Press-Democrat: Balancing Gun Owners' Rights, Public's Safety

By the Press-Democrat Editorial Board

Politics, as the German statesman Otto Von Bismarck said, is the art of the possible.

Right now, it seems as if getting any sort of gun safety legislation through Congress is close to impossible.

Give credit to Rep. Mike Thompson for not giving up.

Soon after a heavily armed gunman slaughtered 20 children — some 6 years old, the others 7 — and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Thompson volunteered to take on one of America’s most influential and unyielding lobbies as his party’s point man on gun control.

Four years later, the St. Helena Democrat is still pressing for a House vote on the primary recommendation from his House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force: extending background checks to all prospective gun owners.

A combat veteran, gun owner and unapologetic hunter, Thompson isn’t looking to rewrite, reinterpret or repeal the Second Amendment.

“I’m just trying to stop the bad guys from getting guns,” he told Staff Writer Paul Payne.

And there’s widespread public support for his goal.

In a Pew Research Center poll published in August, 85 percent of Americans supported background checks to identify people ineligible to purchase firearms because of a criminal record or mental health issues. Support crossed party lines, with 88 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of Republicans in favor. A Quinnipiac University poll released in September found 93 percent support for universal background — including an identical 93 percent of respondents who had a gun in their household.

The National Rifle Association even expressed flexibility on background checks in the not-so-distant past.

Testifying before a House subcommittee shortly after the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, said, “We think it’s reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone.”

But that was then, this is now.

The NRA unequivocally opposes background checks, and its position prevailed when the U.S. Senate voted on the matter three years ago. The House hasn’t scheduled a committee hearing, much less a floor vote on background check legislation cosponsored by Thompson and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

California is one of nine states that require background checks on all gun sales; six others require them on all handgun sales. Since 1994, federal law has mandated background checks for all sales involving federally licensed gun dealers, but the requirement doesn’t extend to private sales, including sales made at gun shows by private sellers.

President Barack Obama’s recent executive order more precisely defined who must register as a dealer, but a gaping loophole will remain until Congress makes background checks universal and requires states to submit information about criminal convictions and mental health findings that’s needed to make the system effective.

There are approximately 30,000 gun-related deaths in the United States annually. Universal background checks won’t prevent them all. Neither will they prevent anyone who is legally entitled from purchasing a firearm for self-defense, sport shooting or hunting. They would strike a better balance between gun owners’ rights and public safety. But only if Congress finds the courage to act.