Wednesday night, the U.S. Congress approved by “unanimous consent� a bill that CBS News called “the first major new gun control bill in more than a decade,� and the Washington Post called “the most significant gun-control legislation since the early 1990s.�

Passage of H.R. 2640, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 [pdf], is a major victory for the families and survivors of the Virginia Tech shooting, and for all who support common-sense gun laws. This bill gives the states financial incentives to supply more records of more prohibited purchasers to NICS – the Brady background check system for gun buyers.

The Virginia Tech shooter – determined by a judge to be a danger to himself due to mental illness – was allowed to walk out of two gun stores armed with semi-automatic pistols and high-capacity ammunition magazines even though he should have been flagged as a “prohibited purchaser.� If the Commonwealth of Virginia had sent his records to NICS, he would have been denied guns at the point of purchase – and the 32 people he murdered might still be alive today.

Brady background checks have stopped an estimated 1.4 million people from legally buying guns since 1994, but those background checks are still only as good as the records in the system. These records include the dangerously mentally ill, felons and domestic abusers, among others. At present, only an estimated 10-20% of the records of the dangerously mentally ill are in the Brady background check system. Amazingly enough, a quarter of felony records have yet to be added to the system. This is unacceptable.

Survivors and surviving family members of the Virginia Tech massacre fought to make the Brady background check better, and their efforts have been vindicated by this bill’s passage.

Convicted felons should not be allowed to buy guns. Neither should the dangerously mentally ill or domestic abusers. Dangerous people should not have easy access to dangerous weapons.

This bill – now awaiting the President’s signature – should lead to a significant increase in submitted records over current levels and help prevent future tragedies like the one at Virginia Tech. This is common-sense gun control legislation that the vast majority of Americans can support. (See also yesterday’s statement by “Mayors Against Illegal Guns.�)

I am gratified that Congress passed this legislation, and I encourage the President to sign it at his first opportunity.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

In less than a week, two disturbed gunmen used military-style assault weapons to murder 12 people in America – first in Omaha, then in Colorado.

These shootings continue a long trail of carnage that included the Virginia Tech campus eight months ago. The shooter there used semi-automatic pistols and high-capacity ammunition magazines to fire almost 175 rounds [pdf] in about ten minutes. He shot 49 people and killed 32 in the worst mass-shooting in modern American history.

All this violence and bloodshed calls out for decisive action, but too many of our nation’s leaders have turned a deaf ear.

In almost two weeks from now, the first votes will be cast in the 2008 presidential election as part of caucuses across the state of Iowa. Homes, church basements and community centers will play host to thousands of committed citizens who will stand in front of their neighbors and openly make their choice for President.

Iowans will stand up and be counted. Today, I challenge the Presidential candidates to do the same.

I challenge them to stand up and support meaningful action to reduce gun violence in America.

• I challenge them to work for a strong and permanent ban on military-style assault weapons [pdf]. Why do we allow weapons of war on our streets which make it easier to kill more people, more quickly? This is America, not Iraq. Restricting assault weapons has been favored in this country for many years, by margins of greater than 2 to 1 [pdf]. The Omaha shooter apparently got his AK-47 from a closet at his step-father’s house. Why was that weapon there and easily available to this disturbed 19-year-old?

• I challenge the candidates to support the NICS Improvement Act of 2007. The Virginia Tech shooter was able to buy his guns because Virginia didn’t put his information in the system used to check gun buyers. We should do all we can to encourage states to supply records of the dangerously mentally ill and other “prohibited purchasersâ€� (felons, domestic abusers, etc.) to the Brady background check system. Now is the time to pass this bill and send it to the President for his signature.

• I challenge the candidates to support the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2007. We can close the “terror gapâ€� in this country that allows a suspected terrorist to walk out of a gun store fully armed. This is basic common sense. It’s harder to get on an airline than it is to buy a gun for these individuals.

• I challenge the candidates to support legislation to require background checks for all gun sales in America. People like the Columbine killers and drug gangsters get their guns from so-called “private sellersâ€� at gun shows. If we agree that felons and other dangerous people shouldn’t be able to buy guns, then this loophole must be closed.

