Recent polls show Americans are in favor of making background checks universal during sales of firearms.
Taking a step forward in the new gun control reform, President Barack Obama has put forth a proposal to make background checks universal for the sale of firearms. The proposal is gaining immense support from the Democrats and the party hopes to rectify the loophole which allows unlicensed dealers to sell firearms without running a background check.
"The vast majority of Americans, including a majority of gun owners, support requiring criminal background checks for anyone trying to buy a gun," Obama said in an official statement.
While other gun control proposals have gone down well with the public, universal background checks is said to be the most popular among them.
A New York Times article stated that 12.1 million licensed dealers sold guns to customers after doing a thorough background check to prohibit their products from falling into the wrong hands. However, the number of unlicensed dealers has not been stated.
"People are more used to showing IDs and passing some sort of background check for all sorts of things," said Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at Third Way, a pro-gun control think tank.
An earlier study carried out by Kevin D. Bradford, an associate professer in marketing at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, and his team found that government policies should concentrate on gun manufactures and not just gun buyers.
"The gun industry is cloaked in secrecy," Bradford said. "We found that 1 percent of gun dealers are responsible for 45 to 60 percent of guns involved in crimes. These dealers divert new guns intended for responsible owners to those that gun restrictions are meant to keep away from the weapons."
Safeguards should include background checks for shipping of dangerous weapons to buyers. Bradford was shocked to find that most manufactures of some really dangerous weapons didn't have any safeguards in place and these guns were easily accessible to anyone looking to buy them. He said there were no proper policies implemented by manufactures to ensure these weapons don't fall into the wrong hands.
