Just talked to my local NRA guy in my office. It wasn't a friendly discussion.
Points he brought up
1) Assault Rifles are already banned and have been for decades.
2) The mass murders we have seen, and the rate has not increased just the publicity, have occurred in gun free zones.
3) If somebody has decided to do this, investigations have shown that the planning for these was done months in advance, requiring a back ground check isn't going to do anything.
4) Did agree that a buyer, regardless of it being a private sale, should have a background check and require proof to seller.
1) Wrong on the federal level, correct on some state and/or local levels2) Some have been in gun free zones, but I'd imagine that his response would have been different last week, just after the mall shootings, or several months ago, after the movie theater shootings.
3) I'm not sure what the basis is for this statement, but there are plenty of examples where police have no reason to believe that something was planned months in advance.
4) Sounds like a good idea.
playing his role:1) since 1934.
2) which ones?
3) just proof that a background check won't stop somebody from getting a gun. He said, "if I wanted an uzi I know exactly where in this town to get it and can get it for substantially less than purchasing it legally"
1) What he's calling assault rifles isn't the same thing as what the general public calls assault weapons, it's a technical distinction that he's almost right about. They're not banned, they're extremely tightly regulated to the point that it's nearly a ban. But if he wants to speak technically, he should get the legal stuff right, not just the gun definition stuff. He's talking about automatic and burst-fire rifles, which are under very, very strict control. "Assault weapons" - which include rifle-length guns in many instances, are semi-auto weapons with certain characteristics defined by statute. Okay, if he wants to change the discussion, he can. 2)
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map Look at the map. All the ones that aren't in gun free zones. Like IHOP. Or cafes. Or workplaces.
3) Okay. Then he should say that instead of something not true, like that all of these are planned months in advance.