Stockman touts bill defunding gun registries

Conservative firebrand Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) on Wednesday touted his bill to dock federal funding to states with gun registries, amid controversy over New York’s newly passed gun control law.

“In states like New York, gun grabbing politicians are using gun owner registries to hunt down law-abiding gun owners and demand they surrender their personal firearms,” Stockman said. “My bill ends anti-gun tyranny by cutting off the funds gun grabbers use to implement their tracking and confiscation schemes.”

{mosads}New York’s SAFE Act requires assault weapon owners to register their guns with the state or potentially face a felony charge. The deadline to register was Tuesday, but some gun owners threatened to ignore the requirement in protest.

A trial-level judge in Albany ruled Wednesday that New York’s new gun law does not violate the Second Amendment.

Stockman’s legislation, introduced earlier this month, would withhold National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) or Community Oriented Policing Services Program funding to states that maintain gun registries or confiscate guns from people who are not legally allowed to own firearms.

Stockman’s comments also come in light of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stating in a New York Times article this week that he’d launch a $50 million operation to promote gun control initiatives

“We’ve got to make them afraid of us,” Bloomberg said of the National Rifle Association.