Medical Students To Urge Legislators to Ban Bulk Sales of Handguns

US Newswire (Press Release) ^ | 4/21/06 | n/a

[kiriath_jearim]

Medical Students Traveling to Harrisburg, Pa. to Urge State Legislators to Pass Bill Banning Bulk Sales of Handguns

4/21/2006 3:18:00 PM

To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor

Contact: Diane Edbril, 215-923-3151, or Peter Hamm, 202-898-5792, both for the Pennsylvanians Against Trafficking Handguns Coalition

News Advisory:

A group of Philadelphia area medical students are coming to the State Capitol Monday, April 24 to visit legislators and urge them to take action on a bill that would restrict sales of multiple handguns. Such multiple sales have been identified by law enforcement experts as a sign of illegal gun trafficking.

"As physicians in training, we are directly confronted by the results of handgun violence and are deeply concerned about the health of our patients," explained student Rachael Truchil. "The tragic results of gun shot wounds are evident. We would rather focus our efforts on prevention of the injury, than unsuccessful attempts to repair the injury."

The medical students, from the Temple University School of Medicine, Drexel University College of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, will be available for comment in the Capitol Rotunda at 11 a.m., where a gathering is planned to mark Victim's Rights Week.

[coloradan]

Anyone but a gun grabber, that is.

[MarkL]

RE: Multiple Handgun sales registration

I'm in Texas, never heard of such a form or requirement here.

Since it had been so long, I thought that maybe it was just a state requirement of MO, so I did some checking, and that's when I found this:

In the United States, the first regulations on multiple handgun purchases appeared after enactment of the Gun Control Act of 1968. Although the Act itself said nothing about multiple purchases, the new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) created regulations for “Multiple Purchase Reporting Forms.”

Whenever a federally licensed firearms dealer sold more than one handgun to an individual in a 30-day period, the dealer had to send the Multiple Purchase Reporting form to BATF.

BATF did nothing with most of the forms that it received. Thus, when would-be assassin John Hinckley legally bought two handguns from a Texas firearms dealer one day in early 1980, the dealer sent a Multiple Purchase Form to BATF.

Neither a BATF investigation based on the Multiple Purchase Form, nor the future “Brady Act,” would have prevented Hinckley’s purchases. His only criminal conviction was for a misdemeanor; his mental health records were private; and although the address on his Texas driver’s license was no longer correct, he was a Texas resident, and legally allowed to buy guns anywhere in Texas.

The BATF regulation for the Multiple Purchase Form was codified in the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986. The 1994 Clinton crime bill later mandated that the Multiple Purchase Form also be sent to the local chief of police or sheriff.

(from: http://www.nrapublications.org/archives/fabric.asp)

Mark