Does this mean Congressman Moran will now also support Pro-Life legislation? With clearly 50+% of the American public supporting pro-life measures NOW and Planned Parenthood are clearly out of step with the American public and are hindering our ability to save millions of children lives.

Does the background check include wife/girl friend beaters?

While I admit that I don’t trust Moran based on his track record, I smell a rat with this Trojan Horse.

Thomas - 5o%+ do NOT support pro life legislation, your sources are incorrect. If you are truly pro life, then hearing your support for gun sense legislation would be welcomed.

I do hope checks include abusers as since there is a such a high likelihood that a gun will be used in abusive relationships if the abuser is a gun owner. If you believe that people kill, not guns, then it makes sense that abusers do not own a gun.

I'd like to see what the penalties and oversight to ensure these regs are followed.

I guess his son will never own a gun.

I would add to that list that gun owners are responsible for the use of their guns. If an owner loans a gun to someone who uses it to commit a crime, the owner is automatically an accomplice to that crime. This is the only way that otherwise legal gun owners will accept responsibility for the use of their guns.

I would add that gun owners are required to keep their guns secure, such that no other person can obtain use of them without the owner's permission, for which the owner recognizes he/she is responsible.

There's only a little difference between these provisions and those already required for cars. I see no reason not to hold gun owners to at least the same standard of responsibility.

Gun owners already claim that they take full responsibility for their guns, so there should be no reason for them to object to these rules.

Get assault weapons off the streets period!!!!!

http://www.michaeljosefbasl.blogspot.com

I don't understand how Mr. Moran can be viewed as anything other than opportunist for marketing what he touts as a legislative solution in such a brief period of time after a tragedy rife with emotion. Rather, this is pandering at its finest - an offering of thinly veiled pablum to his constituents. Presented with a dire and complex issue, Congress needs to spend proper time and energy in assessing the facts and research the projected implications of any new laws. Most bills fail to become law (see the ABC cartoon from the 70s) because they are sloppy, ill-conceived, and lack the rigor necessary to pass legal muster. This is yet again an act of shameful, political grandstanding and attention getting while the attention is good. Five will get you ten that this goes nowhere.

Rbud, OK. Let's agree to research the bill's history for the next six months and see what happens. My first thought is that the first and third items cited in the article will run afoul of the Constitution. Nevertheless, I will be more interested to see Mr. Moran upholds the general premise of facta non verba. The issue has indeed been talked to death, but it has not been the kind of talk (constructive debate in Committee) that has resulted in action.

My six month period is arbitrary. Just a point in time to study what happens pro or con. If nothing of substance occurs (no work on the bill, death on the vine due to lack of leadership, etc.), it proves my position. The converse proves yours.

My research indicates that Moran has no success in getting any of his sponsored bills into law...even the ones that are deliberate political softballs. They have not managed to get out of committee for the past two years. Not a single of all 21 I could find. I don't understand how this guy can pass muster with his constituents. He also misses more votes than average.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/james_moran/400283

I've owned firearms since I reached the age of majority, I have a life long membership to the NRA (for a very singular purpose), I regularly carry a concealed pistol, and I have had to point a weapon at someone to disuade the person's threat; however, I do think the firearms regulations in the US are far too liberal and not sufficiently comprehensvice so as to protect persons on both side of the gun. Much of this is due to politicians using emotional issues for their own advancement. Moran's proposal is a fine illustration. For example, denying a firearm purchase to someone the Terrorist Watch List, a list that contains the names of persons with SUSPICIOUS activity whose names have often been compiled through the use of intelligence methods and who have not necessarily been found guilty of any wrongdoing in accordance with any rule of law is rife with legal pitfalls and just plain sloppy. If a member of Congress can`t reconcile that before making a statement to the press, I have to think that he is either pandering or ill equiped for the job. Rather, the more sage comment comes from Mark Warner who simply noted that the issue needs to be addressed.

"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive."

- Noah Webster An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, 1787

Don Joy, we all get your idea. You want to return to the chaos, lawlessness, and uncivility of the 1700's. That means, of course, that the most powerful weapon allowed will be a musket rifle.

