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Senate Panel Approves Two of Democrats’ Gun Control Measures

Mar. 12, 2013 2:50pm Jason Howerton

WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — A divided Senate Judiciary Committee approved a Democratic bill Tuesday expanding required federal background checks to nearly all gun purchases, giving President Barack Obama an early victory on curbing gun violence in a fight that still faces difficult odds.

The vote was 10-8, with all Democrats supporting the measure and every Republican opposing it. An additional measure intended to improve safety at schools passed on a 14-4 vote.

As expected, the panel delayed voting on a plan by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to ban assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines. The committee was expected to approve that measure Thursday. Feinstein was chairing a separate intelligence hearing.

The background check measure would expand the requirement to firearms sales between private individuals, such as those that occur at gun shows. Currently, the checks are required only for sales by federally licensed firearms dealers.

“This isn’t going to be a perfect bill. But it will sure reduce crimes,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the bill’s sponsor.

Schumer said he hopes he can strike a compromise on the measure with Republicans, which would enhance its chances of passing in the full Senate. The chamber is expected to consider gun legislation next month, and GOP lawmakers have shown little enthusiasm for expanding the requirement to private firearms transactions.

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Judiciary panel, said he believes the measure will ultimately lead to a federal registry of gun owners – which is illegal. He also said that requiring additional law-abiding citizens to face background checks would have limited impact on public safety.

“Mass shootings would continue to occur despite universal background checks,” Grassley said. “Criminals will continue to steal guns.”

The committee approved a measure by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) providing $40 million a year for school safety programs. The vote was 14-4, with four Republicans joining Democrats in supporting the bill

The background check system is designed to prevent criminals, people with severe mental problems and others from getting guns.

Tuesday’s meeting came five days after the panel approved Congress’ first gun control measure since December’s horrific shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 26 students and educators dead.

The initial bill, brought forward by the Judiciary Committee’s chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and others, establishes long prison terms for illegal gun traffickers and straw purchasers, people who buy a firearm for criminals or others forbidden to buy one.

Schumer’s background check bill would exempt only a narrow range of transactions from the checks, such as transactions between immediate family members or weapons loaned temporarily during sporting events.

It would also renew the requirement that states and federal agencies report records on felons, people with major mental health problems, drug abusers and others to the federal background check system – something that many states and agencies do poorly.

Schumer had hoped to win GOP support for his measure, and he spent weeks bargaining with conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who carries an A rating from the National Rifle Association. Those talks foundered.

Coburn’s backing could have helped Schumer win support from other Republicans and moderate Democrats from states with large numbers of GOP voters – potentially crucial because the background check measure is likely to need 60 votes in the 100-member Senate. There are 55 Democrats, including two independents who usually side with them.

To pressure lawmakers, a dozen clergy members from Newtown collected 4,000 signatures of religious leaders from around the country on a letter asking them to support expanded background checks, an assault weapons ban and other restrictions. The letter was published Monday as an ad in the Des Moines (Iowa) Register and was addressed to Grassley. The group planned to run the ad elsewhere as well.

The letter said that after gun violence in Newtown and other places, “To refuse to take the steps we know would reduce harm is a violation of religious values so severe that we are compelled to speak out.”

The NRA, which opposes the background check expansion, is encouraging its members to contact Congress, association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.

Leaders of the GOP-run House have said they will wait to act until the Senate passes legislation.

Democrats say background checks help keep criminals and others from getting weapons, and say keeping records of private sales is the only way to ensure that those checks are actually conducted. Currently, the government must destroy records of checks it conducts within a day, but gun dealers must maintain paper records of the transactions for 20 years.

Republicans oppose recordkeeping as a step toward a federal registry. They also argue that current laws need to be enforced better without imposing record-keeping requirements on additional gun buyers.

Since the federal background check system began in 1998, the government has received more than 118 million gun applications and turned down 2.1 million, or 1.8 percent, according to the Justice Department. The figures are through 2010.

Supporters of stronger curbs say those statistics show the large number of dangerous people denied firearms. They say extending the requirement to more sales would make it even more effective.

Opponents say broadening background checks would encourage more people to seek weapons illegally.

