Posts Tagged ‘Background checks’

U.S. Senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey (Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

We’re outraged but not defeated. The U.S. Senate just voted not to adopt the background check legislation offered by Senators Manchin and Toomey. The Manchin-Toomey proposal, which would have required background checks for firearms sales at gun shows and sales made over the Internet, fell just 6 votes short of the 60 vote threshold needed to proceed.

While the Manchin-Toomey legislation was a bipartisan compromise bill that included several disconcerting concessions to the gun lobby, it would have been a significant step forward for background checks in America. With the failure of this legislation today, a minority of senators have prevented critical progress towards universal background checks, which are supported by 90% of Americans as well as strong majorities of gun owners and NRA members.

We are disappointed and outraged by the outcome of today’s vote, but this is not the end of the fight for stronger federal laws to protect our communities from gun violence. In fact, this is just the beginning. Over three thousand Americans have been killed by guns since Newtown. For them, for the children and teachers at Sandy Hook, and for all those who have been impacted by gun violence, we will continue to fight for the changes that we know can save lives.

While federal efforts received a setback today, there continues to be good news at the state level. Just yesterday, eleven significant bills passed out of the California State Senate’s Public Safety Committee. This victory marks a critical first step for California, and it comes after important state victories in Maryland, Connecticut, Colorado, and New York.

Just as change is happening in the states, it will come to the federal level. Now more than ever, Americans are united in agreement that our weak gun laws are simply unacceptable. The American public’s voice – calling for universal background checks and other important safety measures – will be heard in the halls of Congress.

Please stand with us in this fight. Pitch in today so we can continue to work tirelessly for safer communities.

The Law Center applauds Governor Hickenlooper and the Colorado Legislature on the passage of historic bills to prevent gun violence. While Colorado is leading the way, it is not alone: over 600 bills to prevent gun violence have been introduced this year, a 63% increase over this time last year. The call for change is being heard at the state level nationwide.

Strong gun laws to keep dangerous weapons out of the wrong hands are consistent with the Second Amendment and are necessary to defending our communities from the constant threat of violence.

Colorado is a leader in the nation, as many states across the country are hearing the voice of gun owners and non-gun owners alike – inaction on preventing gun violence is unacceptable.

With the adoption of these measures, Colorado has taken important steps toward preventing mass shootings like the tragedies in Aurora and Columbine, as well as the everyday gun violence that plagues communities nationwide.

After the tragedy in Newtown, the American people are demanding changes to our weak gun laws, including states with strong traditions of firearm ownership, like Colorado. The passage of this historic legislation reaffirms that Americans overwhelmingly support important measures like these to protect our families from gun violence.

Colorado is one of 17 states that introduced bills in 2013 to ban, or strengthen an existing ban, on large capacity ammunition magazines and one of 16 to introduce bills to require background checks for some or all private sales.

We are proud to have worked with activists in Colorado in support of this crucial legislation.

Want more? Check out the other recent success stories.

Since President Obama announced his support for laws requiring universal background checks on all gun buyers, banning military-style assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines, and punishing gun traffickers, there has been significant discussion about the constitutionality of these proposals under the Second Amendment. In order to move forward on real change to our nation’s gun laws, it’s vitally important that legislators understand that the president’s proposed reforms are completely constitutional and are critical to stopping our nation’s gun violence epidemic.

Today, a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled “Proposals to Reduce Gun Violence: Protecting Our Communities While Respecting the Second Amendment.” In written testimony submitted to the subcommittee, our Legal Director, Juliet Leftwich, discussed how the Second Amendment presents no obstacle to President Obama’s proposals. The testimony explained that although the U.S. Supreme Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects the right of a law-abiding, responsible citizen to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense, the president’s proposals are consistent with the Supreme Court’s decisions and the decisions of courts that have evaluated Second Amendment challenges since Heller.

Additionally, the Center for American Progress today released a memo coauthored by the Law Center’s Executive Director, Robyn Thomas, on the constitutionality of the proposals endorsed by the president. The memo concludes that “many forms of firearm regulation remain constitutional, including laws to prevent firearm possession by criminals and limitations on the possession of dangerous and unusual weapons. The measures endorsed by President Obama and proposed by Congress are safely within these confines and reflect the sort of reasonable regulation that the Supreme Court endorsed in Heller and has accepted in a host of other constitutional contexts.”

This is what we’ve been waiting for. President Obama outlined bold, courageous, and comprehensive steps to address the devastating gun violence that our communities face every single day – exactly what we asked of him.

Obama’s commitment today – to support federal legislation to fix our background check system and to ban military-style assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines – confirms that we are at a historic moment.

