Like jilted lovers, the Brady Campaign is pretty clearly reeling from Obama not mentioning gun control, with only some vague promises from Administration officials that gun control is coming in a later speech, no doubt to a much smaller and more politically focused argument. Just keep looking at the pictures of Bill Clinton you keep on your desks, and dreaming of better days. That’s my advice. Remember the good times.
In the mean time, it has to hurt even more that Chuck Schumer, of all people, is defending the President for leaving gun control out, saying “One of the reasons there’s less impetus for gun control is the success we had in the ’90s.” Which I think he’s exactly right about. They’ve moved the issue forward to the point where the vast majority of Americans are comfortable with where the law is, and to the extent they might think certain other measures are a good idea, they aren’t really motivated to do much to drive those measures forward. Perhaps the Brady Act was all they were ever meant to achieve.
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At least among people I’ve spoken to here in NJ, the Brady bill is easily the biggest win for gun rights in popular opinion that we’ve ever had. Even people who are uncomfortable with guns tend to figure we do all we can reasonably do when they find out there’s a mandatory background check for each dealer sale.
I wouldn’t _offer_ it, mind you, but if our political enemies suffered serious head injuries and decided to pour their political capital into ramming through a bill requiring background checks on private sales, I expect that would completely kill the gun control movement in the US.
Let’s keep one thing in mind regarding the so-called Brady act.
As I recall, the Brady Bill was originally just an attempt to impose a national 15-day waiting period on all handgun purchases. Opposition by the NRA got the bill watered down to a 5-day waiting period that would sunset and trade places with an “instant” background check for all firearms purchased from any FFL dealer.
And the thing is Brady didn’t even accomplish that. States with a consensus favoring gun control already had waiting periods and background checks. All Brady did was force the pro-gun States into a gun-control regime that had already proven a failure in the high-crime anti-gun States.
There has been a tremendous amount of dishonesty on the anti-gun side when it came to the Brady Bill.
The current mayor of San Diego used to be the chief of police back in 1993 when the national debate over passage of the Brady Bill was taking place. In support of the Bill, that clown claimed that California needed the Brady Bill, even though California already had a 15 day waiting period for handgun purchases and a background check. Why? Because he claimed Californians could avoid the California law by buying handguns in Arizona or Nevada!
Good grief.
@Brad – I suppose technically they could – but it would be an illegal purchase. A mandatory BG check would let the dealer know the purchaser was lying badly, I suppose.
My problem with a background check is that all it proves is the person you tell the clerk you are is permitted to purchase a firearm.