Universal background checks impossible

The gun control advocates in Congress are ranting on about universal background checks, when they know full well that there can never truly be universal checks. The background check is triggered when someone walks into a fully legal retail outlet and buys a gun. When that someone acquires a gun some other way, there is no trigger, ipso facto, no background check. The person with a criminal record would never try to buy a gun in a legal manner. There is no shortage of small-time crooks with five or six guns to sell. No questions asked.

When you argue passionately for something that you know is impossible to achieve, you expose yourself as just another shameless hustler trying to tap into an electorate that (sadly) votes on emotion and doesn't bother to inform themselves on the issue at hand, or for that matter, any issue at all.

Gary Sargent

Cedar Rapids