Gun Background Checks

New Yorkers Against Gun Violence has prepared a document entitled “Gun Background Checks: Myths and Facts.” Among the eight “myths” listed are:

MYTH #3: The background check system doesn't prevent criminals from obtaining weapons. Criminals won't submit to background checks, so the system will not prevent shootings. 

FACT: Even the current weak federal background check system has prevented the sale of almost 2 million firearms, largely to criminals and the mentally ill. 

• Requiring background checks for private sales at gun shows and sales via the Internet would further curb access to firearms by criminals and those with serious mental illness.

You can read more here.

Nazi-style gun control?

Opponents of gun control are quick to claim that Adolph Hitler tightened his grip on power by confiscating everyone’s guns. Alex Seitz-Wald, political reporter for Salon, writes that the facts tell a different story:

NRA head Wayne LaPierre dwelled on the Hitler meme at length, writing: "In Germany, Jewish extermination began with the Nazi Weapon Law of 1938, signed by Adolf Hitler."

. . .

Unfortunately for LaPierre et al., the notion that Hitler confiscated everyone’s guns is mostly bogus. And the ancillary claim that Jews could have stopped the Holocaust with more guns doesn’t make any sense at all if you think about it for more than a minute.

University of Chicago law professor Bernard Harcourt explored this myth in depth in a 2004 article published in the Fordham Law Review. As it turns out, the Weimar Republic, the German government that immediately preceded Hitler’s, actually had tougher gun laws than the Nazi regime.

. . .

The 1938 law signed by Hitler that LaPierre mentions in his book basically does the opposite of what he says it did. "The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition," Harcourt wrote.

There is much more to this fascinating story here.

A conservative case for an assault weapons ban

The judge who sentenced Jared Lee Loughner to seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years in federal prison for his shooting rampage in Tucson makes the conservative case for an assault weapons ban:

To guarantee that there would never be another Tucson or Sandy Hook, we would probably have to make it a capital offense to so much as look at a gun. And that would create serious 2nd Amendment, 8th Amendment and logistical problems.  

So what's the alternative? Bring back the assault weapons ban, and bring it back with some teeth this time. Ban the manufacture, importation, sale, transfer and possession of both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Don't let people who already have them keep them. Don't let ones that have already been manufactured stay on the market. I don't care whether it's called gun control or a gun ban. I'm for it.  

I say all of this as a gun owner. I say it as a conservative who was appointed to the federal bench by a Republican president. I say it as someone who prefers Fox News to MSNBC, and National Review Online to the Daily Kos.

Read more here.

Majority of Catholics favor stricter gun control

According to a new poll released today by the Public Religion Research Institute, in partnership with Religion News Service, a majority of Americans favors passing stricter laws, with 62 percent of Catholics favoring tighter gun control laws.

The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who called for tighter gun control after the movie theater massacre last month, offered several reasons why U.S. Catholics may be more likely to support it.

"Catholics may congregate more in urban centers and may be more exposed to violent crimes than people in other parts of the country," said Martin, the author of "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything."

"And Catholics might be more sympathetic to government regulation, because the church has always seen legitimate government as one way of expressing the will of the people," Martin continued. What's more, he said, "there might be a slightly greater appreciation for the notion of the common good, which is enshrined in Catholic social teaching, in addition to individual rights.

You can read more here.