Brady Firearm Brouhaha— Part II

Sarah Brady, Chair of the gun-ban lobby formerly known as HCI, apparently broke no law when, as revealed in her recently released book, she bought a hunting rifle at a Delaware gun shop for her son, who was then 18. The Daily News (N.Y.), which ran a March 22 story saying Brady may have skirted Delaware law, has issued a retraction after the Delaware Department of Justice told the paper that the Department had misinterpreted the law in talking to its reporter.

This flap highlights one interesting point, however. The fact is that there are already so many laws in America that regulate firearms, that even the nation’s foremost advocate of passing more laws and the people charged with enforcing those on the books may not be able to keep track of them.

But this story remains at least moderately controversial, as there is some dispute over the accuracy of Brady’s published account of her purchase. According to an exclusive NRALIVE.com interview with the gun store owner who completed the transaction, Brady may have injected a bit of fiction into her autobiographical story about her efforts to ban firearms in America.

While the store owner wishes to remain anonymous, he did tell NRALIVE.com that the claim in Sarah Brady’s book that her purchase was "approved immediately" and "[t]he system was working" is not true. According to the gun dealer, the day Brady came into his shop to purchase a high-powered rifle, the National Instant Check System (NICS) was down, causing a tremendous backlog of customers. Of course, it would not benefit Brady’s anti-gun agenda to report her own experience with problems caused by NICS, as that would simply bolster NRA’s contention that the system is flawed and needs to be overhauled.

This is not the only issue that leads to diverging accounts of Brady’s experience, though. In her book, Brady claims that the dealer tried to draw attention to her presence in the shop, claiming "he spoke unnecessarily loudly, repeating my name over and over on the phone." But the store owner claims that he didn’t do anything to draw attention to the identity of his ironic customer, and because of the problems and delays involving NICS, Brady wasn’t even present when her background check was able to be run.

Of course, the idea that Sarah Brady may not be 100% truthful in her book should come as no real surprise. Both she and her organization are well-known for putting out extremely misleading and grossly inaccurate information in order to further their not-too-well-hidden gun-ban agenda.