Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Wednesday he was unimpressed by the section of President Obama's State of the Union imploring Congress to allow a vote on new gun regulations, telling reporters the country doesn’t “need a cheerleader for new gun laws.”
“We need somebody to enforce the laws we have,” Graham said, according to CNN. “I do wish the cheerleading would stop and the prosecutions begin.”
Graham went on to say that only 44 of the 80,000 people who failed a background check last year were prosecuted, suggesting the Obama administration was lax in enforcing current gun rules. The vast majority of those failed background checks were not referred to the government for investigation, an indication that applicants may not have actually broken any laws.
“But in the case of–I can give you some examples, I should have brought them with me–that if you fail the background check you’re providing, you’ve got strawman purchases,” he said. “Here’s what I would suggest: Out of the 80,000, more than 44 probably did it illegally.”
President Obama made an impassioned plea for a vote on new gun controls toward the end of his State of the Union address Tuesday night. Victims of gun violence and their families filled the chamber, and members of Congress wore green ribbons as a tribute to the victims of the Newtown, Conn. elementary school shooting.
“Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote,” Obama said, to some of the evening's loudest applause.
The president plans to push his gun measures — which include universal background checks on all firearm purchases, a renewed assault weapons ban, and limits on magazine size — during events Friday at the White House and in Chicago. In Washington, he we posthumously award the Presidential Citizens Medal to six educators who were killed during the Newtown shooting.
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