COMMENTARY | An elite former NASA astronaut and U.S. military veteran walks into a gun store and buys a handgun and an assault rifle. Not too outrageous, right? Which is why Mark Kelly, husband of Gabrielle Giffords, the U.S. representative from Arizona who was seriously injured in a horrific shooting, made a controversial error in buying an AR-15 rifle in a claimed attempt to “highlight” the need for gun control. According to Reuters , Kelly said he was able to fill out the background check paperwork “in a matter of minutes” and would receive the $1,000 rifle, popularly and controversially known for its semiautomatic rate of fire and large-capacity magazines, in 20 days. Kelly claims he will not keep the rifle and will give it to the Tucson, Ariz., police department.
I support more gun control, especially stringent background checks for all firearms, but Kelly’s move was downright bizarre. First of all, Kelly is a poor example of background checks being too lax. According to his NASA biography , Kelly, the son of two police officers, is a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, a decorated U.S. Naval aviator, a recipient of a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and an experienced NASA astronaut. Oh, and the husband of a U.S. representative. He seems like a modernized version of the test pilots of the 1983 film “The Right Stuff,” which portrayed America’s early astronauts as heroes. If anyone should have no trouble passing a background check, it’s Mark Kelly.
In fact, according to gun store owner Doug MacKinlay, Kelly allegedly tried to purchase the rifle previously, using his Texas driver’s license (Kelly had recently moved back to Arizona from Houston). He was turned down for having an out-of-state ID. A cursory examination of the news article makes it seem that the background check rules, as well as the mandatory 20-day waiting period, are working decently well. Perhaps Kelly wanted to buy the rifle to see what owning one felt like? Was he caught by surprise when the media got wind of the purchase, forced to come up with a more palatable story?
