Handgun Safety and Registration Act

Claim:   A bill currently before Congress would require that all handgun owners list their guns on federal income tax returns.

FALSE

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, May 2009]

Variations:   An August 2009 version of the Handgun Safety and Registration Act e-mail combined it with the Blair Holt e-mail that truthfully claims a bill before Congress would prohibit ownership of handguns by those who have not obtained firearms licenses.

Origins:   The item quoted above about a pending Congressional bill requiring gun owners to list their guns on federal income tax is both outdated and contains a good deal of misinformation. The referenced bill, SB 2099 (the Handgun Safety and Registration Act) is not currently before Congress — it was introduced to the Senate back in February 2000 (not 2009), and it was referred to the Committee on Finance, where it languished without ever coming to a vote. It also had no provisions for requiring handgun owners to list their guns on federal income tax returns.

The issue back in 2000 was Senate Bill 2099, introduced in February of that year by Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island. S. 2099 was titled the "Handgun Safety and Registration Act of 2000" and sought "to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require the registration of handguns, and for other purposes."

The National Firearms Act of 1934 established (among other things) a tax on both the manufacture and the transfer of firearms, required that each person who transfers a firearm file an application

(complete with photograph and fingerprints) with the internal revenue authorities, and authorized the creation of "a central registry of all firearms in the United States which are not in the possession or under the control of the United States." However, the definition of "firearm" used by the 1934 act did not include standard rifles, shotguns, or handguns. It applied only to specialized weapons such as short-barrelled rifles and shotguns, machine guns, silencers, and other "destructive devices" (e.g., grenades, bombs, rockets, missiles, mines). S. 2099 would have expanded the definition of "firearm" to include handguns, thus subjecting them to these requirements as well.

The upshot of the Handgun Safety and Registration Act, if passed, would have been the imposition of a $50 tax on the manufacture of all handguns, a requirement that all gun owners register their handguns within one year of the Act's passage (but not, as claimed, list them on their federal income tax returns), and the provision that registration information be made available to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. In practical terms, every handgun owner would have had to obtain a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms registration form and an FBI fingerprint form, then complete and submit both forms (along with a 2x2 of himself and a $5 payment) to the BATF.

That the intent of this bill was to effect nationwide registration of handguns is unmistakable. As stated in a
press release about Senator Reed's bill:

The claim that this bill could have been passed into law without Congress voting upon it was not true: The Handgun Safety and Registration Act, like any other Congressional bill, would have had to be passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President (or passed again over his veto) in order to become law. Furthermore, the $50 tax specified in the bill would have applied only to gun manufacturers, not gun owners.

As noted above, the Handgun Safety and Registration Act of 2000 languished in committee without ever being brought to a vote, and even Senator Reed himself said at the time he submitted the bill that he was not optimistic about its chances of success:

Additional information:

Misleading E-mail   (gunregistration.org)

Last updated:   13 August 2009