRIP Act) to prevent Democrat-controlled states and municipalities from using federal funding to create or gun registries.

Hyde-Smith posted a synopsis of the legislation to her Senate homepage, explaining that current law states “the federal government may not store information acquired during the firearms background process.”  However, with infringement and record keeping actively underway in some states and cities, she believes law needs to be clarified to make clear that funds from the federal government may not used in gun registry schemes either.

In a supplemental leaflet on the GRIP Act she explained, “For example, the State of New York enacted a statute requiring gun owners to register their handguns with state police by January 2018.”  And Breitbart News reported a similar registration requirement is underway in California,  where legal owners of “bullet button assault weapons” are required to register their semi-automatic firearms with the state by 11:59 pm on June 30, 2018.

Hyde-Smith wants to be sure these registration schemes are not being funded by federal monies.

She tweeted:

Not a single federal dollar should be used for states or cities to target law-abiding gun owners. Today I introduced the Gun-owner Registration Information Protection Act or GRIP Act to fix that problem. #2ndAmendment https://t.co/q9148c9H2F

— U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (@SenHydeSmith) June 26, 2018

NRA-ILA executive director Chris Cox praised Hyde-Smith’s legislation, saying, “This important legislation will block the use of federal funds to support gun registration schemes.  As a strong Second Amendment advocate, Senator Hyde-Smith continues to fight to uphold law abiding citizens’ constitutional right to self-protection.  I applaud her efforts and thank her on behalf of the NRA’s six million members.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.