Tag Archives: everytown

Do Background Checks Work To Keep Disturbed People From Getting Guns?

by JacquelineXrt Posted on May 22, 2014

Mother Jones


More Mother Jones reporting on guns in America.

It’s a question at the heart of the gun debate. Most Americans think the answer is yes (an overwhelming majority continues to support comprehensive background checks for gun buyers), while the National Rifle Association emphatically believes the opposite (its leadership opposes new firearm regulations of virtually any kind). Now, a new report from the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety crunches some actual data: Citing figures from the FBI, the gun-reform group reports that the number of mental health records collected from states in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (known as “NICS”) has tripled to nearly three and a half million since 2011—and that as a result, a growing number of mentally ill people have been stopped from purchasing firearms through licensed dealers.

The change owes to increased federal funding for the system and a wave of more stringent state laws put in place. As we documented at the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, 2013 saw a barrage of new state laws from coast to coast, both easing and tightening gun restrictions. Among them were laws in 15 states intended to keep firearms away from the seriously mentally ill.

After a ghastly run of mass shootings from Tucson to Aurora to Newtown to Fort Hood (again), this particular issue no longer seems such a partisan one. The states passing bills in 2013 included gun-rights strongholds such as Texas and Florida, and this spring Republican-led Arizona and Oklahoma joined the list. At least 18 states have moved on this issue since late 2011, according to Everytown.

The result? In 2013 nearly 3,000 people were blocked from purchasing guns because of NICS—more than 600 more than in 2012, continuing an upward trend that goes back to 2009.

Granted, that’s but a tiny fraction of the 300 million guns in circulation nationwide. And it remains remarkably easy for people to get firearms from somewhere other than a federally licensed dealer. But it only takes one gun in the wrong hands to wreak havoc. As our in-depth investigation showed, a majority of mass shootings are carried out by people with serious mental health problems, using weapons they obtained legally.

Also notable in Everytown’s report are the states still failing on the mental health front with respect to firearms. This interactive map shows them, including a couple that may seem surprising—liberal Massachusetts?—and others that have fresh reason to consider the issue, such as Georgia. It was less than a month ago that a young man went on a rampage at a FedEx facility in suburban Atlanta, wounding six people before killing himself. Police investigators declined to say where he bought the gun he used, but his state of mind was clear enough: He described his “mental instability” in a suicide note that he left behind. “I am a sociopath,” he wrote. “I want to hurt people.”

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Do Background Checks Work To Keep Disturbed People From Getting Guns?

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The NRA Meets Its Potent New Foe: Moms

by PrestonSidney Posted on April 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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For years, advocates of stricter gun laws have rallied at the barricades of the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting. But this year, as the gun lobby convenes in Indianapolis, there’s a new posse in town. They’re mothers, they’re survivors of gun violence, and some of them are both. And they’re dead set on disarming the NRA of its outsize political power.

They operate as Everytown for Gun Safety, a new organization combining the grassroots group Moms Demand Action, launched after the Sandy Hook Massacre, and Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. At a press conference in a packed downtown hotel conference room on Friday, the group unveiled a forceful new report and political ad.

“We are in Indianapolis to send the NRA leadership a message,” said Shannon Watts, the 43-year-old mother of five who founded Moms Demand Action. Americans can no longer abide by “a Washington lobby run by extremists,” she said.

“Not Your Grandparents’ NRA,” a heavily annotated 21-page report, makes the case that there’s a schism within the nation’s biggest firearms group. “Today’s NRA has remained true to its roots in some important ways,” it begins. “The organization’s gun safety and marksmanship programs remain useful contributions to the shooting sports and to public safety. And it is largely because of these nationwide programs that the organization is well known, and relatively well liked, in much of the country. This is the NRA most American gun owners know and trust.”

“It was painful for me, but it’s been even more difficult for my family,” said shooting survivor Antonius Wriadjaja Everytown for Gun Safety

Then the report presents a stockpile of evidence showing how the NRA’s leadership “puts Americans at risk” by fighting for the interests of gun manufacturing companies under the guise of defending citizens’ constitutional freedoms. The Everytown report documents how the NRA has made it easier for felons to get guns, has fought local gun laws, and even backed an Indiana measure that would have expanded Stand Your Ground to include using lethal force against uniformed police officers. Everytown also calls out the NRA for blocking doctors from discussing the safe gun ownership with their patients, as well as trying to keep military commanders from asking soldiers at risk of suicide about their personal firearms.

The new political ad, which airs in Indianapolis and Washington, DC, through the weekend, uses the pro-gun advocates’ own words to make the case against them. “The presence of a firearm makes us all safer,” intones 30-year-old Antonius Wiriadjaja, reciting the words of NRA figurehead Wayne LaPierre as he pulls up his T-shirt to reveal multiple scars. Wiriadjaja, whom I interviewed in Indianapolis, was shot in the chest in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on July 5, 2013. The intended target was a young pregnant woman who was being hunted by her domestic partner; Wiriadjaja was a bystander caught in crossfire. Others easily could have been hit, he said. Though the woman was not injured, the shooting occurred in broad daylight with children nearby. “There were two little girls and their mother and an elderly man very close to me when it happened.” (The suspected shooter is in custody.)

Wiriadjaja maintains a blog where he details his recovery process with photos. “It was painful for me, but it’s been even more difficult for my family and friends to watch me go through it,” Wiriadjaja told me. “They’re hurting too. I wanted them to understand how I’m healing.”

Getting survivors to tell their stories may be one of Everytown’s most formidable weapons. “I’m a supporter of the Second Amendment, I’m a gun owner, and I’m paralyzed as the result of random gun violence,” Jennifer Longdon said. Her then-fiancé, who was armed at the time, was also gravely injured when someone in another car riddled their car with bullets in 2004. “He was a good guy with a gun,” she said, but it was no help.

Indiana state Rep. Ed Delaney spoke of the legions of responsible gun owners in his state. And he denounced the NRA leadership for using the premise that gun rights are under attack to get legislators to ease restrictions on guns. Just last month, lawmakers here passed a controversial bill allowing guns in school parking lots. “There is no threat to gun ownership in Indiana,” he said, anger rising in his voice.

A few blocks from the Everytown press conference, the NRA was raising the curtain on “spectacular displays” of weaponry from “every major firearm company in the country,” banquets for its million-dollar corporate donors, and red-meat speeches from the likes of Sarah Palin, Oliver North, and Franklin Graham (who blamed Sandy Hook on godlessness).

There are plenty of responsible gun owners among the estimated 70,000 people enjoying the entertainment and weaponry on display in Indianapolis. Polls show that the majority of gun owners also believe in universal background checks for buyers—a policy the NRA leadership continues to vigorously oppose.

Indeed, some striking data from the Pew Research Center shows that the NRA leadership is glaringly at odds with the views of most of its members. (The NRA, of course, has its own data suggesting the exact opposite.) According to Pew’s polling from last year, three-quarters of Americans who live in a household where they or someone else is an NRA member overwhelmingly favor regulating private gun sales and sales at gun shows with background checks. A third of people from NRA households support a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And 28 percent of gun owners believe that the NRA exerts too much influence over the debate about gun laws—as do 44 percent of all women.

If the well-financed and growing Everytown succeeds, those numbers may well rise by the next time the NRA convenes for its annual bash.

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The NRA Meets Its Potent New Foe: Moms

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