The New York Times - Require a Background Check on Every Gun Purchase in America

Op-Ed

By Chris Murphy

We are a nation awash in gun violence. Every day, roughly 100 Americans die from a gunshot wound. If you are a citizen of this country, you are 10 times more likely to be killed by a gun than someone living in another high-income nation.

But the problem is much deeper than just the casualty numbers. In neighborhoods with high gun murder rates, studies show that children's brain chemistry can be changed by the constant fear of physical harm, rendering it difficult for them to learn and cope.

This epidemic of gun violence is a choice. We know how to reduce this carnage, but we live with a policy paralysis caused by a small industry with outsized political power. For the past 30 years, the gun lobby has successfully blocked action to reduce gun violence. But thankfully, their power is quickly fading, and Congress is closer than ever to passing lifesaving reforms.

There is no single law change that will prevent every gun death or mass shooting. But the data points to one particular intervention with an eye-popping return on investment. Passing a national requirement that no gun be sold without the purchaser passing a background check will save thousands of lives. States that have already implemented universal background checks, including my home state of Connecticut, have seen significant drops in gun homicides.

Federal law already requires anyone who buys a gun at a firearms store to undergo a background check -- a process that usually takes less than two minutes. This helps keep weapons out of the hands of convicted felons, domestic abusers and anyone a court deems dangerously mentally ill.

But people who buy guns online, at a gun show or through a private seller don't have to pass a background check. This begs for a national solution, because no state can adequately protect itself. A recent study showed that in New York, a state with a strict background checks requirement, three-quarters of the guns used in crimes were bought in states with weaker gun laws.

The good news is that a federal universal background law is wildly popular. More than 90 percent of all Americans support this approach, including 85 percent of gun owners and an overwhelming majority of N.R.A. members. That makes universal background checks more popular than baseball or apple pie (in some polls, at least). By making this simple and urgently needed change in law, Congress can save thousands of lives.

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