Days after school shootings in Oregon, Texas and Arizona, former San Diego Police Chief Jerry Sanders joined Rep. Scott Peters Tuesday in calling for universal background checks before guns are sold.
“This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. It’s an issue that affects all of our communities every day,” said Jerry Sanders, the former police chief and mayor who now heads the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Peters is a co-sponsor of the bipartisan King-Thompson background check bill, which is stalled in Congress. The bill would remove loopholes in federal laws that allow guns to be sold privately, at gun shows and over the Internet without a background check.
“Let’s start simple: close loopholes in our background check system to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them,” Peters said.
The bill is opposed by the powerful National Rifle Association, which says gun violence can be prevented by “fixing the broken mental health system and prosecuting criminals.”
Sanders said that from a police perspective, it’s simply “too easy to get guns” and the universal background checks in the King-Thompson bill would protect communities without infringing on the Second Amendment.
The two spoke at a small rally in Doyle Community Park along with members of the San Diego chapter of the Brady Campaign, an national group dedicated to reducing gun violence in America.
Peters noted that the school shooting in Sandy Hook, CT, took place just before he began his first term in Congress, and since then there have been 149 school shootings.
“We have to check that number because it changes so often,” he said. “What bothers me is the silence of inaction.”
He said it’s painful to imagine how a parent would feel if “your child is gone because of some sick person with a gun.”
