Obama's Gun Control Failure & Continuing Threat of UBC

[Dale00]

An uncomplimentary assessment of the President's ineffective leadership:

...The gun control debate has shown the president again to be hopelessly detached as a legislative mechanic and ineffectual as a shaper of public opinion. Before writing rhetorical checks that his own party’s majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, couldn’t cash, the president might have at least consulted with the wily old son-of-a-gun about what was plausible and adjusted accordingly. He might have taken into consideration Reid’s ribbon-cutting ceremony with National Rifle Association honcho Wayne LaPierre at the Clark County Shooting Park in Las Vegas in 2010.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/...t-gun-control-fizzle-89628.html#ixzz2Pq8IIMxM

But the idea of universal background checks still hangs on like a naval mine waiting for an unlucky ship:

...The argument now is all about increasing the reach of background checks, although any bill that can pass the Senate and the House will be much less extensive than the president or his supporters would like.....
It is true that 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks. Who can be against background checks? Heck, even the NRA wants states to keep more complete records of who is forbidden from purchasing guns....
But it gets complicated quickly when you try to control almost every transfer of a gun. The current Sen. Chuck Schumer version of the background check bill would forbid a “temporary transfer” to a friend for target shooting if the range is not “owned or occupied by a duly incorporated organization organized for conservation purposes or to foster proficiency in firearms.” Got it?

Surely, we can figure out a way to do more checks at gun shows. But despite the obsession with them, gun shows are really beside the point. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, “In 1997, among state inmates possessing a gun, fewer than 2 percent bought their firearm at a flea market or gun show, about 12 percent from a retail store or pawnshop and 80 percent from family, friends, a street buy or an illegal source.”

Gun control always founders on the fundamental paradox that it is possible to write new laws for the law-abiding but difficult or impossible to reach criminals who don’t care about the laws. Michigan has long had one of the most-restrictive gun laws in the country. It has required a permit to purchase a handgun since 1927. The rule has evidently made no impression on those bent on doing harm to others in Detroit or Flint....

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/...control-fizzle-89628_Page2.html#ixzz2PqBduFrt

 

[Cinaet]

It is true that 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks.

Chuck Schumer was on Face the Nation yesterday. He quoted that 90% statistic as well. I've done some poking around and I can't find where it comes from.

 

[Dale00]

Chuck Schumer was on Face the Nation yesterday. He quoted that 90% statistic as well. I've done some poking around and I can't find where it comes from.

The "90%" comes from this poll: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1877
Scroll to the bottom to find link to Demographic Summary. It appears based on a phone survey of 1711 registered voters. There are lots of missing details. For instance, the actual questions asked (the survey "Instrument"). Thirty nine percent said they had a gun in their household. I wonder if this question didn't cause gun owners to hang up.

 

[Glocktogo]

That 90+% figure came frome the same Bowl-O-Propaganda as Obama's 1st term "statistic" that 80% of all guns seized in Mexico are from the U.S. This alleged 90% is as odious as that 80% turned out to be.

 

[uncle money bags]

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

This isnt news to any of us, but it bears repeating none-the-less.

 

[dru]

What I find notable is this entire piece is on politico.com.....hardly a hostile website to obama

 

[WessonOil]

I'm sure that if you took the current laws on the books in regards to firearms, told the 90% these were new laws being proposed, few would be aware that those are existing laws.

 

[ASP785]

I think 90% of the general population when asked, "Do you support Universal Background Checks to prevent criminals and the mentally ill from obtaining firearms?" would say yes.

Before my own research and 'enlightenment' I believe I would have answered yes to that question.