Originally published at IntellectualCapital.com
By K. Daniel Glover

A familiar scene will unfold today in a Washington, D.C., federal courtroom. One well-funded legal team will portray guns as the gravest criminal menace in the nation and the folks who would dare oppose reasonable controls on weapons as fanatics. An equally moneyed bunch of lawyers will counter that law-abiding citizens use most guns and that the worrywarts who want to restrict gun sales have violated gun owners’ constitutional rights.

The issue before the court: whether the FBI has the right to maintain, if only temporarily, the information it collects on the backgrounds of Americans who buy guns.

The case, filed by the National Rifle Association against the Justice Department, is the latest salvo in a gun-control debate that stretches back to the 1981 assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan and, more recently, to the enactment of the so-called Brady Bill. President Clinton signed the Brady bill, which imposed a waiting period on the purchase of handguns and background checks on gun buyers, into law in the pre-Thanksgiving rush to congressional adjournment in 1993, and the acrimonious debate over the merits of the law has continued ever since.

Closing the ‘loopholes’
Much of the squabbling has occurred in the background. With the crime rate on a six-year decline and gun-related crimes on an even steeper decline than overall crime, gun foes have struggled to win the attention of lawmakers and a public tuned to other issues — Social Security, health care, tobacco and, of course, impeachment.

But the battle moved to the fore again Nov. 30, the five-year anniversary of the Brady bill’s enactment. Until then, the law required that handgun buyers wait five days to get their weapons. Now, as stipulated by the law, buyers no longer must wait five days, but most buyers, including those who purchase rifles and shotguns, must undergo a background check via the new National Instant Check System.
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