I've yet to see a bill tabled, by Democrats, that didn't either imply registration or totally disregard tenants of natural justice or due process.
My goodness - I didn't realise that you careful read the actual legislation rather than turn on Fox or CNN for a reporters perspective.
The sentence that followed his quote, which linguist cunningly chose to omit, bluntly said as much:
They fit his olive branch metaphor only if whipping was what he had in mind.
Gotta love the "in-depth" analysis there. "Dangerous", really, that's the whole counter argument?
This is true. They hide stuff in a bill that ostensibly seems like its reasonable . But when you really look into it, it contains unacceptable measures. When it gets defeated because of the fine print, then they can blame the other side for being obtuse and unreasonable, and having an 'agenda'. The press, who's only mandate is to get big scoops and create controversy in order to sell more papers and get more advertising revenue, does not have the attention span to properly analyse such bills and jumps on the bandwagon.
That's the the 'authority' you picked and quoted, also omitting their disclaimer "Here's the gist:" in your eagerness to paint the GOP as compromising appeasers determined to make peace with the Democrats. But that ain't what your source says.
Point-of-sale reporting for private sales? No thanks, no one will put up with it. It is a plot to incrementally steal guns from law abiding owners, we've already seen it used in such a way, here in Canada. Being on a government watch list for having a particular lifestyle, gee, I wonder what's wrong with that?
Denying sales to terrorists seems quite a noble and sensible idea. But who defines what a terrorist is, and who is one, especially when no crime has been committed. The problem with that is that police and prosecutors (District Attorneys), who are elected in the US BTW, could decide to broaden the definition and applicability of people who 'could' be terrorists, without any judicial oversight. Bureaucrats and state functionaries will always stretch the intent of a law into its literal reading, if that's what it takes to nail someone. That's why the GOP want some judicial oversight before someone is definitely banned from buying guns, despite no criminality having been committed.
As I said, the whole NRA propaganda is based on paranoid conspiracy theories.
The problem is the three day requirement. There are no cases that go to trial with only three days of investigation and prep but that's exactly what Cornyn's bill proposed. His bill might make sense if allowed them to delay sales until a proper examination is completed but instead it is pretending to put in some oversight.
Judges are quite accessible in the US. The proof does not need a trial to be validated, as a trial is the result of a criminal prosecution or a civil suit; yet, nobody is being formally accused here, nor is anybody seeking civil damages. They just have to provide evidence to a judge that a person was flagged, and have the necessary evidence to back that claim. Then the judge issues an order. Ever hear of in injunction? It can happen quite fast.
Gotta love how stuff that has already happened in other places of the world, like Canada, are somehow "paranoid conspiracy theories". Registration has already led to reclassification and confiscation/abandonment. Denying it over and over again doesn't make it any less true.
