By Jack Nettleton ’13
We will always remember the horror of what happened in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14th, 2012. I watched from my college dorm in Hartford with a dry throat and wet eyes as six selfless adults and 20 future stars died at Sandy Hook Elementary. Numbing images of young kids crying. Children covering their eyes to hide from the carnage, attempting to prevent innocence from leaving their world’s along with their friends.
What happened at Newtown may prompt an honest discussion about gun safety. Before we get bogged down in debate about bans and limits, let’s start with a proposal that nine in ten Americans support and a proposal the vast majority of NRA members support. Agreeing to a universal background check that adds accountability to gun sales in the secondary market is the single shrewdest step we can take to begin to curb gun violence.
Currently, forty percent of all gun transactions occur without a background check. These guns are purchased in secondary markets or at gun shows that don’t perform background checks. As Seattle saw at its recent gun buy-back event, there is no system to prevent me from purchasing ten handguns and then selling them to anyone. It is easy to see why this background check loophole is unsafe; statistics from the Justice Department show us that 80 percent of guns used in crimes were purchased in these secondary markets—without a background check.
We don’t need to ban assault weapons or handguns in order to do something meaningful to make our country safer, we can strengthen current laws that make legal gun owners more accountable for their purchases. A strengthened background check system will address the real problem we have with gun violence—guns getting into the hands of the wrong people. Most gun owners are responsible, law-abiding citizens and expanding our background check system will help solidify this fact.
The debate about banning assault weapons makes headlines, but it is not the most effective thing we can do to begin to curb gun violence. According to the Justice Department, out of the over 8,000 people that were murdered by a firearm in 2011, 6,220 were murdered by a handgun. Removing all handguns is more politically unfeasible than banning assault weapons, so strengthening background checks to prevent criminals from acquiring any firearm will ultimately do more to increase gun safety than an assault weapon or handgun ban.
We would never allow for someone to purchase alcohol legally, then sit in a parking lot 1,000 feet from a school and sell it to whomever they want. However, that exact type of situation is allowed under our current guns laws. This isn’t responsible and it’s unsafe. While we cannot prevent every act of gun violence with strengthened background checks, we can undoubtedly make it more difficult for criminals to acquire weapons. A background check may not have prevented Newtown, but it may protect future victims we won’t so easily remember.
We are unlikely to remember the shooting deaths of Michael Kevin Eby Jr. and Ryan Michael Pederson. Their bodies were found December 21 in a car just off State Route 821 in Eastern Washington, near the Yakima River. We are even less likely to remember Lonnie Starr of New Haven, whose death warranted a three sentence mention in the January 27th Hartford Courant. It is too early to know if their deaths could have been prevented by strengthened background checks, but the statistics say it’s probable. Reducing the number of firearm deaths needs to be a national priority.
Action is needed now. Let’s prevent another Lonnie, Michael or Ryan from leaving us too soon. Let’s do something for Newtown and the families of those who were murdered in the 8,583 firearm deaths this past year. Congress, please pass universal background checks. I can only pray that political litmus tests are not blind to common sense.