3) Background checks have stopped nearly TWO MILLION prohibited persons from buying guns, but BGCs are only required by licensed dealers. NICS data sharing is voluntary & exemptions for private sales across 38 states make BGC's easy to circumvent.
4) Federal law only requires background checks for purchases made at Federally Licensed dealers. Private sales and transfers are exempted. 38 states don't require background checks for all gun sales. This is madness. PASS #HR8 & close this #GunShowLoophole
5) In the 38 states without universal background checks, private sellers have no idea if the buyer is a felon, terrorist, or other prohibited category.
Watch Al Qaeda point out how easy it is to get a gun: #GunShowLoophole
6) The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is flawed. Data sharing is voluntary & little mental health data is included. If FBI doesn't complete check in 3 days, the sale is made. This #CharlestonLoophole allowed Dylann Roof to get his gun and murder 9 people
7) Run background checks on ammunition purchases (like pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) which is tightly controlled). If a gun is stolen or transferred without a background check, this can prevent ammunition getting into the hands of a prohibited person.
8) NRA-beholden Republicans fighting Universal Background Checks only mention "mental health" after each mass shooting to deflect from the issue of easy access. Did you know Trump & GOP revoked Obama-era gun checks for people with mental illnesses?
9) More toddlers kill Americans than foreign terrorists. Children access guns, pull triggers & kill parents, siblings, or themselves. Yet only 3 states have Child Access Prevention laws to allow charges where a minor "is likely to" gain access to guns. 22 states have no CAP laws!
10) Guns are 3rd leading cause of death for children in US. Children access guns, pull the trigger & kill parents, siblings, or themselves. These aren't accidents. Manufacturers aren't required to add manual safeties to prevent a child from pulling trigger
11) 22 states have no Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws. Those that do are watered down & parents rarely held accountable. The Santa Fe shooter used his dad’s gun to kill. But he was 17-yo and Texas didn’t consider him a minor, so dad wasn’t prosecuted.
12) Think of the many products, from planes and cars to cribs, that used tragedies to improve safety through better design. Gun manufacturers were exempted from the 1972 Consumer Product Safety Act and lawsuits are usually futile. #GunOwnerForGunReform
13) Ban high capacity magazines. The Texas church shooter used a Ruger AR-556. Here it is in action with a $99.00 bump stock which are now banned, but with over 500,000 sold, hundreds of thousands remain in circulation.
14) Straw purchases (buying a gun for someone else and circumventing the background check system) are illegal. The NRA fought to overturn this ban and barely lost in the Supreme Court 5-4. The law was used to prosecute the man who bought guns for the San Bernardino terrorists.
15A) The term "assault weapon" needs definition. It's MORE than just a military style. Ohio defined them as a semi-automatic firearm capable of accepting a detachable or fixed magazine with the capacity to accept ten or more cartridges.
15B) "AR" stands for ArmaLite who first developed the AR-15 in 1947 as a military rifle. It sold patent to Colt who developed it into the M16 and later ramped up production of a semiautomatic version for law enforcement marketed as the AR-15. It was designed to kill PEOPLE!
15C) NRA bragged about blocking Boulder's AR-15 ban a WEEK BEFORE the mass shooting. A judge blocked enforcement of its two-year-old assault rifle ban on March 12, ruling it violated a 2003 state law prohibiting municipalities from enacting their own firearms regulations.
16) Federal law provides no minimum age for the possession of long guns or long gun ammunition. Further, unlicensed persons may sell or transfer a long gun or long gun ammunition to a person of any age. BTW, gun shot is now the third leading cause of death in American children.
17) #GunControl is NOT unconstitutional! “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” It is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever & for whatever purpose” Justice Antonin Scalia
18) Stop locking people up for drug offenses and pass #UniversalBackgroundChecks and re-allocate resources to let police prioritize the prosecution of illegal gun possession / sales and trafficking.
19) Finally, get to know gun laws and become #ArmedWithReason to fight trolls. More Americans have been killed by gun since 1968 than in ALL U.S. wars combined! We need you.
Deaths in all US Wars: 1,264,000
Gun Deaths 1968-2015: 1,516,863
1/3: ArmaLite first developed AR-15 in late 40s as a military rifle & sold patent to Colt who developed it into the M16 & ramped up production of semiautomatic version for law enforcement marketed as the AR-15 designed to kill PEOPLE! #GunOwnerForGunReform gundigest.com/gun-reviews/th…
2/3: The AR-15 was developed as a military weapon. The AR-15 came first, in 1947 & tested in Vietnam; the M16 a decade later. There are only subtle differences such as semi vs full auto. Bump stock helps with that. Learn more:
Ted Cruz flew to Cancún while the people he supposedly represents suffer and die from cold due to continued, systemic Republican incompetence. No signs of Heidi, though. She must be busy managing the fallout in her Texas energy portfolio for Goldman Sachs.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
@tedcruz@SenTedCruz is just another Republican proving Orwell right. Orwell was meant as a warning, not as a GOP play book.
Sure #CancunCruz@tedcruz left for vacay while Texans die and millions suffer in unbearable cold due to Republican incompetence, but let us remember that before he asked President Biden for disaster relief, he and fellow Senator @JohnCornyn voted against Hurricane Sandy relief.
@GOP strategist @rickwtyler told @AliVelshi Trump turned the GOP into a party of “cowards” & “eunuchs.”
DISAGREE! Republicans built Trump over 6 decades of courting radicals. He delivered dreams of unqualified judges; billions to the top; and dismantling of a century of progress
2/5 @GOP strategist @rickwtyler told @AliVelshi Trump turned GOP into a party of “cowards” & “eunuchs.”
DISAGREE! Republicans built Trump over 6 decades of courting radicals. He delivered dreams of unqualified judges; billions to the top; & dismantling of a century of progress.
3/5 @GOP strategist @rickwtyler told @AliVelshi Trump turned GOP into a party of “cowards” & “eunuchs.”
DISAGREE! Republicans built Trump over 6 decades of courting radicals. He delivered dreams of unqualified judges; billions to the top; and dismantling of a century of progress
1/12 Allow me to share a little story on this anniversary of the #TiananmenSquareMassacre. While in grad school @ElliottSchoolGW, I organized students to protest the crackdown at Tiananmen. I called every university and as many student organizations as I could find in the DC area
2/12 I soon started getting calls in Asian accents saying “we are watching you.” This was before social media; I expected a few hundred to show, but thousands came. We shut down the streets leading to the Chinese Embassy and spent three days in the little park in front.
3/12 We built an unworthy replica of the statue of freedom like the students had built at Tiananmen, but out of random styrofoam pieces. We could see all the curtains had been pulled shut at the embassy, but every now and then, they would open as they took pictures of us.
1) As the US nears 300,000 cases & surpasses 7000 deaths, I offer a chronological thread on Trump's lies & inaction on #coronavirus from January 22 to March 10 - the day before the WHO declared the #COVID19 outbreak a pandemic. The Trump #kakistocracy kills
3) 1/30: “WE HAVE IT VERY WELL UNDER CONTROL. We have very little problem in this country - five - and those people are all recuperating.. But we’re working closely with China & other countries, & we think it’s going to have a very good ending for us… I can assure you” #COVID19