Gun Law

happy news. Congress reached a deal today on getting some legislation to fix the problematic background check system now in place. from the Times:

The measure is supported by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers who at first blush appear to be "strange bedfellows," acknowledged Representative John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who has been an ardent foe of past gun control bills.

But in a rare area of agreement, gun rights backers like Mr. Dingell and gun control advocates believe that the F.B.I.'s system for conducting background checks on some seven million would-be gun buyers each year is badly broken.

Gun groups complain that despite recent improvements in the process of checks, it still takes too long for many purchases to be approved. And gun control groups assert that thousands of felons, spouse abusers, illegal immigrants, people with a history of mental illness and others banned by federal law from buying guns continue to slip through the cracks.

The proposal announced today seeks to repair the system by providing state agencies and courts with $375 million a year for the next three years to upgrade their databases on criminals and other types of banned people. It would also penalize states that fail to meet certain performance markers by cutting their federal grant money.

In my mind, there is no better compromise on the gun issue than in having a strong, efficient background check for every gun purchase. Only the avid libertarians, or the ACLU, I imagine, could be upset--citing an invasion into privacy. But libertarians must lose that argument: criminal records aren't private.
In any event, background checks take seriously the gun-rights mantra that people, not guns, kill people. If this is so, then lets make sure people more likely to use guns improperly don't get the guns.
And for strict gun-control folks like me, this legislation is a nice long stride in the right direction.