Leading gun debate figures make their cases to public

WASHINGTON – Two of the loudest voices in the gun debate say it’s up to voters now to make their position known to Congress.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and National Rifle Associate Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre claim their opposing views on guns have the support of the overwhelming number of Americans. They are looking at the next two weeks as critical to the debate, when lawmakers head home to hear from constituents ahead of next month’s anticipated Senate vote on gun control.

Bloomberg has just sunk $12 million for Mayors Against Illegal Guns to run television ads and phone banks in 13 states urging voters to tell their senators to pass legislation requiring universal background checks for gun buyers.

“We demanded a plan and then we demanded a vote. We’ve got the plan, we’re going to get the vote. And now it’s incumbent on us to make our voices heard,” he said.

Recalling the horrific shooting three months ago at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 20 first-graders and six adults dead, Bloomberg said it would be a great tragedy if Congress, through inaction, lost the moment to make the country safer from gun violence. Bloomberg said that 90 percent of Americans and 80 percent of NRA members support universal background checks for gun purchases.

“I don’t think there’s ever been an issue where the public has spoken so clearly, where Congress hasn’t eventually understood and done the right thing,” Bloomberg said.

But the NRA’s LaPierre counters that universal background checks are “a dishonest premise.” For example, mental health records are exempt from databases and criminals won’t submit to the checks. Background checks, he said, are a “speed bump” in the system that “slows down the law-abiding and does nothing for anybody else.”

“The shooters in Tucson, in Aurora, in Newtown, they’re not going to be checked. They’re unrecognizable,” LaPierre said. He was referring to the 2011 shooting in a Tucson shopping center that killed six and wounded 13, including former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and the July assault in a suburban Denver movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70. In both instances, as well as in the Newtown killings, the alleged shooters used military-style assault rifles with high-capacity ammunition magazines.

LaPierre said the NRA supports a bill to get the records of those adjudicated mentally incompetent and dangerous into the background check system for gun dealers, better enforcement of federal gun laws and beefed up penalties for illegal third-party purchases and gun trafficking. Shortly after the Newtown shooting, LaPierre called for armed security guards in schools as well.