The White House is reportedly moving forward to pass some restrictions on gun ownership in the wake of a series of tragic shooting incidents in Gilroy, California, El Paso, Texas, Dayton, Ohio, Odessa and Midland, Texas.
According to documents exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller, the gun bill will include expanding background checks for gun purchases, including “all commercially advertised unlicensed sales.” These include sales at gun shows.
“Background checks would be conducted either through a [Federal Firearm Licensee] or through a newly-created class of licensed transfer agents,” the handout continues, via the Daily Caller.
The handout says it is “consistent with” a legislative proposal pitched by Democrat Senator Joe Manchin and Republican Senator Pat Toomey.
The Daily Caller reports:
While all gun sales through federally licensed dealers currently require background checks, private sales do not. The Manchin-Toomey legislation would ensure that any advertised gun sales through an unlicensed dealer would be subject to a background check. It would not apply to sales between family or friends or to loans, provided the firearms are not first advertised elsewhere.
The legislation would not address straw purchases, which account for nearly half of all illegally trafficked firearms, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
President Donald Trump has seemingly changed his mind on expanding background checks on several occasions, first stating after shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio that he is “all in favor,” only to later assert that such measures “would not have stopped any of it.”
Nonetheless, the White House has been consistently meeting with key players in the gun debate — including pro-assault weapon ban Democrats — over the past month.
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Read the proposal below: