Allan Lengel

It’s nauseating to say the least to see how spineless our Washington lawmakers are, how fearful they are when it comes to standing up to the NRA and the people who insist that universal background checks are too intrusive and assault weapons are necessary to own.

The Newtown shootings should have been enough to give lawmakers the backbone to stand up.

No, the Gabby Giffords shootings should have been enough.

No, the Aurora movie theater shootings should have been enough.

No, the Virginia Tech shootings should have been enough.

No, the Columbine shootings should have been enough.

You get the point, nothing, not dead high school kids, not dead elementary school kids, not a dead federal judge, nothing will move some of our lawmakers.

Granted, banning assault rifles at this point won’t instantly remove them from circulation. But we have to start somewhere, and banning assault rifles will eventually make them much harder to get. And the universal background checks, well, that’s another no brainer.  Currently, about 40% of guns purchased from places other than licensed gun dealer (like collectors and guns shows) do not require background checks. That would change under a new proposal in Washington that is under intense debate.

I’m afraid we’re missing the window of opportunity to enact some tougher gun laws. No, I’m not advocating taking away guns.   But we need change.  Now. Not after 10 more tragedies involving unstable people. 

In most societies, the senseless, mass deaths of kids is enough to make politicians respond.

Apparently, not in this society.

Which really really worries me.

If dead children doesn’t do it, what will?

Steve Neavling

The school shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary appears to be driving an unprecedented number of gun sales, the Atlantic Wire reports.

In fact, 9 of the 10 days with the most requests ever for FBI background checks occurred after the Dec. 14 shooting, according to the Atlantic Wire. And in Sandy Hook, home of the school shooting, gun permits have more than doubled.

On the day of the shooting, the FBI conducted 113,022 checks. The most was Dec. 21, when 177,170 background checks were conducted.

“America is buying guns at a rate that we’ve never seen before,” the Atlantic Wire wrote.

Steve Neavling

In the month since a shooting at a school in Connecticut killed 20 children and six adults, gun purchases appear to be rapidly on the rise, Reuters reports.

Background checks for firearm purchases spiked since the Dec. 14 mass killing, Reuters wrote.

Of the 10 most popular days for background checks in the past five years, nine have come since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Reuters reported.

The FBI runs the National Instant Criminal Background System.

Steve Neavling

Massachusetts has a good reputation with strong gun-control laws – until it comes to mental health records.

The Boston Globe reported Monday that a 43-year-old law prohibits the state from sharing mental health records with the FBI database for gun background checks.

The FBI processed about 1.6 million background checks of Massachusetts residents since 1999 without having access to mental health records, according to the Globe.

Although some state officials warn about the dangers of mentally ill people carrying guns, the state Legislature has rejected two efforts by Gov. Deval Patrick to make the records available.

“You have to have state legislation to authorize the release of that information,” Patrick told the Globe. “I’ve filed legislation in the past, and I filed it again last week.”

Steve Neavling

The FBI performed a record number of background checks on people who wanted to buy guns in December and all of 2012, CNN reports.

The spike this month – 2.8 million background checks – occurred during two high-profile mass shootings.

The number of background checks for the years totaled more than 19.5 million, an increase of more than 3 million, according to CNN.

Federal law requires background checks of anyone who wants to buy a gun.

The search is to ensure prospective owners don’t have a criminal record or a serious mental illness.

Steve Neavling

Record gun sales on Black Friday this year caused the FBI’s background check system to crash twice, ABC News reports.

The FBI checked 154,873 backgrounds, a 20% spike over last year.

“The call centers experienced two short outages – one of 14 minutes and one of 18 minutes,” FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer told ABC News.

Background checks are required to determine whether the buyer has mental issues, felonies or other red flags for gun ownership.

The glitch, however, did not cause major delays, ABC New reported.

Depending on where you stand on the issue of gun sales, here’s good or bad news:

Gun sales continue to rise in this country, according to the Dayton Daily News.

The paper based its conclusion on FBI background checks for gun sales — a good indicator of sales — which increased to 14.4 million in 2010 from 8.5 million in 2003, according to the FBI.

The paper reported a record number of firearm background checks in Ohio.

In Ohio, during the first seven months of this year, the FBI conducted 247,847 background checks for firearm purchases at gun sellers, up 17.7 percent from the same period in 2010, 9.2 percent from 2009 and 42.4 percent from 2008, the paper reported, citing the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

The paper reported that Andrew M. Molchan, director of the Professional Gun Retailers Association, said gun sales have been on the upswing nationwide for the last six years following a Supreme Court ruling lifting gun bans in major cities including Washington.

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