Perhaps the most important moment so far in today's Senate Judiciary hearing on guns came when astronaut Mark Kelly directly confronted NRA head Wayne LaPierre over the shooting of his wife, Gabrielle Giffords. Between that exchange and another one involving Senator Dick Durbin, LaPierre's argument was completely unmasked for the sham that it is.

During the hearing, LaPierre repeatedly voiced the talking point that there's no need to expand the background check system because criminals don't cooperate with background checks. Kelly responded:

   The Tuscon shooter was an admitted drug user. He was rejected from the U.S. Army because of his drug use. He was clearly mentally ill. And when he purchased that gun in November, his plan was to assassinate my wife and commit mass murder at that Safeway in Tucson. He was a criminal. Because of his drug use, and because of what he was planning on doing. But because of these gaps in the mental health system, in this case, those 121,000 records, I admit did not include a record on him. But it could have.

    And if it did, he would have failed that background check. He would have likely gone to a gun show, or a private seller, and avoided that background check. But if we close that gun show loophole, if we require private sellers to complete a background check, and we get those 121,000 records and others into the systems, we will prevent gun crime. That is an absolute truth. It would have happened in Tucson. My wife would not have been sitting here today if we had stronger background checks.

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As Sargent points out:

And LaPierre's suggestion fails the test of basic logic. If criminals don't cooperate with background checks, and end up getting their guns from private sellers or gun shows, or from gun dealers who get them via such means, that is an argument for expanding the background check system, not an argument against it. Indeed, these loopholes are the very reason that gun crime persists even in areas that have strict gun control. The "gun rights" crowd likes to point to Chicago as an example of such a place. But as Senator Dick Durbin put it during the hearing:

   When you take a look at where these guns come from, 25 percent plus are sold in the surrounding towns around the city of Chicago, not in the city. Look over the last 10 or 12 years. Of the 50,000 guns confiscated in crimes, almost one out of 10 crime guns in Chicago came to that city from Mississippi. Why? Because the background checks there, the gun dealers there, are a lot easier than in other places. And they end up selling these guns in volume.

I guess the obvious common sense of this is just too threatening to the gun rights crowd.  Or maybe people like Wayne LaPierre are making way too much money in service to the NRA to risk allowing common sense to be part of the discussion.

Yup, our "well-regulated militia" busy at work on a typical day in America. Nothing to see here!

And also, what is the response to the Chicago girl's death? 200 more police on the streets! I'd much prefer to get guns out of criminal's/unbalanced people's hands.

Oh yes! I almost forgot: on a more local (to me) note, just 2 days ago in my local paper, a more light-hearted gun story  -- woman accidentally shoots fiance at gun range.

Spare me the nonsense title. The only attack is on the fetishising of guns, the only talks is of the regulation of weapons designed for no other reason than mass murder, and the larger problem is the utter lack of responsibility and initiative on the part of the gun lobby to even smell their own sh*t much less acknowledge that it ain't no pile of roses. They market and sell and profit from violence, that's simple fact. Just like defense industry lobbyists pushing for more wars, private prison lobbyists pushing for more crimes to lock people up over. This is about an industry that wants to do one thing and one thing only: sell as many guns as they can to as many people as they can for as much money a they can. Everything else is horsesh*t and laughably so. What do you think they are in business for? What do you think the NRA exists for? Wake up.

This is a nation in which guns replace genitals and brains in far too many people. There is a literal fetish with them that is bizarre and sickening in this country. Combined with the myth of our "wild west shootout" heritage, it's all but built into our developmentally disabled American DNA.

Indeed, Kopel pretty firmly puts to bed the myth that the original ban had any effect on crime and also that the people drafting the legislation knew what they were doing in the first place.

On top of that, he taught me things about the uses of "large capacity" 15 shot magazines that I did not know (never been a hunter). He also makes good points against registration as well as certain types of background checks.

The only reason to know where they are at is to be able to take them.

For those not familiar, National Instant Criminal Checks (NICS) were instituted in Nov 98 as a result of the Brady Act, which requires background checks for all firearm purchases from licensed dealers. NICS checks are considered roughly analagous to firearm sales - some are declined and some represent multiple purchases.

