Bill seeks background checks for ammo buyers
Fla. legislator: Close loophole that makes bullets easy to get
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz wants a federal law that would require background checks for ammunition buyers.
“I really think it’s important to underscore that without bullets, a gun is just a hunk of useless metal, and a would-be killer lacks the means to actually kill or maim,” Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said Monday.
It’s already illegal for convicted felons, domestic abusers and dangerously mentally ill people to buy firearms and ammunition. Background checks are already required for some firearms purchasers, but nothing prevents anyone from buying ammunition, without having to provide as much as a first name to the seller.
The current system allows someone to “buy as much ammunition as they want, without so much as being asked their first name, and walk out,” Wasserman Schultz said, a situation she described as “such a gaping and grave and dangerous loophole that I could not wrap my mind around it.”
The legislation is sure to provoke opposition from many gun owners. Wasserman Schultz dismissed the argument that what she called “common-sense gun safety laws” would infringe upon Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms.
“You do not have the right to bear bullets,” Wasserman Schultz said at a news conference at the Pembroke Pines Police Department, where she was joined by political leaders, a police representative, and teachers and students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Mei-Ling Ho-Shing, a Stoneman Douglas junior, praised the proposal. “If we can attack the bullets, we can stop how many people who can get shot with high-capacity magazines,” she said.
Wasserman Schultz said she supports broad efforts to address gun violence but said the background check would combat the illegal purchase of ammunition. By itself, the proposal wouldn’t have prevented highprofile shootings: the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, in which 17 people were killed and 17 wounded; the Oct. 1 shooting that killed 58 in Las Vegas; or the Jan. 6, 2017, shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in which five people were killed and six wounded.
“Closing this absurd loophole would not by itself end senseless mass shootings or the daily gun carnage that too many neighborhoods see every day, but this approach has to be part of any larger strategy for ending gun violence,” she said. “Put together, woven together, it will provide the safety net that is essential to reduce gun violence. That’s our goal.”
The NRA didn’t immediately respond to requests Monday for comment via email or at its media relations department.