• I challenge the candidates to support legislation to limit bulk purchases of guns. Gun traffickers take advantage of weak laws to buy unlimited quantities of handguns, which they sell in the illegal market to criminals who terrorize too many of our communities. Let’s cut into the illegal gun trade to protect ourselves and our police [pdf].

Our weak national gun laws have helped lead to unnecessary suffering. I challenge the candidates for President to do something about it.

Now is the time to take real action to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people.

Now is the time to stand up for public safety and common sense, and against the gun pushers.

Now is the time for all Presidential candidates to stand up and be counted.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

I asked this question last week of the candidates for President now campaigning in Iowa, and I think that for most of the American people [pdf] the answer is clearly “no.�

In the last ten days, two states in the heart of the country have sustained mass shootings by people armed with military-style assault rifles – two attacks with assault weapons in less than a week. One shooter attacked a mall full of employees and Christmas shoppers in Omaha. The other attacked a church in Colorado.

Together, they left twelve people dead.

Yet today assault weapons remain perfectly legal to buy in gun stores and gun shows across the country, in unlimited quantities. Perhaps even more shocking, the type of bullet many assault weapons fire (7.62mm full metal jacket) can penetrate four categories of police body armor [pdf]. There is no legitimate reason the public should have this kind of access to military-style assault weapons.

It’s also frustrating that when a UPS employee raised concerns on September 13 about the “multiple boxes� of ammunition the Colorado shooter had delivered to his postal box, police officers said there was nothing illegal. No limits on the number of guns; no limits on ammunition; very minimal limits on the type of guns – no wonder we have problems.

Since the terrible shootings last week, leading newspapers are joining the call. Here is a sample of what they’re saying.

The New York Times: “Until recently, the nation did have a law designed to protect the public from assault rifles and other high-tech infantry weapons. In 1994, enough politicians felt the public’s fear to respond with a 10-year ban on assault-weapons that was not perfect but dented the free-marketeering of Rambo mayhem. Most Americans rejected the gun lobby’s absurd claim that assault rifles are “sporting� weapons. But when it came up for renewal in 2004, President Bush and Congress caved to the gun lobby and allowed the law to lapse.�

The Philadelphia Inquirer: “The troubled 19-year-old in Omaha used his stepfather’s AK-47-type assault weapon to unleash 30 rounds of gunfire on innocent victims, and then killed himself. Who needs a gun like that around the house?â€�

The Washington Post: “The AK-47 assault rifle that an Omaha teenager pilfered from his stepfather was among the guns outlawed under the ban on assault weapons that Congress and President Bush unwisely allowed to lapse. Why that kind of gun should be so easily available to someone as troubled as that 19-year-old is unfathomable. Eight people shopping or working at a mall died as a result.�

To protect ourselves and our police [pdf], these weapons of war should be kept out of the hands of civilians.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

ITEM: A deranged gunman armed with a high-powered firearm attacked a throng of unsuspecting people yesterday, killing some, wounding others.

Sound familiar? It should.

It seems to happen about every two or three months in America:

• Omaha, Nebraska. December 2007. Nine are shot to death and five others injured after a disturbed 19-year-old shooter, armed with a military-style assault rifle, attacks shoppers in a Nebraska mall. It is the “worst single-day killing spree in Nebraska history.â€�

• Moscow, Idaho. May 2007. A 36 year-old janitor belonging to the Aryan Nations shoots 200 rounds from two military-style semiautomatic weapons, killing his wife, a police officer and a church sexton, and wounding two other police officers and a college student, before killing himself. The shooter had been granted a concealed weapons permit, despite a domestic violence conviction and extensive criminal record.

• Blacksburg, Virginia. April 2007. In the worst mass shooting in American history, a dangerously mentally ill student shoots 47 people on Virginia Tech University’s campus, killing 32, then commits suicide.

• Salt Lake City, Utah. February 2007. A teen opens fire inside the Trolley Square Mall, killing five, before being shot and killed by police.

