Dem Sen. Tim Kaine Pushing Bill To Make ‘Gun Sellers’ Criminally Liable For Misuse Of Guns

Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP
Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP

Less than two weeks after a heinous attack in which a Virginia TV reporter and and her cameraman were killed by a gunman who passed a a background check for his firearm, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) is is pushing legislation to make “gun sellers” criminally liable for the misuse of guns they sell.

The bill is designed to “raise the bar” and require more “accountability” on the part of gun sellers. It also expands the federal net to open the door to criminal liability charges against private sellers too.

According to The Roanoke Times, Kaine’s bill is titled the Responsible Transfer of Firearms Act. It “would make gun sellers criminally liable for a bad sale if they didn’t take reasonable, affirmative steps to determine the customer met federal criteria.”

In statement accompanying the legislation’s introduction Kaine said:

As recent tragedies in Virginia and across the country have shown, the gun laws in our country have done little to stem senseless gun violence. These numbing incidents in urban, rural and suburban communities are made worse by the lack of accountability in those instances where the tragedy might have been prevented.

Breitbart News has previously reported that vast majority of public attackers and alleged attackers pass background checks for their guns. These include Vester Lee Flanagan (Virginia), John Russell Houser  (Lafayette), Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez (Chattanooga), Dylann Roof (Charleston), Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi (Garland), Jared and Amanda Miller (Las Vegas), Elliot Rodger (Santa Barabara), Ivan Lopez (Fort Hood 2014), Darion Marcus Aguilar (Maryland mall), Karl Halverson Pierson (Arapahoe High School), Paul Ciancia (LAX), Andrew John Engeldinger (Minneapolis), Aaron Alexis (DC Navy Yard), Tennis Melvin Maynard (West Virginia), Wade Michael Page (Sikh Temple), James Holmes (Aurora theater), Jared Loughner (Tucson), Nidal Hasan (Fort Hood 2009), Jiverly Wong (Binghamton), Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech), Naveed Haq (Seattle), and Mark Barton (Atlanta).

Yet although background checks are federally mandated and federally conducted at all retail gun outlets in the U.S., Kaine wants to hold the gun seller responsible for what a buyer does when he or she exits the store with a gun the FBI cleared them to purchase.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

 

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.