Dereliction of Duty

It gets even worse. On Thursday, April 11th, The US Senate voted to advance a “gun control” bill that doesn’t exist and hasn’t been read. Hours after the vote, an amendment to a bill that has not been written, was posted online. This mess of an amendment is close to 8,000 words long and exempts rules to protect the privacy of medical records:

SEC. 117. CLARIFICATION THAT SUBMISSION OF MENTAL HEALTH RECORDS TO THE NATIONAL INSTANT CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK SYSTEM IS NOT PROHIBITED BY THE HEALTH INSURANCE PORTABILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT.
Information collected under section 102(c)(3) of the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 (18 U.S.C. 922 note) to assist the Attorney General in enforcing section 922(g)(4) of title 18, United States Code, shall not be subject to the regulations promulgated under section 264(c) of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (42 U.S.C. 1320d-2 note).

Further, it establishes a 12-member commission whose role is to:

1) IN GENERAL.-It shall be the duty of the Commission to conduct a comprehensive factual study of incidents of mass violence, including incidents of mass violence not involving firearms, in the context of the many acts of senseless mass violence that occur in the United States each year, in order to determine the root causes of such mass violence.

It has now become routine for Congress to vote on legislation they have not read, so they can “find out what’s in it.”

 When Senators approved the 150-plus page bill  in December to avoid the “fiscal cliff” they had less than six-minutes to read it.

I would never vote to approve legislation I have not read. Out of principle I would vote against it.

The text of the Toomey/Machin amendment can be found here:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/posted-full-text-public-safety-and-second-amendment-rights-protection-act_716249.html

William Lee 2014, for US Senate