Posted on 10/17/2007 3:51:48 PM PDT by neverdem
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - A gun-control bill that advocates say could have prevented the April killings of 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus has hit a roadblock in the Senate.
The measure would provide money to states to ensure that they properly update the national database of those prohibited to purchase weapons. It has support from both handgun control groups and the National Rifle Association but Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York says his colleague Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, has derailed any hopes of quick passage.
Under federal law, people with criminal records and those who have been judged mentally defective are generally barred from purchasing weapons, and their names are placed in a database.
Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech before committing suicide, had been deemed mentally defective and should have been in the database. But Virginia authorities never added Cho's name. He bought two guns in the weeks before the killings.
NRA, too. I have received many pieces of mail “explaining” the bill. The NRA website has lots of explanations why they’re on board with Schumer.
Odd that the article does not say what the holdup is, or what the objections are.
Like 9/11, the ONE thing that would likely have prevented the tragedy, is law-abiding citizens (and/or pilots in the case of 9/11) on the scene with concealed carry.
The NRA helped author the GCA 1968. They’re always there to ‘compromise’. Sort of like a true RINO.
IIRC, the rules of the Senate allow individual Senators to place "holds" on any bill. Maybe it's just a failure to get unamimous consent?
If there's a flaw in this bill, perhaps someone will point it out, but on the surface of what I've read, I don't have a problem with it at this point...
Quick. Close the barn door. The horse got away.
***The NRA helped author the GCA 1968. They’re always there to ‘compromise’. Sort of like a true RINO.***
Actually the 1968 GCA was Thomas Dodd’s baby, based on the 1938 Nazi weapons act.
The NRA prevented a registration/confiscation bill by modifying the 1968 GCA to it’s less dangerous form of total registration of all guns. There were less than one million people in the organization then and they did NOT have a lobbying wing.
What we got, the 1968 GCA was much less severe than what Kennedy and Dodd wanted and the ONLY reason it passed is that Congress voted to give money to each police department for “crime control”. Sort of like when Clinton got the assault weapons ban by bribing the congressmen with pork for 100,000 police on the streets. $$$$Money talks$$$$
Without the NRA we would not have any firearms at all except single shots and they would have to be kept at a police station.
If you were alive at that time you would know just how the news media managed to create a wave of hysteria after the shooting of Bobby Kenney. It was an avalanche even the NRA could not stop, they did manage to divert it into a less offensive, but still onerous, bill.
It’s daddy.
Because the first responders were delayed 9 minutes when they attempted to enter Norris Hall, the killer had ample opportunity to kill or wound dozens of people.
The only problem is that pretty much any medical doctor or counselor could declare pretty much anyone to be a “mental defective” and there is no real legal recourse.
See my reply above.
***Was Thomas Dodd the father of Christopher Dodd?***
Yes he was. It was Thomas J. Dodd and Emanual Cellar who claimed in 1962 that “We don’t want to take your guns away. We only want to register handguns. Long guns will not be included.”
Quite a difference from today isn’t it.
Yep. The only gun law that would have prevented the VA tech massacre is a concealed carry for qualified students and faculty. Mental health evaluations give the left a perfect tool to use on law-abiding gun-owners.
But it makes for a nice dodge when a particular political party is advocating for the criminal class. Look over here at this fantasy problem while we do nothing about criminal behavior.
That might be, unless you think that the second amendment defends all others, including itself.
Actually the 1968 GCA was Thomas Dodd’s baby, based on the 1938 Nazi weapons act.
From keepandbeararms.com:
NRA Supported the National Firearms Act of 1934
In fact, they've supported gun rights infringements "since...1871."
by Angel Shamaya
Founder/Executive Director
KeepAndBearArms.com
March 29, 2002
"The National Rifle Association has been in support of workable, enforceable gun control legislation since its very inception in 1871."
—NRA Executive Vice President Franklin L. Orth
NRA's American Rifleman Magazine, March 1968, P. 22
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