• Chicago, Illinois. December 2006. A disgruntled client of attorney Michael McKenna forces his way into a busy downtown office building, where he barricades himself inside and shoot and kills McKenna and two other employees. The shooter was killed after a gunfight with the SWAT team.

• Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. October 2006. A truck driver walks into a one-room Amish schoolhouse with two rifles, a semi-automatic handgun, and 600 rounds of ammunition, selects all the female students, and shoots them execution-style, killing five and seriously wounding six. The man then commits suicide, apparently having left suicide notes beforehand.

• Lakeland, Florida. September 2006. While attempting to flee after a traffic stop, a man shoots and kills one police officer, wounds another, and kills a police dog working with the slain officer. Students in a nearby high school are forced in lock-down mode.

• Bailey, Colorado. September 2006. A lone gunman holds six female students hostage at a high school. He then sexually assaults them, kills one of them, and after a four hour siege, kills himself.

• Hillsborough, North Carolina. August 2006. After shooting his father to death, a student opens fire at his high school, injuring two students. Deputies found guns, ammunition, and homemade pipe bombs in the student’s car. The student had emailed Columbine High’s Principal, telling him that it was “time the world rememberedâ€� the shootings at Columbine.

• Essex, Vermont. August 2006. A gunman shoots five people, killing two of them, in a rampage through two houses and an elementary school, before wounding himself.

• Seattle, Washington. July 2006. A man forces his way into the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by putting a gun at the back of a 13-year-old girl to gain entry to the building. The shooter carries two semi-automatic handguns and extra ammunition, shooting six and killing one.

• St. Louis, Missouri. April 2006. A man first kills the mother of his child, then goes to his workplace and shoots three others to death before committing suicide.

• Seattle, Washington. March 2006. Kyle Huff walks into a party and kills six people in the Capitol Hill neighborhood before killing himself. A 12-gauge Winchester pump shotgun with a pistol-grip and a .40-caliber semiautomatic Ruger handgun are used in the shootings.

• Bellefontaine, Ohio. May 2005. Scott Moody kills his grandparents, his mother, his two friends, and severely wounds his sister when he goes on a shooting rampage through two homes before shooting himself.

• Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minnesota. March 2005. Former high school student kills ten and injures seven in a shooting rampage. It is the worst school-related shooting incident since the Columbine shootings in April of 1999.

• Brookfield, Wisconsin. March 2005. A madman fires 22 rounds during a church service. Seven are killed, including minister and his son, and four others are wounded.

• Tyler, Texas. February 2005. A gunman – wearing a bulletproof vest and a military flak jacket – shoots over 50 rounds with an AK-47 killing his wife and a bystander. The shooter’s son and three law enforcement officers are wounded in the gun battle.

• Columbus, Ohio. December 2004. Man walks onstage and shoots and kills four concertgoers before being killed in shootout with police.

• Birchwood, Wisconsin. November 2004. A hunter opens fire with an SKS assault rifle, killing six other hunters and wounding two after a confrontation over a tree stand.

• Kansas City, Kansas. July 2004. Six people die and two others are wounded when a gunman opens fire at a ConAgra plant and then shoots himself.

• Birmingham, Alabama. June 2004. Three police officers are shot to death as they attempt to carry out an arrest warrant.

• Randallstown, Maryland. May 2004. Four teenagers are injured, one critically, by a drive-by shooter as they leave a charity basketball game at their high school.

• Cold Spring, Minnesota. September 2003. A 15-year-old student opens fire at Rocori High School, killing two students.

• Chicago, Illinois. August 2003. A fired worker shoots and kills six of his former co-workers with a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol. The shooter had previously been arrested a dozen times on various charges including weapons offenses and assault.

• Andover, Ohio. August 2003. An angry employee, denied vacation because of a paperwork mix-up, shoots and kills a co-worker, wounding two others before killing himself. The shooter was armed with four handguns and had spent much of his spare time shooting at targets behind his home.

• San Antonio, Texas. July 2003. A man walks into the real estate office where he had worked and opens fire. He fatally shoots two co-workers before killing himself during a chase with police.

