Bloomberg Pushes Tougher Gun Control
The New York Times reports:
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Monday used a parade of relatives and friends of victims of several high-profile shootings, including the recent killings in Tucson, to urge Washington to strengthen existing federal gun control laws to prevent guns from falling into the hands of buyers with a history of violence or mental illness.
Mr. Bloomberg, who has sought to make stricter gun control a national issue, said a law passed in 1968 after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. intended to prevent certain people from having guns has never lived up to its full potential.
The law was supposed to apply to convicted felons, drug abusers and the mentally ill, among others. The Brady Bill, which was adopted in 1993, was intended to enforce the earlier law by creating a national background check system.
But the system, Mr. Bloomberg and others who joined him said at a news conference at City Hall, is flawed because it does not have records on millions of people who should be disqualified from buying or possessing guns. Ten states have not submitted any mental health records to the background check system, and 18 states have provided fewer than 100 mental health records, according to Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group that Mr. Bloomberg helped found.
“The time has clearly come to fulfill the intent of the 1968 law and the Brady Bill by creating a genuine credible background check system for the sale of fire arms,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
