LaPierre under fire
Dems allege NRA "missing the point" on background checks as gun hearings grow heated VIDEO
Topics: Video, Wayne LaPierre, Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Patrick Leahy, Gun Control, Universal background checks, Editor's Picks, Politics News
Predictably, one of the biggest points of contention in Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence was whether to implement universal background checks. The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre opposes them because, as he put it, “background checks will never be universal because criminals will never submit to them.” But Democrats argued that that is exactly the point: Mandating background checks will dissuade criminals from going to buy guns in the first place.
“My problem with background checks is you are never going to get criminals to go through universal background checks. And all the law-abiding people, you’ll create an enormous federal bureaucracy, unfunded, hitting all the little people in the country, will have to go through it, pay the fees, pay the taxes,” LaPierre said. “We don’t even prosecute anybody right now that goes through the system we have.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., fired back (to some applause from the room): ”Mr. LaPierre, that’s the point. The criminals won’t go to purchase the guns because there’ll be a background check. We’ll stop them from the original purchase. You missed that point completely. And I think it’s basic.”
Watch:
In another exchange, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., reiterated this point, saying that LaPierre is right, “criminals won’t subject themselves to a background check, and my response is: That’s exactly the point.”
“I think to the extent that we can expand the background check, the very fact that criminals won’t subject themselves to a background check” will prevent them from getting guns, Whitehouse said.
Mark Kelly, Gabrielle Giffords’ husband, also directly addressed LaPierre’s argument, pointing out that Jared Loughner, who shot Giffords in Tucson in January 2011, was a mentally ill drug user who was rejected from the Army. “But because of these gaps in the mental health system,” there was no record on Loughner. If there had been, Kelly said, “he would have failed that background check. He would have likely gone to a gun show, or a private seller, and avoided that background check. But if we close that gun show loophole, if we require private sellers to complete a background check, and we get those 121,000 records and others into the systems, we will prevent gun crime. That is an absolute truth.”
Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com. More Jillian Rayfield.





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