COULD THE SHOOTING IN ORLANDO HAVE BEEN PREVENTED? IF SO HOW? I have not made Comments for several months due to a complex spinal reconstruction surgery I underwent in March. After a lengthy hospital stay, ongoing doctor visits and daily rehab have preempted my time, and while I am not yet at 100%, given the horrific shooting in Orlando I cannot remain silent and intend to resume my Comments regularly. I cannot predict with certainty whether the massacre in Orlando could have been prevented. What I can say—with certainty—is that our current gun laws maximize the chance of mass shootings happening. If we had sane gun laws, then we would minimize the chance of mass shootings happening. What would some of those sane gun laws be? One would be to have Universal "Real" Background Checks not the background checks we have now where a would-be gun purchaser’s name is run through a database missing millions of entries of prohibited purchasers Instead, we would have the background checks that are used in England and other countries and have been used for decades in our own country when dealing with the sale and/or transfer of machine guns. These background checks include interviews with local police, family, friends and people who know the would-be purchaser as well as the purchaser themselves. They are the kinds of background checks you would do if someone wanted to adopt a child. As a measure of how inadequate our current background checks are, the last 15 hi-profile murderers all passed their background checks. The Orlando killer passed his background check and purchased the guns he used to commit this atrocity within the past two weeks. Had we had Universal "Real" Background Checks it would've been known that the Orlando killer had been a person of interest to the FBI as a potential terrorist on 2 occasions and that he was so physically and emotionally abusive to his wife that her parents had to rescue her from his clutches. His ex-wife would've been spoken with and could document the mental instability, the anger and the loss of control exhibited by the Orlando killer. It would've been very clear that this was a person who should not be allowed to purchase a gun. A second sane gun law that would have tremendously helped to prevent the Orlando massacre would be the complete banning of assault weapons and/or any gun that shoots more than 10 bullets per minute. There are several other laws that would serve to significantly reduce the gun violence epidemic we have been forced to live under including, for example, making gun trafficking a felony, removing the gun industry’s immunity from being sued. But these laws cannot be passed because at least 17 pro-gun states (read 34 senators) will NEVER allow Congress to pass new gun laws even as the epidemic increases (see link to FAIRY TALE OF A CONGRESSIONAL SOLUTION below.) However, under the National Emergencies Act when there is an epidemic that threatens the public health and security, the President is authorized to declare A National State of Emergency Once a state of emergency is declared, the president can then impose any actions required to contain and ultimately end the epidemic. Executive orders can be issued (such as the ones cited above) that cannot be thwarted and do not require congressional approval. That is why I call on you to get others to sign our petition (see below) calling on President Obama to declare a National State of Emergency for the gun violence epidemic—just as he has done during his term over the Swine Flu, the California wild fires and, with initial steps, the Zika virus. Elliot Fineman CEO - Founder National Gun Victims Action Council www.gunvictimsaction.org/donate www.gunvictimsaction.org https://gunvictimsaction.org/news/fairy-tale-of-congressional-solution-to-gun-violence/#more-9792 https://www.change.org/p/president-obama-halt-the-gun-violence-epidemic-today-by-declaring-a-national-state-of-emergency Elliot Fineman CEO - Founder National Gun Victims Action Council www.gunvictimsaction.org/donate www.gunvictimsaction.org https://gunvictimsaction.org/news/fairy-tale-of-congressional-solution-to-gun-violence/#more-9792 https://www.change.org/p/president-obama-halt-the-gun-violence-epidemic-today-by-declaring-a-national-state-of-emergency