Do you support requiring all gun buyers to pass a criminal background check?
Background Checks & Keeping Guns Out of the Hands of Dangerous People
2. Under federal law, anyone who buys a gun from a federally licensed dealer must pass a criminal background check, but the same person can end-run this requirement by buying a gun from an unlicensed seller, including from a stranger that the buyer met online or at a gun show. This loophole enables felons, domestic abusers, and other prohibited purchasers to buy guns with no questions asked. In the states that require background checks on all handgun sales, there are 38% fewer women shot to death by their intimate partners and 39% fewer law enforcement officers killed with handguns.i Do you support requiring background checks for all gun sales (with reasonable exceptions such as for transfers between close family members and temporary transfers for hunting and self-defense)?
SOURCE: i U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Supplementary Homicide Report, 2011, available at http://bit.ly//V1GvFe (excludes New York due to incomplete data); Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Supplementary Homicide Report, 2010.
Do you support a law that would require a criminal background check for every gun sold between strangers who meet through an online gun classified website?
Background Checks & Keeping Guns Out of the Hands of Dangerous People
4. Currently, federal law requires licensed gun dealers to conduct criminal background checks on all prospective gun buyers. Because websites that facilitate gun sales are not held to similar standards, unlicensed high-volume sellers use these sites to sell guns to a vast market of anonymous buyers without background checks – making it easy for felons and other dangerous people to buy guns from strangers they meet online with no questions asked. In fact, an estimated 25,000 guns are transferred to criminals with prohibiting records each year on one website alone, Armslist.com.iii This double standard makes it easy for prohibited people to get guns, and it gives unlicensed high-volume sellers who use websites like Armslist an unfair advantage over licensed gun dealers. Do you support legislation that would level the playing field by treating sites like Armslist as licensed gun brokers, and require a background check every time someone buys a gun through one of these sites?
SOURCE: iii Felon Seeks Firearm: a Report by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, September 18, 2013, available at http://everytown.org/article/felon-seeks-firearm/.
Do you support banning the sale of high capacity ammunition magazines, or magazines that hold more than 10 bullets at a time?
High-Capacity Magazines
8. In many mass shootings, including the 2011 shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, AZ, bystanders have been able to subdue perpetrators of mass shootings when the shooters stop to reload. Research from Virginia showed that the federal limit on high-capacity magazines in effect from 1994 to 2004 led to a 50% reduction in criminals being armed with high-capacity magazines – and when the law expired, the share of crime guns with such magazines doubled.vi Several states have enacted limits on the size of ammunition magazines. Do you support limits on the capacity of ammunition magazines?
SOURCE: vi David Fallis & James Grimaldi, "VA data show drop in criminal firepower during assault gun ban," Washington Post, January 23, 2011, available at http://wapo.st/ToGb69l.