A 2004 survey of state prisoners involved in crimes that included guns showed that around 4 in 10 got their firearms from friends or family and nearly that many got them from unregulated street dealers. Only around 1 in 9 got them from licensed dealers.

In CONTROL, Glenn Beck presents a passionate, fact-based case for guns that reveals why gun control isn’t really about controlling guns at all; it’s about controlling us. Find out more HERE.

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Comments (28)

dmerwin
Posted on March 13, 2013 at 9:24pm
What is the point of background checks at all if the government does not prosecute felons attempting to purchase firearms? If someone checks the mental health box and someone doesn’t intervene what is to prevent that person from going to a store down the street and NOT checking the box, then “checking out” later that day. It is a “feel good” measure that does NOTHING from keeping guns from criminal or dangerous people’s hands. So “gunman G” cannot pass the check, what is to prevent “Moll B” from applying, buying and handing over said firearm?

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- dmerwin
  Posted on March 13, 2013 at 9:25pm
  I forgot to add. Real enforcement with mandatory minimum sentences of 10-20-life for 1st-2nd-3rd firearm related convictions.
  
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republic2011
Posted on March 13, 2013 at 2:30pm
No compromise! The right of citizens to bear arms “shall not be infringed”!

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dublinthewagons
Posted on March 13, 2013 at 6:39am
To solve the problem. Tape a firearms registration form to all your weapons. When the burglar steels them they will phone in and get approval from ATSF before leaving with stolen guns.
Just tell’um Chuckie said.

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CAATTY
Posted on March 13, 2013 at 2:15am
For a good video on the stupidity of the ban the AR-15, see http://youtu.be/7ilJVXCXP9g

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Venetor59
Posted on March 13, 2013 at 12:03am
I think a large scale recall vote is in order. Maybe retire about half of these morons in senate and let them live like the rest of us have to live. Maybe even just clean house, top to bottom and start over with real conservative American citizens, not these lace panty ( sorry ladies) left & right liberal sociocommunistic progressives.

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- encinom
  Posted on March 13, 2013 at 10:51am
  No, its time to label gun nuts and the NRA the terrorist and traitors they are.
  
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- AmericanStrega
  Posted on March 13, 2013 at 12:03pm
  Enci-whatever,
  Traitors to whom?
  
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Bookster
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 10:47pm
“This isn’t going to be a perfect bill. But it will sure reduce crimes,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the bill’s sponsor.

Right, because you know all criminals obey laws. Wow, this guy is even a bigger fool than I already knew he was. If they think I am going to do a background check when I buy from a private party they are dreaming. I refuse to obey unconstitutional “laws”.

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- hagar
  Posted on March 13, 2013 at 12:14am
  I got a response from Schumer where he claimed he was pro gun his is full of it these people want to disarm us so that we fully become subjects with no ability to resist their agenda any othe rational is so much bullhockey
  
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- Wolf
  Posted on March 13, 2013 at 8:05am
  Schumer is only pro grun for his security detail.
  
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- encinom
  Posted on March 13, 2013 at 10:55am
  Actually, the law is so lax, that straw buyers and dealers posing as “private sellers” at gun sellers can openingly sell to criminals without violating the law. Its time for common sense and to ignore the terrorists of the NRA and the foaming at the mouth gun nuts.
  
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ThePirateRagnar
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 10:43pm
Not gonna happen. Not no how, not no way. No matter how hard you try, we will not comply. We the People have never lost a 2nd ASmendment court battle, and this one will go challenged all the way. And when it does, the y all better trad lightly. This country stands on the edge of a knife. We will not allow the ignorant idealisitc views of those fools on the two coasts to make policy for the rest of us. They do so at their peril. And when we begin pushing, I hope they can swim.

-The Pirate Ragnar

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- Ceefour
  Posted on March 13, 2013 at 7:57am
  If The Airheads were really concerned about child death they would be filling in those little bodies of water in the back yard aka THE SWIMMING POOL. From the CDC: Drowning deaths in swimming pools annually 2005-2009=ages 0-14=335…………..Death by accidental shooting=86. If one child’s life can be saved..fill in those pools….
  
