Are Background Checks Necessary

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Are Background Checks Necessary?

On April the 16th back in 2007 Colin Goddard was injured in the Virginia Tech shooting. During the shooting although Goddard survived 32 of his peers as well as his professor lost their lives. As a result of the shooting Colin has worked tirelessly to promote gun safety and has gone so far as to attend the University of Maryland in pursuit of his MBA.

When you think about the shooting you would not believe that almost a decade has already passed. For Colin the day is as fresh as ever and he even remembers the gunpowder smell that filled his senses when he was fired at a total of four times while attending his French class.

Colin feels that the man who shot at him and his peers should have never had access to a gun and the fact he was able to mean that his life had been altered forever. He quickly realised how quickly students could become victims to the gun violence in the country just by attending their school. That fateful day 32 people lost their lives and over a dozen others were injured including Collin Goddard. He has been inspired by how resilient the Virginia Tech have shown since the attack. Everyone has shown their sense of community and numerous other occupants have now become advocates for gun safety. Not only have they joined forces to prevent it happening again, they have literally become second families.

The huge amount of Americans involved in the movement for gun safety after being moved by what happened at Sandy hook are known as ‘Newtown Movement’. The actual movement started three years prior to the incident when there was a shooting in 2009 at the immigrations centre in New York leading to the death of 13 people and 4 injured. Colin heard the news and it made him think back to what he had been through himself and realised that it’s time to speak up and make a change.

The weak gun laws are likely to have played a big part in both tragedies and many others around America. The gunman involved in the Virginia Tech shooting should not have been allowed to purchase the guns, however because his poor mental state had not been reported to the relevant authorities he slipped through the net and passed the necessary background checks. It wasn’t until after the incident that improvement of reporting and updating mental health records was improved to such levels it has the best reputation in the whole country.

Even political leaders have learned from what happened that day. Many of the leaders at the time came to visit Colin as he recovered and have now gone on to fight for better safety in the Halls of Congress. The aim is to make further steps to improve the gun laws in Virginia including closing loopholes that allowed the purchase of the guns involved to take place.

There are of course people that argue that the background check that currently takes as little as 90 minutes should be a right. There has to be a huge amount of people in agreement that there are people that should never be allowed to purchase guns, but this is not the case. With people fighting both sides it makes it difficult to thoroughly enforce background checks which are necessary to stop the tragedy re-occurring. When Colin first deciding to get into preventing gun violence he noticed that those fighting beside him had very little power to change things, however with strength and numbers they now stand strong. The group that Colin joined has over 3 million people supporting as well as the Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in each and every state of America.

In this year alone numerous dangerous bills were defeating including the training and permit requirements to be able to have concealed loaded weapons in public places. Despite the hard work the hard part is still not over with. Unfortunately there are still many people against the laws they are trying to change. At the moment the gun lobby has been trying to pass a bill allowing concealed weapons to be carried once again. This could mean that the current laws are overruled making Virginia one of the states with the lowest standards.

Colin recently joined with his own family and those of other victims and their friends and loved ones left behind in Blacksburg to remember those that lost their lives. Not only does it serve as a memorial but also as a way to solidify the bond they now share and to serve as a reminder for why he along with millions of other Americans are fighting for better laws. For background screening contact United Screening.

The reason why universal background checks are no panacea

One strategy that everyone agrees will help reduce gun violence and other related crimes are the expansion of FBI-NICS background checks above and beyond what is currently done. This will ensure checks are done beyond the initial sale to reduce the likelihood of guns ending up with the "bad guys." The theory is that for every time a gun transfers from one individual to another, a background check Miami will help to accurately identify the person and classify the person under various prohibited categories that indicate if the gun might be utilized for criminal purposes.

Another theory underneath this theory is that most guns that will inevitably end up in the wrong hands, do so because an individual with a clean record purchases the gun with the intention of handing it over to another person who can't pass the background check, and as such, the person can't be identified as the first purchaser of the gun. When such transactions occur, it is often known as a "straw sale," and should this person end up selling the gun to another person; it is termed as "gun trafficking." Both "straw sale," and "gun trafficking" are two ways via which most guns end up with the "bad guys."

Several studies carried out have shown that a bulk of the guns recovered from crime scenes come from places other than the location of the crime. In some cases, these locations end up being other towns, cities, and even states.

The limitations of any data or survey carried out are that they can only show the first gun transaction and not the subsequent transactions. The reason for this is that most states don't have a reporting system, where individuals can report gun thefts or even report when they no longer possess a gun. As it stands, only federally-licensed gun dealers report missing guns to the ATF, and only a few dealers actually file a report.

A study done by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh revealed that more than 80 percent of 762 guns studied were recovered from individuals who weren't the legal owners of the gun. And of that number, more than 60 percent were stolen. With this, it is evident how firearms easily end up with the wrong people each year with no way to trace the source.

It goes to show that an extensive background check might not curtail the rise of stolen guns. But if gun owners know that they will face a severe penalty should they fail to report gun thefts, then maybe, just maybe more people will take extra care of their guns. Forbackground screening contact United Screening.


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