The F.B.I. reports that gun dealers submitted the names of almost half-a-million customers in the six days before Christmas, with December on its way to surpassing November, which had a record tally of 1,534,414 names submitted for background checks for criminal convictions and mental health issues. Only a little more than 1 percent of buyers are typically rejected by federally licensed gun dealers. No one knows how many more firearms were purchased through the gun-show loophole that enables black marketeering.
The F.B.I. data are particularly grim given the approaching anniversary of the shooting rampage in Tucson that left Representative Gabrielle Giffords gravely shot in the head, six people dead, including a federal judge, and 13 others wounded. In the nation’s shock and grief, politicians vowed gun reforms, like a ban on the 33-round assault clips that enabled the shooter to attack a crowd in an instant, improvements in the federal background check system and to have more states track and prevent individuals with histories of mental illness — like the shooter in Tucson — from acquiring guns.
None of these have been enacted as the nation heads toward the end of another year of almost 100,000 people shot or killed with a gun.
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