• Meridian, Mississippi. July 2003. A retired Lockheed Martin employee enters the plant where he had worked and opens fire with a 12-gauge shotgun and a .223 caliber semi-automatic rifle. He kills five and injures nine before killing himself.

• New Orleans, Louisiana. April 2003. Four boys aged 15-19 open fire in a high school gym with an AK-47 killing one student and injuring three others.

• Huntsville, Alabama. February 2003. Four people are killed and another injured when a gunman opens fire at a temporary employment agency. The gunman had been angry over a dispute over CDs, a CD player and $20.

• Edinburg, Texas. January 2003. Four men armed with assault weapons shoot six people to death in their homes.

• Fall 2002. John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo randomly selected victims in sniper-style shootings - one acting as a long-range shooter from the trunk of their car. Muhammad and Malvo have been linked to 20 shootings, including 13 killings, in Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, Arizona, Alabama, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C., many of which were carried out with a Bushmaster XM-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

Today I post the fifth and final installment of the Brady Center Legal Action Project’s thorough criticism of the appeals court decision in the DC gun case. Titled, Wishful Thinking: How the Parker Court Twisted and Misrepresented the Holdings of Supreme Court and State Cases, it explains – in one case after another – how the many decisions that the lower-court opinion cites (including the infamous Dred Scott decision) offer little or no support for its mistaken conclusions.

The Brady Center’s Legal Action Project has produced a unique document here. As far as I’m aware, it is the only criticism of its kind to provide such a detailed and scholarly treatment of the lower-court decision in the DC gun case.

In the process, the Brady Center has shown that the lower-court opinion falls of its own weight.

As a complete explanation and defense of pre-2007 Second Amendment law, anyone who is interested in the Second Amendment generally, as well as the case now before the United States Supreme Court (DC v. Heller), will find it to be essential reference material.

I include an excerpt of the fifth installment here, with a link to the full text at the end:

This installment addresses the Parker majority’s citation to state and Supreme Court case law containing passing references to the Second Amendment in footnotes and dicta, or even a brief mention of the Amendment in a dissent, as support for its activist re-interpretation of the Second Amendment. All told, of the eleven state and Supreme Court cases examined below and cited by Parker as holding that the Second Amendment grants a right to possess firearms for private purposes, only two state cases can possibly be read to support such a theory. Yet these two cases contain only brief references to the Second Amendment in dicta that even Parker admits is contradicted by binding Supreme Court precedent.

The Parker majority’s reliance on such dicta violates Justice Marshall’s stern warning on the hazards of citing pronouncements about the law that are not at issue in a case: “It is extremely dangerous to take general dicta upon supposed cases not considered in all their bearings, and, at best, inexplicitly stated as establishing important law principles.� The Parker court’s claim that these eleven cases support its view of the Second Amendment is nothing more than wishful thinking.

***

The Parker court’s desperation is perhaps most starkly revealed by its reliance on one of the most thoroughly discredited cases in Supreme Court history, Dred Scott v. Sandford. Dred Scott, of course, infamously held that slaves were property and not entitled to the same rights as citizens. Its later-reversed holding had nothing to do with the Second Amendment. In dicta, the Court analyzed whether slaves were entitled to the protections of the Constitution by listing a few examples: “Nor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms, nor the right to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against himself in a criminal proceeding.� From this lone sentence, the Parker majority concluded that “this passage expresses the view, albeit in passing, that the Second Amendment contains a personal right� because it “is included among other individual rights….�

Of course, Dred Scott’s dicta proves nothing. As we have already noted in our second and fourth installments in this series, labeling a Second Amendment right as “personal� or “individual� does not in any way advance our understanding of the Amendment’s purpose. The Supreme Court of Tennessee, in the 1840 Aymette case, pointedly asked: “to keep and bear arms for what?� The fact that the Second Amendment’s right is secured to “the people� does not mean that the Amendment’s declaration and guarantee can be divorced from its militia purpose.

Read the full installment here [pdf].

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)