Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) spoke at a local New Hampshire brewery as part of a townhall appearance on Friday and told the audience that gun manufacturers “want to oppose universal background checks because they want to sell an assault rifle to a teenager in a Walmart or to someone on the terror watch list or to someone whose gravely mentally ill with a violent background or to someone with a criminal conviction for a violent crime.”
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Gun Control Act (GCA) already makes it “unlawful for certain categories of persons to ship, transport, receive, or possess firearms or ammunition, to include any person” who “has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution," among many other requirements.
Gillbrand’s Senate website lists her stance on “gun reform”:
While Senator Gillibrand supports the Second Amendment to the Constitution, she is focused on protecting communities in every corner of New York from unnecessary gun violence by supporting common sense solutions to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals.
- Protecting communities by keeping illegal guns out of New York
- Protecting victims of domestic abuse from gun violence
- Preventing criminals from obtaining gun silencers
- Closing the background check loophole
- Protecting New Yorkers from national concealed carry