Why are there mandatory background checks?
I think one of the things that hopefully everyone who is concerned about guns can agree to is that we should have background checks before someone is allowed to buy a gun. If the NRA and others agree that felons shouldn't have guns, that people that had been adjudicated as mentally ill and dangerous to themselves or others because of mental illness shouldn't have guns, then, if we all agree on those prohibitions, then we should all agree that let's check to make sure that a person who buys a gun doesn't fall within one of those prohibited categories. Right now if you buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer they're required to do a background check. But if you buy from someone who is not a federally licensed dealer, a so called "private seller," a collector at a gun show, or through the classified ads, no background check is required. That means that some forty percent of sales of guns, legal sales of guns in this country, are done without a background check. So, one of the things that we are pushing for is to have background checks on all sales of guns as a way to stop some of the prohibited purchasers from getting their guns. Of course, we also want to make sure that the data system that's available has complete records of who all the felons are, of who all the folks with domestic violence restraining orders are, of who all the people that have been adjudicated a danger to themselves or others because of mental illness, we need to make sure we have complete records in there. Brady background checks, if we have full information, and we apply those to all sales, we can significantly reduce the level of violence in this country.
