The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre said on “Fox News Sunday” that background checks for all gun purchases would lead to a national registry of gun owners. Critics say such a registry could lead to taxes on guns or to confiscation.
Mark Kelly, a gun owner and husband of Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who survived a 2011 shooting, asked LaPierre to listen to his members. He said the current system prevented 1.7 million gun purchases since 1999. However, those potential buyers had other options because many gun sales don’t require a background check.
“Members of the NRA tend to be very reasonable on this issue,” Kelly said, who also appeared on the Fox show.
As Congress responds to the spate of mass shootings in recent years, most notably the December massacre of 20 children and six adults in a school in Newtown, Conn., some are calling for a ban on certain semi-automatic weapons and on high-capacity ammunition magazines. However, calls for expanding background checks appear to have gained the most bipartisan support.
LaPierre said that requiring checks for all gun purchases would be a bureaucratic nightmare.
“It’s going to affect only the law-abiding people,” he said. “Criminals could care less.
LaPierre was pressed about his contention that gun checks would lead to a national registry, when no one from the Obama administration is calling for that.
“And Obamacare wasn’t a tax until they needed it to be a tax,” LaPierre said.
Kelly and LaPierre agreed on one point: More people seeking to buy guns illegally should be prosecuted.
“They should be prosecuted and there should be stiff penalties,” Kelly said.
A key player in the coming gun debate in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said on ABC’s “This Week” that he’s willing to take a look at legislation that would ban certain semi-automatic weapons, but he also noted that he voted against a ban on such weapons in 1994 because it “didn’t make sense.”
He was more definitive on the issue of background checks, saying “everyone acknowledges we should do something with background checks.”
Reid said his goal is for the Judiciary Committee to report out a gun bill. Senators could subsequently seek amendments on the Senate floor. That way, if the bill didn’t contain certain provisions, such as the ban on certain weapons, then sponsors would at least get a vote on their proposal and lawmakers would have to go on the record about where they stand.
Follow us on Twitter!
Too many of the gun crazies really don't want to prevent the felons or the mentally ill from acquiring guns. The second amendment was not written so that an arsenal can be accumulated, nor was it written to make murder more efficient.
By the way, speaking of "gun crazies", seems that all the "crazies" who have gone off the deep end and committed mass killings lately have eben liberals. Maybe we just ban Democrats from owning gun, or make Democrats register their guns. They are the problem. No reason to pick on the conservatives.
There is no second amendment for cars, so we have to register them.
Instead, legal gun owners need to be responsible with storing their guns.
If your legally owned gun is stolen while you are not in its presence and you had not been storing in locked securely in a safe, you should be held responsible for whatever is done with YOUR gun!
You allowed it to be stolen. You own the body count as much as the person who pulled the trigger.
The 2nd Amendment does not overrule anyone's right to life, so when your negligent abuse of the 2nd amendment contributes to a death, it should be on YOU.
If your gun gets stolen and subsequently used in a murder, YOU should get 20 Life just like the shooter.
If your gun gets stolen and used in an armed robbery, you should get 7 to 15 just like the robber.
We already prosecute adults for negligent gun ownership when a child gets the gun and shoots somebody. The precedent is already there. Expand the gun owner's responsibility to cover anyone shot with his or her gun, even and ESPECIALLY if that gun is stolen when it was unsecured and not on the person of the owner!
You want to own a gun? Fine! Then OWN your gun.