The other morning I watched as Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa defended his vote against expanded background checks for gun purchasers by pointing out that criminals will not bother to go through the background check process. He apparently believes that, because criminals will ignore a background-check law, we shouldn't bother to pass a background-check law.
I wonder whether Sen. Grassley would apply this same reasoning to laws against driving while intoxicated, or burglarizing homes, or sending letters laced with ricin. Criminals will ignore these and many other laws so, by Sen. Grassley's reasoning, we should not bother to enact laws prohibiting such acts. Sen. Grassley's argument against the background-check law is, on close inspection, an argument against all laws.
My point is that this argument — which Sen. Grassley is by no means alone in supporting — is logically vapid and deserves to be ridiculed loudly whenever it is offered by some self-important Second Amendment zealot, in defiance of both logic and the Supreme Court's finding in Heller vs. District of Columbia that the right assured in the Second Amendment remains subject to "reasonable regulation."
An expanded background check procedure to assure that deadly weapons cannot be sold with impunity to deranged and/or criminally disposed persons is surely reasonable.
Michael Halloran
Troy