Some 40 percent of all gun buyers avoid background checks by using the Internet. Report: Checks stop 2.1M gun buys

Federal background checks have stopped more than 2.1 million would-be gun purchases in the 20 years since President Bill Clinton signed the Brady gun control bill, according to a report released Friday by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

But in as much as Brady’s report is designed to celebrate the importance of the law that bears the organization’s name, it reads as a litany of ways in which forces pushing for gun control have lost the battle in Washington.


Some 40 percent of all gun buyers avoid background checks by purchasing their weapons over the Internet, allowing fugitives and felons who would like to buy a gun easy access to one while avoiding federal checks.

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“Make no mistake: Countless lives have been saved, and crimes have been prevented thanks to the Brady law,” Brady President Dan Gross wrote. “However, more needs to be done. Under current federal law, background checks are only required when someone attempts to purchase a gun from a federally licensed firearms dealer. But federal law allows unlicensed persons to sell guns without a background check, no questions asked.”

At a Capitol press conference to tout the report Friday, Sarah Brady, wife of former Ronald Reagan press secretary James Brady, who was injured in the assassination attempt on his boss, said the report is evidence that work remains for gun control advocates.

“Just because there is public outcry doesn’t mean we’re going to get a bill passed, it takes time and it takes work and it takes persistence,” Brady said. “[Supporters have] the same enthusiasm, so we’re going to win, and we’re going to finish the job.”

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Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), a gun owner who chaired the House Democrats’ push for expanded background checks after the December 2012 massacre at Newtown, Conn., said — as he has been doing for nearly a year — that legislation to expand background checks would pass in the House. The Senate’s background checks bill died when it failed to overcome a filibuster last April.

“All we need is a vote, this thing would get passed and it would get passed today,” Thompson said. “Please know we’re not interested in quitting, we’re going to stick with this.”

Brady’s report ticks through the statistics gun control advocates have long used to make their case. States that have expanded background checks beyond federal minimums have 39 percent fewer police officers killed by guns and 38 percent fewer women killed by guns in domestic incidents.

Since the Newtown shootings shook the country and led President Barack Obama to launch the first push for federal gun control laws in a generation, only four states enacted new laws: Connecticut, Colorado, New York and Delaware. In all but New York, the laws were passed by Democratic-controlled state legislators and signed by Democratic governors.

And the Colorado state lawmakers who ushered through that state’s law were removed in a recall election months later, though the law survived legislative attempts at repeal.

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Colorado served as a the first test case not just for lawmakers defending votes for gun control but for the highly funded new gun control organizations that emerged after Newtown. Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns defended the Colorado lawmakers with $350,000 in television ads — an enormous sum for two state Senate seats.

Bloomberg’s group has also eclipsed the Brady Campaign as the most visible and best-funded gun control organization. MAIG, along with the Gabrielle Giffords-backed Americans for Responsible Solutions and an organization of family members of Sandy Hook victims, has stolen a large segment of territory Brady once largely owned by itself.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who led the failed attempt to pass an expanded background checks bill last spring, did not attend Brady’s press conference Friday.

Instead, Manchin, who was not invited to the event, was in Alaska with embattled Sen. Mark Begich, one of four Democrats to vote against the Senate’s background checks bill last April.

Ginger Gibson contributed to this report.