With all the talk in Washington these past few months about background checks for gun buyers, it sometimes gets lost in the shuffle that 16 states (along with the District of Columbia) already require all handgun buyers to pass checks before they can complete their sales. As leaders in the Episcopal Church in North Carolina, we’re proud to say that the Tar Heel State is among that group. In fact, the state has been requiring purchase permits for handguns since before the Brady Bill was passed in the 1990s. This means that people prohibited from buying handguns can’t buy them here because the sheriffs who issue permits screen them. You can only imagine our alarm when the state Senate passed a bill that would remove this sensible permit requirement, effectively eliminating background checks for private handgun sales. This bill would actually reopen a “private sale” loophole that we already closed. With an estimated 40 percent of gun transfers nationally occurring between “private” parties not subject to a background check under federal law, this creates an incredibly dangerous situation.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:46:16 +0000
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