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maverick2270
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 8:51pm
First, we can’t even enforce the laws we have. Second, a universal background check is the progessive, socialist baby step towards gun registry and eventually confiscation. Think about it? Hundreds of millions of privately owned guns in America, how will you enforce the sale of a gun from me to my buddy? There is now way unless all guns are registed. Vendors at gun shows already do back ground checks! This is another scam by bleeding heart, Socialist, self serving, power hungry liberals. Email and/or call your representative in the house and senate and let them know you won’t be scammed and that you are watching!

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The_Cabrito_Goat
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 8:23pm
I’m no more discouraged now buying a gun than I ever were. Why? Because we are actually putting up a pretty good fight in the information war. Thanks to people on the blaze, most of these bills get fully curtailed, or heavily peeled back.

Only two got through. That’s something, it’s not nothing.

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- AmericanStrega
  Posted on March 13, 2013 at 12:06pm
  But still, two go through. Those two are two too many.
  
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wopalope
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 8:00pm
When are “We the people” going to put an end to this??

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- mikem1969
  Posted on March 12, 2013 at 8:29pm
  It is coming, just be ready.
  
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TJexcite
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 7:45pm
So how many people who pay to set up a table at gun shows do not already have a federally firearms licensed. Just how many people have a stockpile of guns to sell that warrant a table at a gun show and are not also not just selling out in the parking lot.

We need currant stats to show that some where close to 98% of guns sellers at guns shows are federally licensed firearm dealers and have their own brick and mortar store and website. The number of people selling at gun shows from their own private collection is small that they do it without the added cost of getting a table.

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BHOHG2G
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 6:54pm
Soooooo… if I’m crazy and wanted to commit a mass murder (the crime of all crimes), and didn’t have a gun. Then why would I worry about lying or stealing to get one?
I suppose if I tried buying one and got turned down, the urge to commit murder would go away?
It hurts my head to think like a lib.

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Acena
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 6:01pm
“Mass shootings would continue to occur despite universal background checks,”
Until you deal with the real problem it will continue .

10% of murders are committed by people with mental illness. But a far larger proportion of mass homicides involve perpetrators with mental illness.

Mass homicides don’t track with the economy, social conflict or media-violence rates. Their rise began in the 1960s and coincided with expanding drug use and the deinstitutionalization movement, when mental asylums were closed down.

A 2011 review of people who had suffered a first episode of psychosis – often a sign of schizophrenia ( associated with severe depression,amphetamine or marijuana misuse) — found that 35% had committed a violent act.

People who have schizophrenia and a substance-use disorder have a nine times higher risk of violence than people with neither disorder. The association is especially marked for homicide: those with schizophrenia are nearly 20 times as likely to kill another person as people unaffected by the disease.
44 million adults,13.7 million children in America has a diagnosable mental disorder

The NRA asked for computerized mental health record checks for over 20 years .
Democrats and the AMA have blocked them.

“Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.”

“It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abus

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jungle J
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 6:01pm
If this doesn’t wake up the sane nothing will…be careful of those that appear sane but are progressive operatives planted to destroy from within.

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ConstLaw
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 5:54pm
A universal background check law will lead to a national registration of all guns. There is no way to enforce background checks on private to private gun sales unless the government knows every gun you own and can track their sales. The government enforces background checks on FFL dealers because the government knows the serial number of every gun an FFL has.

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pg3712
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 5:41pm
Opening paragraph->There’s nothing about this legislation that does anything to curb gun violence. Journalists at TheBlaze aren’t supposed to be inserting opinion or slant in their news stories.

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- kmac32
  Posted on March 12, 2013 at 9:13pm
  It’s an AP story that The Blaze has used whole or in part. See the byline (or whatever it is called) at the beginning of the first paragraph. It’s the same with nearly all articles on the Fox News website. That is why I laugh when the ******** are trying to call it “Faux” News….
  
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Fubared
Posted on March 12, 2013 at 5:36pm
“giving President Barack Obama an early victory on curbing gun violence in a fight”… did Jay Carney write this piece and disseminate it to the Blaze? What stats back up that tripe/narrative/propaganda?

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- pg3712
  Posted on March 12, 2013 at 5:44pm
  Dang it.you beat me to the punch. Your comment wasn’t up when I first started composing mine. I apologize for plagiarizing sentiment.
  
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