Tuesday, November 05, 2013

Marcos Breton Fights The Good Fight

Until we get a handle on the proper place of guns in society, we will have big problems:
I’ve had so many people leave that question on my voicemail it’s as if they are speaking off the same script.
In fact, they are. It’s the gun advocates’ default setting of denial.

How about a discussion of raising the bar of gun ownership? Why don’t we close the loopholes that prevent background checks on guns and ammunition purchased at gun shows and on the Internet?

James Holmes, the accused killer in Aurora, Colo., amassed an arsenal with a few clicks of his computer – and didn’t raise a single red flag.

Background checks for some gun sales became law in 1993 via the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. The law was named after James Brady, the former Ronald Reagan press secretary shot in the head by a mentally unstable gunman seeking to assassinate Reagan in 1981.

“Since the Brady Law was enacted 20 years ago, background checks have prevented more than 2 million gun sales to ‘prohibited purchasers’ – like convicted felons and domestic abusers,” wrote Daniel Gross, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, in the Huffington Post. “But 40percent of commercial gun sales, mainly at gun shows and online, happen without a simple Brady background check to make sure the purchaser is not a criminal or dangerously mentally ill. That’s thousands of unchecked sales every day, and guns that could wind up in dangerous hands.”

If you were truly a law-abiding citizen, why would you fear background checks on all guns sales?

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