From Capital News 9 (Albany):

Governor Paterson says that legislators have reached ground breaking legislation that will improve background checks while protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

Paterson joined state legislators to announce an agreement on legislation that will allow more comprehensive background checks on persons who are purchasing firearms. The legislation implements a new federal requirement was put in place in response to last year’s Virginia Tech shootings. The new law will significantly improve the State’s ability to submit mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System by amending the state law that mandated those records remain confidential.

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New Jersey CeaseFire’s Bryan Miller has a column today about it.

Read it at Nj.com’s New Jersey Voices:

Ceasefire NJ, the state’s leading organization devoted to reducing gun violence, has learned that NJ Assembly bill A-339, commonly known as One Handgun A Month, will be voted on in Trenton on Monday afternoon (June 23rd) by the full NJ Assembly.

This is a critical measure whose intent is to severely undermine the existing intrastate illegal trade in handguns, without burdening law-abiding handgun owners. It will limit individuals to the purchase of no more than a single handgun in any thirty-day period, in order to dramatically diminish the bulk buying and selling of illegal handguns that fuels the criminal market. At the same time, it will allow individuals to purchase up to 13 handguns per year, hardly a burden.

Any and all New Jerseyans eager to reduce the level of handgun violence and crime in the Garden State should call the Assemblypersons who represent them on Monday and tell said legislators to vote for A-339. You can find your state legislators and their phone numbers at:

http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/legsearch.asp

Please call on Monday! Help make your community safer!

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Click here to learn more about the illegal gun trade, and why limiting bulk purchases of handguns is essential to protecting our communities and keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

Contrary to gun lobby propaganda, Americans want places to be gun free zones - like bars, restaurants, colleges and airports.

Another example, in today’s Seattle Times:

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels’s executive order banning guns from Seattle Center, parks, community centers and city-run buildings is safe and sane public policy.

The mayor’s get-tough approach is especially reasonable in an urban setting. The man charged with shooting three people at the recent Northwest Folklife Festival had a concealed-handgun license when he arrived for an evening of fun and games. Prosecutors say he had a history of drug addiction and schizophrenia, which should have prevented him from obtaining such a permit.Washington’s system of screening applicants for concealed-weapons permits is full of loopholes.

The next Folklife or Bumbershoot festival should be gun-free. Our citizens should not have to fear that an individual with mental problems will walk in, no questions asked, get into a fight and injure innocent people with a loaded gun.

That, of course, is what prosecutors say happened last month at Folklife. Currently, you can carry a gun in public places with a concealed-weapons permit.

The mayor’s executive order, effective without City Council approval, means people with concealed weapons will be asked to give up weapons on city property or leave the premises.

A round of applause for Nickels. Somebody has to take a stand. For years, Nickels and Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske have been calling for stricter gun laws. The Legislature, even one dominated by Democrats, has been absurdly timid on gun legislation.

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Authorities in Philadelphia are attacking an important part of the illegal gun trade, in this case people who act as “straw purchasers” for felons and gun traffickers.

In today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

… Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham delivered a more blunt message yesterday by announcing the arrests of 13 people charged with illegal firearms transfers, including five alleged straw buyers. She said two allegedly had bought dozens of guns and peddled them on the street.

State law prohibits convicted felons from buying firearms and requires gun dealers to perform a record check before making a sale. Felons sometimes use “straws” - people with no criminal record - to buy guns for them.

Branding anybody who acts as a straw buyer “a fool, a liar, and a bad person,” Abraham said the blood of gun-violence victims was on the hands of straw purchasers. “It’s all on you,” she said.

The campaign also has an additional intended audience: the state legislature.

Corbett said the $5 million in annual funding for the Philadelphia Gun Violence Task Force, which pays the salaries of prosecutors, investigators and forensic technicians, was up for renewal. Abraham said the task force had opened 621 investigations, arrested 179 people, and seized 265 firearms since it began in December 2006.

Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Jose M. Melendez, who also attended the news conference, said straw buyers were “just as guilty as the person who pulled the trigger.”

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While prosecuting straw purchasers is important, it is even more important to prosecute the unscrupulous licensed gun dealers who recklessly sell guns to those straw buyers and traffickers in the first place. Brady Center reports have documented how this works (examples here, here, here, here, and here).

It also useful to limit bulk purchases of handguns to cut down on the amount of guns a single trafficker can sell in the illegal market.

We need to give state and Federal law enforcement the tools they need to attack the supply chain of illegal guns, not only at the end of the process, but also much nearer the source.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Mayor Nickles’s executive order to keep concealed weapons off of Seattle city property:

Mayor Greg Nickels’ plan to forbid guns on a host of city properties is a measured response to the gunshot injuries to two people at Seattle Center during the Folklife celebration.

The mayor knows his effort could provoke a challenge. Reasonable advocates of gun rights have pointed out state law generally pre-empts the ability of cities to impose additional firearms measures.

But this is an executive order to city departments and much more limited than a new law. The city would ask people legally carrying concealed weapons not to bring the guns into city parks, community centers and other city facilities. Anyone discovered with a gun could be asked to leave under trespassing statutes.

If it’s not possible for the city to exercise such limited control, it certainly should be. There should be latitude for property owners, including public ones, to post any place as not permitting guns.

The mayor has been right to ask the Legislature to fix a loophole allowing gun show weapons sales without the normal background checks on purchasers. We also wonder about current state law and the ability of the owner of the gun at Folklife to receive a weapons permit despite a lengthy juvenile arrest record.

If there’s a legal fight over Nickels’ measure, so be it. He represents his city well on the issue.