We commend President Obama’s swift and thorough executive actions and the outstanding leadership of Vice President Biden and his task force as essential first steps in addressing the epidemic of gun violence in America. We know that we have a long road ahead to achieve safer communities, and it’s going to take all of us to make real and lasting change. As the President said:

“This will not happen unless the American people demand it.”

That means all of us. President Obama has called on all of us to ask our members of Congress to support the president’s recommendations for real change. If they tell you that they don’t support these measures, ask them, “Why not?” Ask them, “What is more important than keeping our families safe?”

We are responsible for each other. The President and the White House have committed to do their part. It’s imperative that we each do ours.

Find your member of Congress now and make the call: http://bit.ly/myrepresentative

Today marks another dark anniversary in our country’s history. Two years ago, our nation mourned a horrific act in Tucson, Arizona – where a beloved congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head by a dangerously mentally ill man and barely survived. Six Americans in the crowd were killed and thirteen were gravely wounded alongside her. Since then, we, as a nation, have witnessed shooting after shooting – in our theatres, shopping malls, and houses of worship – yet have done next to nothing to stop them.

We cannot let this violence continue.

Gabby Giffords is not willing to stand by and do nothing. The horrific event that changed her life two years ago today has made her more resilient and determined than ever. Earlier today, she announced that she and her husband Mark Kelly will fight to find responsible solutions to the massive loss of life that we experience on a daily basis.

“We have experienced too much death and hurt to remain idle. Our response to the Newtown massacre must consist of more than regret, sorrow and condolence. The children of Sandy Hook Elementary School and all victims of gun violence deserve fellow citizens and leaders who have the will to prevent gun violence in the future.”

That means all of us. Help us thank Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly for their bravery and tenacity by joining them. Your voice is needed to tell your legislators that you support them and will continue to support them in the fight to end these tragedies.

Vice President Biden’s task force is in meetings this week to discuss the next steps. Please call your legislators and tell them that you want them to support the following smart and effective solutions to the end the bloodshed:

1) A background check with all gun sales
2) A ban on military-style assault weapons
3) A ban on large capacity ammunition magazines – some of which can hold 100 rounds of ammunition

Tell them that they must take action today – because the safety of our loved ones depends on it.

Find your legislators now and call: http://bit.ly/myrepresentative

President Obama wins re-election on Tuesday. Photographer: Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images

Now that the long, bitter presidential campaign is finally over, President Obama can turn his full attention to the job of governing. Although his second term will no doubt be filled with continuing challenges — the looming fiscal cliff and struggling economy among them — it will also provide an opportunity for him to focus on issues that he personally cares about, unshackled by the prospects of yet another political campaign.

We believe that gun violence is — and should be — one of those issues. Although both recent presidential candidates barely mentioned guns and the more than 100,000 shootings that occur each year in America, in 2008, candidate Obama openly promised to fight for stronger gun laws, including a ban on assault weapons. In an op-ed he wrote for the Arizona Daily Star after the Tucson massacre in 2011, President Obama also expressed support for laws requiring background checks on all gun buyers. And in an address to the National Urban League following the Aurora movie theater slaughter, the President reiterated his support for both types of laws, acknowledging the tragic daily impact gun violence has on communities across America and lamenting that:

Every day — in fact, every day and a half — the number of young people we lose to violence is about the same as the number of people we lost in that movie theater. For every Columbine or Virginia Tech, there are dozens gunned down on the streets of Chicago and Atlanta, and here in New Orleans. For every Tucson or Aurora, there is daily heartbreak over young Americans shot in Milwaukee or Cleveland. Violence plagues the biggest cities, but it also plagues the smallest towns. It claims the lives of Americans of different ages and different races, and it’s tied together by the fact that these young people had dreams and had futures that were cut tragically short.

While President Obama’s public statements about firearm violence — the few that there have been so far — reflect his concern about the issue and his support for laws that keep our communities safe, those words have not yet translated into any meaningful action. Gun sales soared leading up to and during Obama’s first term after the NRA and other pro-gun groups claimed that the President had a “secret plan” to ban all guns. Of course, that never happened, and never could happen, either legally or politically. Ironically, the only legislative action President Obama has undertaken on guns during his presidency is to sign a bill allowing guns in national parks, despite the fact that the American public — including most gun owners — support a wide range of laws that can and do save lives.

President Obama must now consider how he wants to be remembered by history. Is he willing to be remembered as yet another politician who witnessed mass shooting after mass shooting, yet failed to act on the basis of political expediency? Or will he stand up for what he and the country believe in – -the right of all Americans to live in communities free from gun violence — and finally show true leadership on this issue?

