Let’s Regulate Guns Like Cars

by Will Handke
We Could Be Great

When the Manchin-Toomey background check bill was defeated in the Senate, two weeks ago, gun-control advocates were upset. They shouldn’t be. If it had passed, it would have merely paid lip service to the memory of those lost at Sandy Hook Elementary, while doing little to actually mitigate gun violence.

The “Loophole” that the bill claimed to close by requiring backgrounds checks for private sales at gun shows and online, far from being a gigantic breach, was really nothing more than a tiny crack: According to a comprehensive survey of 18,000 prison inmates conducted by the Bureau of Justice, less than 1% of criminals actually attain weapons in these ways.

However, those that sent the bill down to defeat don’t have a whole lot to be proud of, either. Their reasons for rejecting the measure – that it was ineffective and would impose too much of a burden on gun sellers – were both misguided and simply wrong. Just because a law probably would not catch that many criminals does not make it a bad one – it still catches criminals. And the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) backgrounds checks that the bill would have required private sellers to complete are hardly an imposition. According to the FBI, who is jointly responsible for performing the checks and solely responsible for maintaining the database of individuals barred from gun purchases, a person who requests the instant background check via phone or an online system can almost always expect to receive a response within a few minutes and are required by law to receive one within three days. Unfortunately, facts like these have never been worth much in Washington.

(Continued here.)