During the past summer Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) pushed gun control in response to school shootings and admitted the specific controls he pushed would not stop such shootings.
Tester pushed the gun control in a June 18, 2018, interview published by KBUL News Talk 970 am. The host asked Tester what he thought could be done about school shootings and Tester responded by pushing universal background checks and new gun controls regarding straw purchases.
When Tester began listing his gun controls he admitted, “It’s not going to stop it, but it’s going to help.”
Listen above at the 15:37 mark:
Tester is wrong. Not only will universal background checks not stop school shootings, they will not even help either. Why? Because nearly every high profile public shooter–whether at school, a workplace, a church, etc.–since 2007 has acquired their guns via background checks. Those who did not either stole their guns, such was the case at Sandy Hook Elementary, or they used someone else’s gun illegally, as the attacker did at Sante Fe High School on May 18, 2018.
And whereas we already have background checks, have had them since 1998–and they are not stopping determined attackers–so, too, we have laws against straw purchases. The first question on ATF background check form 4473 deals with straw purchases and makes the buyer affirm that he is indeed buying the gun for himself.
The only school shooting that involved straw purchases was Columbine, April 20, 1999. So Tester’s straw purchase gun control would not have stopped, much less hindered, any school shooting in the 21st century. Yet he is pushing it anyway.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.