Background Checks

F. Cordell took issue in the Jan. 2 issue of the Towson Times with Jane Norman's plea to limit the public's access to guns by restricting sales at gun shows ("Cancel upcoming gun show; don't make guns so available," Letters, Dec. 26).. A vague explanation of the gun purchaser's background check process was provided by F. Cordell, in an apparent attempt to ease the public's concerns about gun buyers. Thank you - we are now able to sleep well at night knowing that all legal gun transactions are foolproof and secure, with no need to worry about the messy shenanigans sometimes associated with firearms.

I support the National Rifle Association's position of stationing armed guards at every school ("NRA to America: Blame yourself, not us," Dec. 21). However, I do not want my taxes increased to pay for armed school guards. I want the gun owners themselves to pay for it. Tax all guns with a sales tax of 150 percent and charge a permit fee of $300 per year per gun to pay for more armed school police. Also ban assault weapons, require background checks and mental evaluations to be paid for by potential gun owners, ban ammunition clips of more than 10 rounds and require all guns to be kept locked up. People with guns kill a lot of people.

How many more Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedies do we have to endure before taking action? All of us are at risk, whether in a school building, a shopping mall, a church or any public place. We must put maximum pressure on the president and Congress to outlaw semiautomatic weapons and large ammunition clips holding dozens of rounds of bullets. Also, background checks must be required on everyone purchasing guns regardless of the source, and the penalties for violators must be severe.

Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz and Police Chief Jim Johnson on Monday called on state and federal lawmakers to strengthen laws on background checks for gun buyers and stop the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in the wake of the Connecticut school mass shooting that left 28 dead. "This is not the time to be timid," Kamenetz said at a news conference, reading from an open letter he wrote to Maryland's state and federal elected officials. "We cannot sit by and do nothing.

Challenging a major political taboo, Johns Hopkins researchers contend that tighter gun control laws will save lives and reduce violence, particularly if "high-risk" people such as alcoholics and youths under age 21 are barred from buying or having firearms. In a report being released Thursday by the Bloomberg School of Public Health, they call for broadening current state and federal prohibitions on who can own guns while also closing loopholes in the regulation of gun sales. "When you deny high-risk people access to guns, the evidence shows that saves lives," said Daniel W. Webster, director of Hopkins' Center for Gun Policy and Research and the report's lead author.

On April 25, theU.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission(EEOC), for the first time in 25 years, updated its guidance on how employers may use criminal background checks in the hiring process. The new guidelines reaffirm that it is illegal under the Civil Rights Act for companies to exclude people from employment based on arrest or conviction records - unless the offense is directly related to the job at hand. The need for EEOC action was dire. More than 1 in 4 Americans - 65 million people - have an arrest or conviction record, leaving a significant segment of the population largely shut out of the job market.

In response to last week's article "Council kills background checks," I believe this is a ruling that is unfair to the residents of Laurel. I have been a resident of Laurel for over 62 years and I have always respected elected officials, whether local or national. However this ruling by city council means that a sex molester, bank robber, murderer or person convicted of a crime who does his or her time and is released back into society can freely run for an elected position without any background check.

A three-page preliminary audit report on Howard County's Domestic Violence Center gave the nonprofit a clean bill of fiscal health but criticized the organization's former board for its efforts at a background check before hiring the former director. "We have not found any evidence to indicate any irregularities," County Auditor Haskell Arnold said, though the agency will need to carefully monitor its funds to get through the year. Thanks to a $275,000 surplus, the agency is in the black, Arnold said.

The supervisor of the 13 city employees who were arrested last week after allegedly drinking alcohol and shooting dice during work hours at a transportation department shop has been suspended, officials said Monday. Officials said that the workers, who included six men with significant criminal convictions, had not been subjected to criminal background checks before they were hired because they performed low-ranking jobs. The city performs such checks when filling "positions of trust" — jobs that involve working with children, making high-level decisions, handling money or accessing private information, officials said.

Let's posit the argument, as made by Ron Smith in Friday's column, that political rhetoric had no bearing on the actions of Jared Loughner in Tucson last week ( "Mental illness, not political speech, to blame for bloodbath," Jan. 14). He is a deeply disturbed individual, like John Hinckley and Mark David Chapman. But Mr. Smith conveniently sidesteps a key issue. This person had a history of unstable and erratic behavior that goes back several years, but he had never been committed to a mental institution and had no police record.