Top Ten Highest Days: November 30, 1998 - January 27, 2013

1. Fri., Dec. 21, 2012  177,170

2. Thu., Dec. 20, 2012 159,604

3. Fri., Nov. 23, 2012  154,873

4. Sat., Dec. 22, 2012 153,697

5. Wed., Dec. 19, 2012 153,672

6. Tue., Dec. 18, 2012  134,691

7. Fri., Nov. 25, 2011  129,166

8. Sat., Dec. 15, 2012 128,823

9. Fri., Dec. 14, 2012 113,022

10. Sat., Jan. 19, 2013 112,615

Top Ten Highest Weeks: November 30, 1998 - January 27, 2013

1. 12/17/2012 - 12/23/2012  953,613

2. 01/14/2013 - 01/20/2013  641,501

3. 01/07/2013 - 01/13/2013  603,882

4. 12/10/2012 - 12/16/2012 602,003

5. 01/21/2013 - 01/27/2013 541,822

6. 12/03/2012 - 12/09/2012 527,095

7. 11/19/2012 - 11/25/2012  516,302

8. 12/24/2012 - 12/30/2012  499,083

9. 12/31/2012 - 01/06/2013  497,785

10. 11/05/2012 - 11/11/2012 473,787

Consider:

The Bushmaster rifle used by the Sandy Hook murderer was not an "assault weapon" under Connecticut law. Nor was it an "assault weapon" under the 1994-2004 Feinstein ban.22 The new Feinstein ban would cover that particular model of Bushmaster. But it would allow Bushmaster (or any other company) to manufacture other semi-automatic rifles, using a 11 different name, which fire just as fast, and which fire equally powerful bullets.  To reiterate, the Sandy Hook murderer's rate of fire (150 shots in 20 minutes) could be duplicated by any firearm produced in the last century and a half.

Further, and I think Kopel realizes he may be opening a line of attack:

After a quarter century of legislative attempts to define "assault weapon," the flagship bill for prohibitionists, by Senator Dianne Feinstein, still relies on banning 157 guns by name. This in itself demonstrates that "assault weapons" prohibitions are not about guns which are actually more dangerous than other guns.  After all, if a named gun really has physical characteristics which make it more dangerous than other guns, then legislators ought to be able to describe those characteristics, and ban guns (regardless of name) which have the supposedly dangerous characteristics.  Banning guns by name violates the Constitution's prohibition on Bills of Attainder. It is a form of legislative punishment, singling out certain politically disfavored companies for a prohibition on their products.

Not being a legal scholar, I can't speak with much knowledge on the Constitutionality of laws that limit purchase of certain types of guns, i.e. "Bills of Attainder." It seems to me it does not apply since gun companies could still sell Assault Rifles and other banned items, e.g. guns w/more than 7 bullets, to the military, citizens of other countries, etc.  They are also not precluded from selling guns that fall beneath the bar that could be set by Congress.  NY recently passed a law prohibiting purchase of guns that hold more than 7 bullets.  Wondering why that is not subject to this "Bills of Attainder" clause?

Finally,  I haven't been able to dig to much into the stats, but his numbers seem wrong on violent crime comparisons between the US and the UK.  Recent numbers show we exceed the UK.  Kopel states:

Overall, the violent crime rate in England and Wales is far above the American rate. (Using the standard definition for the four most common major violent crimes: homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.)

P. 28 of this report from the UK's Home Office(?)

Shows violent crime accounts for 23% out of 9.6 million offenses based on "interviews" (police reports are significantly lower, btw, see the next graph).  My math = 2,208,000 in 2010/2011.  The FBI's crime stats page:

2010 = 1,246,248
2011 = 1,203,564
Tot  = 2,449,812

Even considering the UK report may not be complete (it was compiled in July 2011) The UK's number is not "far above" as Kopel implies.  Further, many of the statements made reference his own work.  Why not just reference the stats used in your original work?  Dunno, if it were me, I'd want the facts I used out there for verification.

I put this out there as someone interested in possibly obtaining a handgun for home protection in the future.  It's not unreasonable to have to go thru a process to be approved to own guns.  We should limit what one can purchase to that which is suited to one's professed needs.  Background checks combined with registration and tracking of sales between citizens and store owners combined w/existing laws against assault and murder should be sufficient to protect the populace.