President Barack Obama will unveil new and revised gun laws, Wednesday that will not only curb mass shootings, but also commonplace gun violence.
U.S. gun laws, which included a background check of gun buyers and certain weapons bans, didn't do much to prevent the shooting in Newtown, Conn., in December. According to a report by The New York Times, the gun that Adam Lanza used was listed among the "banned weapons" and Lanza himself didn't buy the gun.
Now, President Obama hopes that with the revised and new gun control laws, it could help curb not just mass shooting incidents but also commonplace gun violence that has claimed many lives in the past. According to the new law, high-capacity magazines, like the 30-round magazines that the police said Lanza used will be banned. Also, an extensive background check will be done on all gun buyers along with a ban on assault weapons and limits on high-capacity clips.
"The president has made clear that he intends to take a comprehensive approach," Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday. Carney said the proposals were aimed, broadly, at what he called "the scourge of gun violence in this country."
While semiautomatic rifles have been used on various occasions to claim more than a few lives, handheld guns have been more commonly used claiming thousands of lives in the last few years alone.
According to a report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in 2011 alone, 6,200 people were killed by handheld guns, while 323 people were killed by semiautomatic rifles. So along with banning many assaulted weapons, the government is also looking to keep the more common and ordinary guns away from criminals as well.
One of the top priories for all gun control groups is to extend the background check of all buyers. All firearm sellers that have federal license will be expended to conduct an extensive background check of their buys through the database of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
A proposal by Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a leading gun control group, urged Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., to come up with new ways to prevent the loss of lives due to everyday gun violence.
"Every death is a tragedy, whether in a mass shooting that horrifies our entire nation, or one of the 32 gun murders or 90 gun deaths in our communities and homes every day," it wrote.
