A Florida congresswoman recently proposed a bill that would require background checks for ammunition purchases, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
“You do not have the right to bear bullets,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) proclaimed Monday at a news conference at the Pembroke Pines Police Department in Florida.
Wasserman Schultz, who proposed the legislation that was filed in the U.S. House on Thursday, said it would close a "loophole" that she claimed allows anyone to buy ammunition.
"The Ammunition Background Check Act of 2018 that I filed on Thursday, and that is being filed in the United States Senate by Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, will close that gaping loophole to require all buyers of ammunition to undergo an instant background check," Wasserman Schultz said.
The measure, if passed, would require all would-be purchases of ammunition to undergo a background check through the FBI's instant background check system.
Wasserman Schultz's announcement came on the heels of the March for Our Lives rallies that were held across the country.
"Saturday was a launch pad," said Wasserman Schultz, who was joined by teachers and students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. "Anyone who thinks that was the end is sadly mistaken."
There's no a law to prevent people from buying "as much ammunition as they want, without so much as being asked their first name, and walk out,” she said.
“I really think it’s important to underscore that without bullets a gun is just a hunk of useless metal, and a would-be killer lacks the means to actually kill or maim,” Wasserman Schultz said.
Federal law already prohibits convicted felons, domestic abusers, and mentally ill people from purchasing firearms and ammunition, but ammunition purchasers do not currently have to go undergo background checks in most states.
So far, the bill has 36 co-sponsors — all Democrats.
