Background Checks Would Not Have Stopped Sandy Hook Shooter

About Erich Pratt:

Erich Pratt is director of communications for Gun Owners of America.

The president missed his big opportunity. None of the policies he recently unveiled would have stopped Adam Lanza in Connecticut from killing his mother, stealing her weapons, and carrying them onto school grounds to commit his despicable crimes.

Sadly, the president didn't deal with the one proposal that would actually make a difference. That is, repealing the Gun Free Zones Ban which prevents armed teachers or principals from protecting the children—just like assistant principal Joel Myrick did at his Mississippi high school.

It is clear that many of our politicians in Washington are so blinded by their antigun ideology, that they care more about protecting themselves than they do our children. In the roughly 15 square block area of Capitol Hill, there are 1,800 Capitol Hill police officers to protect our congressmen. How many armed adults are protecting our kids on any given day at school?

[See a collection of political cartoons on gun control and gun rights.]

But instead of pursuing this commonsense approach, the president is now assaulting the rights of gun owners. And of all his initiatives, the proposed background checks on private gun sales pose the greatest chance of passing.

I recently discussed how background checks can lead to gun owner registration (and confiscation) in a national cable network debate. My opponent actually said, "I don't know what you're talking about in regard to registration," and insisted that nobody was trying to take my guns.

Really? Do gun grabbers actually think the American gun owners don't realize the gun confiscation agenda that is afoot? Consider just some of our recent history:

• "Confiscation could be an option," declared New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a radio interview (Dec. 27, 2012).
• "We cannot have big guns out here," said Iowa Rep. Dan Muhlbauer. "Even if you have them, I think we need to start taking them." (Interview with the Iowa Daily Times Herald, Dec, 19, 2012.)
• "No one is allowed to be armed. We're going to take all the guns," said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of the New Orleans police, right before several law-enforcement agencies began confiscating the firearms of lawful gun owners in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (2005).

[Read the U.S. News Debate: Should High-Capacity Ammunition Magazines Be Banned?]

The task of confiscating guns is much easier when the government has a registration list. And that is the number one reason gun owners should oppose background checks, because they give federal bureaucrats the framework for a national registration system.

If Obama gets his way, we will be much further down road to giving the Andrew Cuomos of the world the registration lists they need. But we still won't be able to stop creeps like Adam Lanza from circumventing those background checks and getting guns to attack children.

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Tags:

Obama administration,

gun control and gun rights

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