I m a gun guy. i own guns and hunt and i car ied are an assault weapon in vietnam, and pro second amendment, and nothing that we are trying to do here is to prohibit the law-abiding people to buy guns. if you are a criminal or dangerously mentally ill or domestic abuser, you should not get your hands on the gun. and the background checks is the first line of defense. and one thing that we can do, and we won t stop everybody who shouldn t have a gun from getting one, and we won t stop every tragedy from happening, but we should try, and the best place to start is background checks. one of the downsides of the presidential executive order is that if a new president comes in on day one, and almost all of the republican presidential candidates are i sag th s ars a undo what the president is doing today, because you can t get legislation past the executive orders, and they could have a
well, wolf, the bill i mentioned, peter king and myself have had this bill now, and this is the second congress, and it would require background checs s for anybody who buys a gun through a commercial sale. we know that background checks wo work. they stop about 170 felons a day from buying a gun. that is a bipartisan bill. peter king, the republican and myself a democrat, and there are 190 coauthors and a handful of republicans on there, and that is a bipartisan measure that the republican leadership should allow us to come up for a vote. if it were on the floor, it would pass the house of representatives, and we are waiting for the leadership to act. you think they will? i sure hope. so i work on this, and i have spent a lot of time, and work on it every time, and it is important. if we can save a life, it is important, and background checks work, and we know they work, and we know they will save lives. and it is going be incumbent on every member of congress to pass legislatio
Ex executive orders as modest right now. would you agree with that description? you know, i mean, it is not like sweeping and all inclusive. i mean, it respects the rights of responsible gun owners like myself and like gabby and a lot of people around this country who feel strongly about the second amendment and feel that, also, it is their right to pass a gun on to, you know, a son or daughter or to sell a gun to the neighbor next door without having to get the government involved, and that is just fine, but what the president is trying to capture here are the gun sellers that are selling large quantities of weapons on the internet, and at gun shows, and where they operate this like a business. and for the last 25 years or so, that has been able to be done without any government regulation, and without know in who these individuals are that are buying the weapons. and back in 2013, you and your wife founded americans for responsible solutions as a way to find legislation to stand
From shattering injuries. and then i think of all of the americans who are not as fortunate. mark kelly is joining us now from the white house. mark, thank you very much for joining us. i know that you had a chance together with gabby to meet privately with the president. i wonder if you could share a little bit with what he had to say. well, it is a short visit before the event. the speech i think that as everybody saw was really powerful, and i think that president obama explained very well why this was necessary and explained the steps that he was going to take. and you know, to be honest, you know, it is really a taking a good step in the right direction to bringing down the gun violence by largely requiring that you get a background check before buying a gun at least for people who are selling large quantities of firearms. and so what you are concerned about is people who are selling
Tha that. and if he wants to use the executive authorities to expand the research on that, fine. that is his authority, but if he wants to change the law to mandate what you described, he has the come to congress. and when he says that if you are engaged on selling guns on the internet, you should be required to do a background check is that okay with you? yes, the one thing that we can agree on is that dangerously mentally ill people should not get guns, and that is something that republicans and democrats and everybody agrees on. and what about convicted felons orris ex abusers. yes, and there is sentencing reform or what constitutes a felony. i didn t think they could go to the gun show and buy a gun. well, the devil is in the details. you want to prevent those folks from getting the guns, and not preventing my dad from selling me a gun in the details. and so the details that we have not exactly seen, but is he