adminThe deal comes four months after a massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, which left 20 young children and six adults dead and took America’s epidemic of gun violence to an alarming new level.
“We have an agreement . . . on an amendment to prevent criminals and the mentally ill and insane from getting firearms,” said Democrat Joe Manchin, from the pro-gun state of West Virginia, as he unveiled the measure.
The amendment would see background checks — the core of President Barack Obama’s gun control push — expanded to include all sales at gun shows and on the Internet, said Manchin and Republican Pat Toomey, the deal’s architects.
Despite falling short of the president’s proposal for universal background checks, Obama noted the “significant bipartisan progress” of the compromise while warning that much work remains.
“Congress needs to finish the job,” the president said.
Michelle Obama also got involved, making an emotional appeal for fresh legislation in murder-plagued Chicago, her hometown, likening the situation in some of the city’s neighborhoods to a war zone.
Recalling the shooting death of 15-year-old Chicagoan a week after she performed at Obama’s second inauguration, the first lady said: “Hadiya Pendleton was me, and I was her.
“But I got to grow up, and go to Princeton and to Harvard Law School, and have a family and the most blessed life I could imagine. And Hadiya . . . we know that story.”
The National Rifle Association issued a statement on Wednesday saying that “expanding background checks at gun shows will not prevent the next shooting, will not solve violent crime and will not keep our kids safe in schools.”
Stronger background checks enjoy sweeping public support. —AFP.
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