After pouring in millions to fund a universal background check initiative that passed in Washington State on November 4, Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety is preparing to bypass the Nevada legislature and impose universal background checks on Nevadans.
The Hill reports that Bloomberg’s group gathered 250,000 signatures and will ask the state legislature to pass universal background checks during 2015. If the legislature refuses, Bloomberg’s group will do an end-around the legislature as they did in Washington state by pushing a ballot initiative in 2016.
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval (R) vetoed universal background check legislation in 2013. And with the pro-Second Amendment makeup of the state’s legislature following last week’s midterms, the odds of such a measure reaching his desk again is highly unlikely.
MSNBC reports that Bloomberg’s group is working with Nevadans for Background Checks, a gun control group which believes requiring a background check on all gun sales—retail and private—will reduce gun crime.
Ironically, in one of the most hideous gun crimes reported in Nevada this year—the slaying of two policeman in a Las Vegas pizzeria in June—the killers had gone through background checks to acquire their guns.
The same has been true in other high profile crimes throughout our country in recent years. Elliot Rodger (Santa Barbara gunman), Ivan Lopez (2014 Fort Hood gunman), Darion Marcus Aquilar (Maryland mall gunman), Karl Halverson Pierson (Araphahoe High School gunman), Paul Ciancia (LAX gunman), Aaron Alexis (DC Navy Yard gunman), James Holmes (Aurora theater gunman), and Jared Loughner (Tucson gunman), among many others, all went through background checks to acquire their firearms.
Background checks do not stop criminals. They simply provide another way for governments to regulate the exercise of Second Amendment rights.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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