In The Arena Gun Owners Should Support Background Checks The priority of Congress should be to keep guns away from criminals. The best way to do this is by expanding criminal background checks.

Democrat Mike Thompson is a congressman from California and chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.

I’m a hunter and gun owner. I support the Second Amendment. For many Americans, myself included, guns are part of our culture and our upbringing. Congress cannot ignore this fact in its efforts to curb gun violence.

I’m also the father of two first responders and a grandfather who believes that we need smart gun laws that help keep American families safe.


To that end, the priority of Congress should be straightforward: Keep guns away from criminals, domestic abusers and the dangerously mentally ill while protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The best way to do this is by expanding criminal background checks.

On Dec. 14, 2012, I was in a duck blind when my phone buzzed with a breaking news alert. Twenty children and six educators had been gunned down at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

After such a tragedy, we often hear calls for actions that are extreme in nature. The reaction on one side of the debate is to argue that guns have no place in our society. Significant constraints on gun ownership are proposed as legislative remedies.

On the other side of the debate, we’re told the answer is to put more guns in schools and make it easier for people to carry weapons in public places such as malls and movie theaters.

Both responses are extreme. Neither side gets anywhere. Gun violence continues unabated, and we fail to pass meaningful legislation that could save lives.

If you’re a Second Amendment supporter like me, this is problematic. Persistent gun violence will eventually lead to laws that place substantial and overly burdensome restrictions on our right to own guns. You don’t have to look any further than California’s attempt to require that all ammunition purchases be made through face-to-face interactions, or New York’s attempt to limit magazine capacity to seven rounds despite the fact that almost no handguns have seven-round magazines available to see the truth of this.

These regulations do not address the real issue. We don’t need to stop law-abiding citizens who use guns for hunting, sport shooting and personal protection from obtaining firearms. We need to stop criminals, domestic abusers and those with a history of dangerous mental illness from getting guns. The only way to know if someone falls into one of these categories is to conduct a background check.

This is a rationale that an overwhelming majority of gun owners support. It’s one that even the National Rifle Association used to support before it changed its stance. Ironically, by flip-flopping on expanded background checks, the gun lobby has undermined a legitimate effort to reduce gun violence and, in doing so, has left the door open for more stringent restrictions on Second Amendment rights in the future.

This isn’t the story the gun lobby tells. When expanded background checks are debated, the gun lobby presents moderate, gun-owning Americans and their congressional representatives with a false choice: If you’re for the Second Amendment, you cannot be for background check laws that help keep guns away from criminals.

This line of thinking couldn’t be further off base. In reality, the best way to make sure the Second Amendment is protected from overreaching gun laws is to reduce gun violence. And the best way to reduce gun violence is to expand background checks so that the number of places criminals, domestic abusers and the dangerously mentally ill can get guns is drastically decreased.

Currently, federal law requires criminal background checks only at federally licensed gun dealers. I recently reintroduced bipartisan legislation to close this loophole by expanding background checks to all advertised sales, such as those at gun shows and over the Internet.

Critics immediately said the bill was a threat to the Second Amendment. It isn’t. If it were, my name wouldn’t be on it.

I wrote this bill for two reasons. First, I support the Second Amendment and don’t want to see the gun rights that many law-abiding Americans enjoy undermined by more restrictive and less well-thought-out legislation, which is what will happen if gun violence continues unchecked. Second, I wrote the bill because background checks work. Every day that background checks are used, they stop more than 170 felons, some 50 domestic abusers and nearly 20 fugitives from buying a gun.

However, those same criminals can currently buy identical guns at a gun show or over the Internet with no questions asked. Closing these loopholes would keep guns from criminals and, in the long run, help protect Second Amendment rights by curbing gun violence and thereby lessening the calls for excessively stringent gun laws.

We now have a bipartisan bill in the House ready for a vote. We know it can pass. Two hundred and sixty representatives in the House — including 76 Republicans — voted last year to fund the background check system at record levels. If they are willing to fund the system at historic levels, they should support using the system.

If the Republican majorities in both chambers have a better idea, let’s see it. If not, let’s bring background checks up for a vote. The bill is pro-Second Amendment, it’s anti-criminal, and it’s the best thing we can do to reduce gun violence while also protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans to own firearms.