We can expect to hear President Obama and Mitt Romney discuss a variety of issues in their first head-to-head debate Wednesday night, but will they talk about guns? With the debate taking place at the University of Denver – located just a short drive from both Aurora and Columbine High School – and with 100,000 Americans killed or injured every year with firearms, you’d think it would be impossible to avoid the topic. Shockingly, though, neither candidate has offered much leadership about solutions to our gun violence epidemic, even as mass shooting tragedies like last Thursday’s workplace shooting in Minneapolis continue to occur with an alarming frequency.

Around the country, concerned Americans are calling on Denver debate moderator Jim Lehrer to ask the candidates about gun violence. But what exactly should Lehrer ask? It would be too easy for both candidates to offer facile condolences and platitudes without the right questions, so here are three questions that both candidates ought to answer about keeping our communities safe from gun violence.

1. Virtually everyone agrees that people should be required to pass criminal background checks before getting their hands on guns. How would you help close the loopholes that allow dangerous individuals to legally buy firearms without fulfilling this basic requirement?

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Photo : Reuters

As Americans, we pride ourselves on our freedom to participate in the activities that make our communities rich and vibrant—to worship where we want, to see the movies that we want, to attend political rallies in supermarket parking lots if we so choose. But the fact is that we are not truly free to do any of these things, not when the very real specter of gun violence remains ever-present, threatening to take everything as we go about our lives.

With the nation still reeling from the mass shooting that left 70 people injured or killed in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, Americans were completely unprepared for another devastating tragedy just two weeks later. Six innocent people died and three were critically injured by Wade Michael Page at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin on Sunday, in another terrible reminder that gun violence can, and does, happen anywhere and at any time.

“You’re talking about Aurora one minute, and the next minute it’s you and your family,” [Kanwardeep Singh Kaleka, nephew of Sikh temple president Satwant Kaleka, who was killed in the shooting] said.

“I just never thought it would be at a temple, at a place of worship. I don’t want people to have to carry a gun at a place of worship,” said Kaleka, who added that he could have been at the temple during the attack, but for the fact he had stopped at a bank “randomly to make a deposit.”¹

Gun violence shatters families nationwide every day. Every single day, roughly 32 people are murdered by guns across the U.S., almost three times the number of people killed in Aurora and over five times the number killed in Oak Creek. We hear almost nothing about most of the shootings that occur in America. If the media covered all of them, stories of gun violence would regularly eclipse all other news.

The media coverage of Oak Creek, like Aurora, will pass, but the gun deaths will continue, every day, in different places all over the country. That won’t change unless we seriously address the causes of this crisis. Right now, dangerous people have easy access to military-style weapons. Until our national leaders confront this challenge head-on – with courage, not condolences – too many in our communities will continue to suffer.

Solutions to our national gun violence epidemic do exist. Smart laws – like those requiring background checks for every gun purchase and restricting access to assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines – can prevent future gun violence tragedies. When it comes to holding our legislators accountable, we shouldn’t demand anything less.

1. CNN Wire Staff, Police identify Army veteran as Wisconsin temple shooting gunman, Aug. 6, 2012. [↩]

On Wednesday, July 25, in a speech to the Urban League in New Orleans, President Obama broke his silence on America’s gun violence epidemic and the need for significant improvements to our nation’s firearms laws. In his remarks, the president highlighted the severe dangers posed by gaps in the federal background check system and easy access to assault rifles.

We agree with the president, that a person’s criminal record should checked before every gun purchase. Right now, however, that simply isn’t happening. As the graphic below indicates, the federal background check requirement does not apply to private sales of firearms, which account for about 40% of all gun sales in America every year. That means that it is far too easy for convicted criminals, the mentally ill, and other dangerous people to gain access to firearms.

40% of gun sales require no background check.¹ Background checks prevented sales of firearms to 1.8 million prohibited people between 1994 and 2008.²

The president’s acknowledgment of the the need for stronger laws to reduce gun violence is a critical first step toward making serious changes. Still, more is desperately needed. We have real gaps in our gun laws and what we need is action – real action, not just speeches – to make Americans safer from gun violence.

1. Philip J. Cook & Jens Ludwig, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms, U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice Research in Brief 6-7 (May 1997). [↩]
2. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 2008 – Statistical Tables. [↩]

‘Today’ Investigator Talks Gun-buying
WDTN (Dayton, Ohio), Feb. 9, 2012

This brief blurb from Dayton, Ohio’s NBC affiliate notes Ohio’s lack of a background check requirement for a gun purchaser involved in a private-party transfer, a dangerous loophole in federal law known as the private sale loophole.  This item links to video of an NBC Today show investigation on private party and internet gun sales.