In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Senators Seek to Strengthen Background Checks on G
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Senators Seek to Strengthen Background Checks on Gun Buyers
Tuesday, July 30, 2002
WASHINGTON - A self-described "odd-quad" of senators urged the government Tuesday to strengthen its gun buyer instant background check system by requiring federal agencies to contribute to the system and states to computerize their criminal records.
The bill, introduced by Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Larry Craig of Idaho, would require states and federal agencies to automate their records and add them to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Background checks for prospective gun buyers have been required since February 1994 under the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. More than 689,000 people have been denied a gun for failing a background check.
But faulty records allowed at least 9,976 prohibited buyers to buy a gun from December 1998 to June 2001, according to a report by Americans for Gun Safety.
Schumer, Kennedy, McCain and Craig all have different ideas about gun ownership in America and usually are on different sides in the Senate. But "the background check system is something we all agree on," Schumer said at a joint news conference.
"When you see the four of us together, we're not an odd couple, we're an odd-quad," Craig said. "But on this issue we have a very common and very important purpose. We do not believe that those (criminals and the mentally ill) ought to have the right to own a gun."
The FBI's system is supposed to identify felons, drug addicts, domestic abusers, illegal immigrants, people who were involuntarily committed to a mental institution and others legally barred from having a gun.
It relies on states and other federal agencies to provide criminal, mental health and other records, but many are incomplete or outdated. McCain said officials estimate that there are 30 million records missing from the national database.
The legislation authorizes Congress to spend more than $1.1 billion for states and courts to update their records and submit them to the database. It also requires agencies like the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Veterans Affairs to provide their records to it to ensure illegal aliens or the mentally ill don't get weapons.
"In a nation where you can walk into any store and swipe your credit card and have an instant accounting of financial capability, and we cannot do something similar to determine whether that individual is legal or illegal in the action of purchasing a firearm? Shame on us," Craig said.
A similar bill awaits a vote in the House. The senators say there is agreement on both sides to get the legislation done quickly.
"I have every expectation that in September we will pass this legislation and it will be signed by the president," McCain said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,59153,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Tuesday, July 30, 2002
WASHINGTON - A self-described "odd-quad" of senators urged the government Tuesday to strengthen its gun buyer instant background check system by requiring federal agencies to contribute to the system and states to computerize their criminal records.
The bill, introduced by Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Larry Craig of Idaho, would require states and federal agencies to automate their records and add them to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Background checks for prospective gun buyers have been required since February 1994 under the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. More than 689,000 people have been denied a gun for failing a background check.
But faulty records allowed at least 9,976 prohibited buyers to buy a gun from December 1998 to June 2001, according to a report by Americans for Gun Safety.
Schumer, Kennedy, McCain and Craig all have different ideas about gun ownership in America and usually are on different sides in the Senate. But "the background check system is something we all agree on," Schumer said at a joint news conference.
"When you see the four of us together, we're not an odd couple, we're an odd-quad," Craig said. "But on this issue we have a very common and very important purpose. We do not believe that those (criminals and the mentally ill) ought to have the right to own a gun."
The FBI's system is supposed to identify felons, drug addicts, domestic abusers, illegal immigrants, people who were involuntarily committed to a mental institution and others legally barred from having a gun.
It relies on states and other federal agencies to provide criminal, mental health and other records, but many are incomplete or outdated. McCain said officials estimate that there are 30 million records missing from the national database.
The legislation authorizes Congress to spend more than $1.1 billion for states and courts to update their records and submit them to the database. It also requires agencies like the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Veterans Affairs to provide their records to it to ensure illegal aliens or the mentally ill don't get weapons.
"In a nation where you can walk into any store and swipe your credit card and have an instant accounting of financial capability, and we cannot do something similar to determine whether that individual is legal or illegal in the action of purchasing a firearm? Shame on us," Craig said.
A similar bill awaits a vote in the House. The senators say there is agreement on both sides to get the legislation done quickly.