Or, you could just update and upgrade your thinking to modern times.

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American . . . . The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." -- The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788

"A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves . . . and include all men capable of bearing arms. . . To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms... The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle." --

"... whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..."

- Richard H. Lee, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer 53, 1788

"... of the liberty of conscience in matters of religious faith, of speech and of the press; of the trail by jury of the vicinage in civil and criminal cases; of the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; of the right to keep and bear arms.... If these rights are well defined, and secured against encroachment, it is impossible that government should ever degenerate into tyranny."

- James Monroe

(1) Don Joy,

I disagree completely that current times are more chaotic that revolutionary 1700's. To even think so is some combination of backwards thinking and foolishness.

There is no Marxist welfare state nor any tyrannical government at hand. That's purely extremists propaganda. We do have socialist elements, which are beneficial to the good of the populace. Anyone who buys insurance, uses the benefits of healthcare facilities and equipment, takes medication, without paying a toll uses a road or bridge they didn't build themselves, and many more, are all examples of socialism that benefit both individuals and the general citizenry. I see nothing wrong with that. I also have no problem with limited welfare assistance when the end result is targeted toward a more productive and healthy citizenry and nation, or just to keep people from starving in the streets.

(2) Don Joy,

I shutter to think how much worse Chicago might be without their gun controls. What's more significant is that the guns recovered from most crimes come from outside Chicago, which provide an even more compelling reason to have universally applicable and enforced gun controls nationally.

I agree that early USA life saw more homes with guns, but that only makes sense because guns were used for hunting for everyday food. We do not have those same needs today, and our gun owning population as a whole is far less responsible toward the use of guns. In this country we have in general a far more casual attitude toward gun ownership and gun use. This insane argument that says "I have a right to own a gun," has translated into "I have a right use a gun as I see fit". Our current gun culture is largely irresponsible, unaccountable and unreasonable. Our gun culture mindset and attitudes must be changed, or else the carnage will get worse.

(3) Don Joy,

Lastly, your argument regarding the Second Amendment is faulty. The point of the amendment was not about private and personal ownership, even though ownership is by reason included in the statute. That was never its point or purpose. It was about arming a militia to defend the country. The young and financially poor new government could not raise an army adequate to provide defenses everywhere it might be needed, so militias were an important part of our national defense in those days.

If you want everyone to own guns because it's your personal preference, just say so without all the fallacious arguments and irrelevant and misplaced quotations.

"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."
Blackstone's 1768 "Commentaries on the Laws of England"

"The right of a citizen to keep and bear arms has justly been considered the palladium of the liberties of the republic, since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers, and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
Joseph Story (1779-1845) U.S. Supreme Court Justice 1811-1845. His Dad was one of the Sons of Liberty who took part in the Boston Tea Party and fought at Lexington & Concord in 1775. The above quote was from 1833

"All persons shall bear arms, and every male person shall have in continual readiness a good musket or other gun, fit for service."
Connecticut Gun Code of 1650

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these States....Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America"
Gazette of the United States October 14, 1789

"To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..."
Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794), Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer, 1788

"While the people have property, arms in their hands, and only a spark of noble spirit, the most corrupt Congress must be mad to form any project of tyranny."
Rev. Nicholas Collin, Fayetteville Gazette (N.C.), October 12, 1789 Episcopal pastor, friend of Benjamin Franklin

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
Sen. Hubert Humphrey, Know Your Lawmakers, Guns, Feb. 1960, p. 4

"...By calling attention to a well-regulated militia for the security of the Nation, and the right of each citizen to keep and bear arms, our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fear of governmental tyranny, which gave rise to the Second Amendment, will ever be an important danger to our Nation, the Amendment remains an important declaration of our basic military-civilian relationship, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important."
President John F. Kennedy

"If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying -- that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, and the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 -- establishes the repeated, complete, and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime."
Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Subcomittee on the Constitution (The Making of America, p.695)

"To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm . . . is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege."
Arkansas Supreme Court Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, 560, 1878

It's ironic that the same people who fear Obama is leading us to a police state are the same people that are glad the NRA is advocating for a police state! LOL