Obama Urges Improved Background Checks After Slayings
(Corrects spelling of Tucson in second paragraph.)
President Barack Obama called for more effective background checks for gun sales after the January shooting rampage in Arizona that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
The shootings in Tucson, and “perhaps another 2,000” gun- related deaths in the U.S. since then, show a need for consensus on how to prevent more gun violence, Obama said in an op-ed column published in today’s “Arizona Daily Star.” The U.S. needs “an instant, accurate, comprehensive and consistent system for background checks,” he said.
Jared Lee Loughner, 22, was charged March 4 with fatally shooting six people Jan. 8 outside a shopping center where Giffords was meeting constituents. Loughner, who could face the death penalty if convicted, entered a not guilty plea March 9.
His indictment followed an earlier one in which Loughner was charged with the attempted assassination of Giffords, who survived a gunshot through the head, and the attempted murder of two of her aides. Loughner pleaded not guilty to those charges on Jan. 24.
“A man our Army rejected as unfit for service; a man one of our colleges deemed too unstable for studies; a man apparently bent on violence, was able to walk into a store and buy a gun,” Obama said of Loughner.
Obama said he believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees individuals the right to bear arms, and said most U.S. gun owners are “highly responsible.” Still, “sound and effective steps” are needed to keep “irresponsible, lawbreaking” people from buying guns, he said.
A law enacted four years ago to strengthen the National Instant Criminal Background Check System hasn’t been properly implemented because states often provide “incomplete and inadequate” data, Obama said. The U.S. should reward states that provide the best data, and “make the system faster and nimbler,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Molly Peterson in Washington at mpeterson9@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
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