The very least we can do about gun violence
Published January 7, 2016
by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, January 5, 2016.
A picture accompanying a recent story about U.S. gun laws in the Guardian newspaper shows a sign on a table of semi-automatic guns for sale at an Alabama gun show. The sign says “no paper work” and credit cards welcome.
That’s not news to anyone who has been to a gun show at the North Carolina State Fairgounds in Raleigh or just followed the absurd debate about guns in America, but it is startling nonetheless.
Think about it for a second. Anyone can walk up to that table and thousands like it at events every weekend across the county with cash or credit and buy a weapon that can shoot 30 times a minute without reloading, many more times with the high capacity magazines that are also for sale to whoever wants them, no questions asked.
Anyone, somebody wanted for a violent crime, somebody with a serious mental illness, somebody who is angry at their spouse or neighbor, somebody who wants to take over a building or shoot up a school. Anyone.
The overwhelming majority of people think that is a bad idea, that we need at least minimal background checks for people buying guns.
A poll released by the Pew Research center last summer showed that 88 percent of Americans favored expanding background checks to cover private sales at gun shows. And it’s not just liberals or Democrats—79 percent of Republicans agree.
It’s hard to think of many issues in our current polarized political debate that enjoy such broad and bipartisan support.
Gun owners support the expanded background checks too. A poll cited in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013 found that 74 percent of NRA members support background checks for all gun sales.
Leaders of the NRA used to support background checks—but not anymore. Just their members do.
Expanding background checks won’t solve the problem of gun violence of course and it won’t prevent every mass shooting or keep every dangerous person from buying a deadly weapon.
But it will stop some of them. That’s it why seems so obvious to so many people that there should be at least minimal screening of folks who are buying guns.
That’s the central focus of President Obama’s new executive actions, to do what he can with the authority he has to make it more difficult for people to buy a gun who shouldn’t be allowed to own one.
Congress is too intimidated to act. A vocal minority led by gun groups won’t allow any reasonable debate in Washington and several Republican candidates for president are already promising to reverse Obama’s executive orders.
They apparently believe that anyone, regardless of their motives or background, should be allowed to walk into a gun show and walk out with a semi-automatic rifle.
It is mindboggling when you forget about the politics and the soundbites and simply think about the table full of guns in Alabama or North Carolina or virtually every other state.
Obama just wants take small steps, expand policies supported by nine out of ten Americans to stop some people from buying deadly weapons without a simple background check.
It’s not clear what it is exactly that opponents of the policy fear. Obama’s not talking about confiscating any weapons or limiting gun sales or anything else included in the crazy rhetoric used by fringe groups to oppose any initiative to address gun violence.
He simply wants to make it less likely that dangerous people will get dangerous weapons. Paperwork should be required.
It seems like the very least we can do to make our communities safer.
http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2016/01/05/the-very-least-we-can-do-about-gun-violence/
January 7, 2016 at 4:41 pm
Donald Byrd says:
I think all of the guns that have been used in the recent shooting were purchase legal. So, how is going to help? I guess you feel something has to be done, it give you a warm feeling own your leg. How many of the guns in Chicago are legal? 490 killed last year, 2900 shot. How many in Durham are legal? 47 killed last year. What has happen to these killers? Did you know with have 30,000 guns laws on the books in the US now? How about if we use this laws. The Obama administration does not do a very good job of using the laws we have now.
January 8, 2016 at 11:51 am
Richard L Bunce says:
The slippery slope begins with one slippery step.
A. If we take the Executives proposed step and there is no significant change in gun violence will ya'll propose eliminating this step... or more likely claim well that step was never going to accomplish what we want and since we took that step we must take the next step... in for a penny, in for a dollar.
B. Once lists are involved for government to decide things the list WILL become political and soon all kinds of political enemies start showing up on No Fly Lists, Terrorist Lists, IRS Tax Exempt Prohibition Lists, and Gun Ownership Lists.
C. Of course most of the gun violence, the violence that the Executive focused in on last night is driven overwhelmingly, is funded overwhelmingly, by the government War On Drugs... another example of government deciding how people should live their lives and turning law abiding citizens into criminals and flooding our prisons with persons who were not violent going into prison but too often are when they come out.
D. Prohibition Failed, The War On Drugs Is Failing, Gun Prohibition Is Failing.
January 8, 2016 at 11:55 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Finally the government could take the first step and lead by example. Disarm all the government bureaucrats that should never have been armed in the first place and for the few that should be armed for Domestic law enforcement equip them with very limited capability/capacity weapons... after all anything else was designed for and is only good for killing innocent people. Let us see what they think about the value of firearms for self defense.
