President Biden just moved to bring more private gun sales under regulation and make the sellers do a background check to make sure the buyer is mentally stable, a common-sense safety measure supported by 9 in 10 Americans.
Even that is too much for the NRA’s boys in Washington. Senator John Cornyn, of Texas, immediately denounced Biden’s modest move as a “power grab!”
Yes, the Texas Republican did negotiate the compromise that led to a 2022 law that enabled this: As part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, backed by 15 Republicans, Congress told the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to broaden the category of gun sellers required to run background checks. Biden’s ATF didn’t just whip this up spontaneously, out of nothing.
But look: The intent of that law was never to harass the good guys by forcing them to undergo a background check, Cornyn says. “Our goal was to provide the American people with predictability and clarity in the law, not to give the A.T.F. an opportunity to impose a gun control regime on law-abiding Americans,” he declared. Right.
What Republicans wanted was to impose background checks, but still leave a gaping hole that allows 20% of private gun sales to slip by without one – if they happen to take place at gun shows, flea markets, online, in your garage or anywhere else outside of brick-and-mortar stores.
So, if you’re a menacing person with a history of mental illness and you get turned down by a licensed dealer, you could still buy your AR-15 online without a background check, as a 19-year old in St. Louis did in 2022 before using it to kill two people and maim several others. “Law-abiding Americans,” folks.
In fact, ATF has recent data showing that a huge proportion of the trafficked firearms used in crimes in the U.S. come from these unlicensed sellers who don’t have to run background checks. Which makes perfect sense. If you were a psycho in need of a semi-automatic, what would you do?
Now, under Biden’s new rule, background checks will be expanded to 20,000 additional gun sellers; many of whom could be selling multiple firearms or even unloading a whole cache. Currently, a professional firearms seller who lost his license could off-load his entire inventory, all at once, with no background checks, the New Republic notes.
Yet instead of applauding Biden for fixing this absurd loophole, Republicans like Cornyn are now blasting ATF. Never mind all the Americans being slaughtered because we allow felons and domestic abusers to easily access guns through this enormous gap: What about those law-abiding citizens? Shouldn’t we be protecting them, “with predictability and clarity in the law”?
Biden’s background check expansion is focused on commercial gun sales, so this is not a final answer. What’s left undone is universal background checks, meaning that any time anyone buys a gun, a background check is done.
But this is still a historic step that’s long overdue. Saturday will mark 25 years since two students shot up Columbine High School, murdering twelve students and one teacher. Three out of four of the guns they used were purchased by a friend from a private seller at a gun show to avoid a background check. And in all that time, we haven’t fixed this.
Biden’s move now, many massacres later, is an important step in the fight against gun violence, one that will surely save lives. But it’s also no-brainer that would have happened ages ago, had Republicans not been such fanatics.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.comOpinion on Facebook.
