Caveat Fabricator: Rep. Mike Honda Wants to Regulate Homemade Guns

It’s election season and that means political
grandstanding. According
to The Hill, Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) is taking a
grand stand by “pushing legislation to regulate homemade guns” in
the same manner as store bought guns—and that includes background
checks.

Taking a leaf out of
Philadelphia’s playbook, Honda argues that the bill is
necessary because 3-D printing allows anyone to manufacture guns
without regulatory oversight.

Honda is
not the first wishful legislator to propose regulating
untraceable homemade guns, which currently fall outside existing
gun regulations. Thanks to a loophole in the Gun Control Act of
1968,
unfinished receivers do not constitute guns and therefore
can be purchased without a requisite background check. Companies
such as Ares
Armor sell DIY gun kits with unfinished receivers included.

Gun control advocates see grave danger ahead:

“The parts needed to build an untraceable homemade gun are
readily available at gun shows and on the internet,” Kristen Rand,
of the Violence Policy Center, said in a statement. “Now is the
time to bring homemade guns under the same laws that apply to all
other new firearms.”

Although the legislation is likely doomed to failure in a
GOP-controlled House, the bill’s sponsors hope it will prove
valuable political currency:

Supporters are hoping their calls for tougher gun laws will
distinguish Democrats from Republicans, who are almost universally
opposed to new firearms restrictions.

But even if the bill had a snowball’s chance in hell and even if
the hysterics about the threat of homemade guns were justified, the
proposed legislation would be about as useful as
Hillary Clinton at a barbecue: expanded background checks for
gun buyers—the poster child of gun control advocates—have proven
notoriously
ineffective at preventing mass shootings.

And mum’s the word on how legislation like Honda’s could stop
people from
simply printing guns in the comfort of their homes, completely
bypassing targeted online marketplaces and gun shows.