"I have every expectation that in September we will pass this legislation and it will be signed by the president," McCain said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,59153,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
"From the inception of the Brady Act on March 1, 1994, to December 31, 2000, about 30 million applications for a firearm transfers were subject to background checks. About 689,000 applications were rejected," amounting to about 2.3% of all applications.
(SOURCE: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics via About.com)
Should the federal government expand its database of information on gun buyers? Vote now in the CNSNews.com Viewer Poll.
http://www.cnsnews.com/facts/factorama.asp
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Margie Hyslop
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A National Rifle Association spokesman says Maryland state Sen. Timothy Ferguson is misleading constituents with claims that he led the fight against landmark gun-control legislation. Top Stories
3 Americans die in bombing in Jerusalem
Iraq's arsenal grows deadlier, Senate told
Big drop in economic growth
Russian said to fix Olympics
Drug plan for seniors voted down in Senate
GOP will tie ANWR to Iraq
Agreement reached for better traffic flow
The NRA's Greg Costa, an association lobbyist, said he had lined up enough votes to mount a filibuster against one of the most restrictive gun-control measures in the nation when Mr. Ferguson, a Republican who represents Carroll and Frederick counties, announced - minutes before the critical vote - that he had cut a deal with Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and other Democrats not to delay the vote.
"I was dumbfounded," Mr. Costa said. "I said 'You're bringing us nothing and giving up the fight.'"
Among other things, the law mandates state-regulated training for anyone who purchases a gun and ballistics markings for all handguns sold in Maryland.
As of next year, it requires built-in locks on all new handguns sold in Maryland.
As a point man for Republicans and gun-rights supporters during negotiations over the bill, Mr. Ferguson succeeded in adding a few more restrictive provisions to the bill, including one that put two engineers on a review panel that must approve a handgun before it may be sold legally in Maryland.
Mr. Miller said Mr. Ferguson offered to work against a filibuster if his amendments were added.
"His proposals made the bill more palatable to some [and] his support put a huge dent in the opposition," said Mr. Miller.
The dispute could hurt Mr. Ferguson, who is facing two challengers in the Republican primary - including Delegate David Brinkley, a respected member of the House from Frederick County who has compiled a record as a gun-rights supporter and garnered NRA support.
Mr. Costa said the NRA seldom endorses candidates in primary races and that it has not decided what to do in this contest.
When the gun bill cleared the Senate, Mr. Ferguson said the engineers would ensure that no citizen would be left relying on a faulty gun that wouldn't work in a life-threatening situation.
Mr. Costa said the provision has done nothing "but require one more vote to get a gun approved."
Mr. Ferguson defended his role in shaping the Gun Safety Act of 2000 in a campaign letter to gun-rights supporters. In it, he tells them he has been the target of "innuendo" that accuses pro-gun legislators of not standing up against the bill.
"The best we could do was ensuring the deletion of the 'Smart Gun' provisions and we did," Mr. Ferguson said in the campaign letter.
Mr. Ferguson did speak out against the Smart Gun mandate across the state, spreading the word, along with gun manufacturers, that the technology was still very limited and unreliable. But the Smart Gun provisions had been cut out of the bill before Mr. Ferguson made his offer, Mr. Miller said.
Mr. Costa agrees that some kind of new gun-control measure was going to be approved in the Democrat-dominated legislature.
But Mr. Costa said that, without a filibuster, gun-rights supporters did not get a chance to see "what the battlefield looked like" or whether the other side might "panic and give us something."
"I don't consider it a compromise when we give up a fight and get nothing in return," he said.
James Purtilo, publisher of the gun-rights newsletter Tripwire - whom Mr. Ferguson named in his campaign letter as one who had unfairly maligned him - said he believes Mr. Ferguson capitulated because "he just wanted to go home."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20020730-836893.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Mudge the vindictive
I can't come to work today. The voices said, STAY HOME AND CLEAN THE GUNS!