Sen. Schumer Calls for Tougher Gun Control Laws

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) joined Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly on Wednesday to unveil new proposed legislation in favor of tougher laws on gun purchases.

According to Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a national coalition of over 550 mayors launched by Bloomberg in 2006, 34 people are murdered with guns in the United States every day.

The proposed gun control legislation unveiled Wednesday would increase penalties on judicial funding for states that fail to report drug abusers, perpetrators of domestic violence, the mentally ill, and individuals on a terrorist watch list.

Bloomberg stated that there are two critical steps required to keep guns out of the hands of potentially dangerous individuals. The first is to ensure that all records used to assess people’s eligibility for gun ownership are properly maintained. “That includes records of felony convictions, domestic violence, misdemeanors, protective orders, drug use and addictions, and determination of mental illness,” stated Bloomberg.

The second step, according to the mayor, requires all gun sales to go through a proper background check. The new legislation will “help us protect innocent citizens without taking any rights from law-abiding gun owners,” said Bloomberg.

Schumer made it clear that the legislation will not restrict hunters’ access to guns or prevent law-abiding citizens from buying guns. However, the senator stated that “we have to do a better job of making sure people who are not supposed to have guns don’t have them.” The legislation intends to ensure that “criminals, terrorists, drug abusers, the mentally ill don’t have access to deadly firearms,” he added.

The current federal law mandates that gun dealers ensure that the potential buyer’s name is not listed in the National Instant Criminal background Check System (NICS) prior to making a sale. This do-not-sell list compiled by the FBI informs gun dealers whether the person intending to buy the gun is prohibited from owning one due to a criminal record or a documented mental instability. Due to negligence and under-reporting, however, the NICS database is inaccurate and is missing millions of records.

Schumer stated that the proposed legislation would ensure greater and more accurate reporting to the NICS through the implementation of tougher penalties for states that fail to accurately update records. The federal government would provide funding to ensure that states comply with adequate reporting and proper maintenance of the database, and would link each state’s compliance to funding, said the senator.

Kelley noted that 10 states are not utilizing the database at all and 18 states have entered 100 records or less, which indicates that at least 28 states are not complying with record-keeping standards.

At present, states that fail to report 50 percent of the records face a 3 percent cut in their Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) funding. The proposed legislation calls to increase the reporting requirement to 75 percent by 2013 and to 90 percent by 2018; the corresponding JAG funding penalties would be raised to 15 percent and 25 percent, respectively.

Schumer’s bill would require federal agencies to verify to the U.S. attorney general twice a year that they have submitted all relevant records to the NICS database. The legislation would also require all gun sellers to confirm that the person they are selling the gun to is not on the national NICS list, which would eradicate the current gun show loophole that allows gun sellers to sell guns indiscriminately to any individual without any verification.

“What the senator’s bill is to trying to do is sort of use a carrot and stick approach—where he would lower the amount of Justice Department grants to the states [that] don’t comply, [that] don’t give their information readily and quickly to the database,” noted Kelly.