Brady Background Checks Save Lives

By Jonathan Hutson

Every day in the United States, 89 people are killed with guns. Most of these tragedies can be prevented by keeping guns out of the wrong hands through common-sense solutions supported by the vast majority of US Americans.

Right now, in most of our nation, a convicted felon, a domestic abuser, a fugitive, or someone who has been judged dangerously mentally ill can walk into a gun show, or go online, and buy a gun with no questions asked — without a Brady background check. This is unacceptable.

Since the Brady Law was passed with bipartisan support in 1994, 2.4 million dangerous people have been blocked from buying guns. So a simple solution is for the US Congress to expand Brady background checks to all gun sales in order to prevent millions of guns from winding up in dangerous hands.

This is an issue of public health and safety, on which the vast majority of US Americans agree. Ninety percent of the public, including 85 percent of gun owners, support the expansion of life-saving Brady background checks to all gun sales.

So people from all states and political parties are signing our #IamCharleston: “I Demand a Vote NOW” petition, demanding that Congress “finish the job” by voting immediately in support of legislation to expand Brady background checks to all gun sales.

Every day that Congress fails to act, more guns get into dangerous hands, and every day, more lives are lost as a result. We also need to do more to stop “bad-apple” gun dealers — the 5 percent of dealers who knowingly or negligently supply 90 percent of the crime guns in our nation.

Through organizing protests in front of “bad-apple” gun-dealer stores, and through legal advocacy, Brady is pressuring the “bad apples” to either adopt a reasonable and ethical Code of Conduct, or be shut down.

But policy solutions are not our only focus. We know that every day in the United STates, nine kids are shot unintentionally. So through our ASK (Asking Saves Kids) Campaign, we’re educating parents about the risks of unsafe access to guns in the home, and how to mitigate those risks. In two-thirds of school shootings, the gun comes from the home of the attacker or a relative, including the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut.

One in three homes with children in the US have guns, many unlocked and loaded. So one simple, life-saving question that every parent should ask before their kids have a playdate is whether there are unlocked guns where their kids play.

Through simple, common-sense solutions, supported by nearly all US Americans, including the vast majority of gun owners, the Brady Campaign plans to realize the audacious but achievable goal of cutting gun deaths in half in the United States by 2025.