WATCH: Rep. Schiff Makes Powerful Case for Universal Background Checks at House Judiciary Committee Markup
Washington, D.C.— Today, Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) made a powerful case for universal background checks during the House Judiciary Committee markup. This comes as Schiff introduced an amendment that would require background checks on all gun purchases, including private sales, and close glaring loopholes in the current system.
Watch the full video of Schiff’s remarks HERE.
Key Excerpts:
On Current Fractured Background Check Laws:
We live in a state – live in a country where you can go into a gun store. You can be a felon. You can have a serious mental health issue that should disqualify you from obtaining a weapon. You can have a domestic violence restraining order against you, and you can seek to buy – to purchase a gun. And you can be refused.
But you can leave that gun store, you can go outside, you can buy that same weapon off the back of someone's truck, or you can buy it online, or you can buy it at a gun fair.
It makes no sense to have a situation in this country where you can be refused because you failed the background check when you go to a store, but you can leave the store and buy the same weapon in the parking lot. That makes no sense to anyone except perhaps the NRA.
On Overwhelming National Support for Universal Background Checks:
My constituents want universal background checks. This amendment would provide universal background checks. Your constituents, my friends across the aisle, they want the same thing. Americans overwhelmingly want truly universal background checks. Now, I realize the NRA doesn't want it. And so this puts all of us in the position of are we going to vote for our constituents? Or are we going to vote for the NRA?
Well, I'm voting for my constituents. I'm voting for people in my home state of California who are sick of the constant scourge of gun violence. Who are fed up with a Congress unwilling or unable to do anything about it. It makes no sense to have a system where you walk into a store and you’re refused a gun because you're a felon and you can go outside and you can buy the same gun off the back of someone's truck. That makes no sense.
On Americans Having a Right to be Free From Gun Violence:
This is actually language written by a Republican from Pennsylvania. But even if it weren't written by a Republican…
What about the rights of a middle school kid or an elementary school kid to go to school and not be gunned down with an assault weapon? What about their rights? What about the rights of worshipers in their place of faith not to be gunned down because someone could evade a background check by buying it at a gun show or buying it off the back of someone's truck?
What about their right to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness? Does that get no weight at all?
And all we are asking is that people go through a background check before they acquire a [sic]. Is that too much to ask for that child's life in grade school or that worshiper’s life in church, or a moviegoer’s life in the movie theater?
Is it too much to ask that we make sure that people aren't circumventing the law by making background checks truly universal and not just a fractured system in which there are infinite ways to avoid any kind of scrutiny? I don't think it's too much to ask.