NY senators recommend fixing background checks to Biden’s gun task force

New York Sens. Charles Schumer (D) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D) told Vice President Biden that he should include measures on background checks and gun trafficking in his task-force recommendations.

At the request of President Obama, Biden is leading a task force to reduce gun violence in the United States after the shooting in Newtown, Conn., that claimed the lives of 20 children last month. The task force is expected to make its final recommendations later this month.

Schumer and Gillibrand asked Biden to consider including two bills they support in the final report.

“We have to make sure that the mentally handicapped and violent criminals are not able to purchase weapons, and that those who traffic in illegal weapons are tracked down, caught and punished,” Schumer said in a statement Sunday.

The senators are suggesting that Biden include two laws in his recommendations to prevent gun violence. The Gun Trafficking Prevention Act aims to prevent gun trafficking by providing law enforcement agencies ways to pursue criminal networks. 

“Congress has ducked a serious national debate over common-sense gun laws for too long. We have an obligation to act and prevent tomorrow’s senseless deaths by coming together and ensuring that guns stay out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill,” Gillibrand said. “By cracking down on illegal gun traffickers and their vast criminal networks, we can reduce gun violence and keep our children and families safe.”

The Fix Gun Checks Act would require states and the federal government to send records on felons, drug abusers, the seriously mentally ill and other potentially dangerous people to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the FBI-run system for background checks on gun buyers.

Other Democrats have called for reinstating the assault-weapons ban and prohibiting the sale of high-capacity gun clips during the 113th Congress, which started last Thursday.

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