(This commentary has also been published at WorldNetDaily.com)

By Chad D. Baus

Gun owners have been learning a great deal in recent weeks about the anti-gun record of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is currently polling as the front-runner among announced GOP presidential-hopefuls. Less attention has been given to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. But gun owners will ignore Romney at their own peril.

Last week, Romney announced that he raised $23 million for his presidential bid in the first three months of the year, topping the amounts collected his closest GOP rivals. Giuliani raised $15 million in the same period, and Arizona Sen. John McCain trailed with $12.5 million. (In the contest among a host of anti-gun Democrats, Hillary Clinton reported raising a whopping $36 million.)

Few people outside of Massacheusetts are familiar with Mitt Romney. As such, the former governor is trying to take advantage of the opportunity, much like Bill Clinton did in the early 1990s, to craft an image for himself that is most likely to draw votes in his party's primary.

And so, in the early going, Romney has attempted to portray himself as pro-gun. But, as the saying goes, the truth will out. And when it comes to Romney's record on guns, the truth is he is far from being what he now claims.

By Larry Pratt

Congress has legislation before it to expand the Instant Background Check, aka the Brady Law.

Rather than expand the program, it should be abolished.

Since the background check is mostly defended on its value in supposedly "keeping guns out of the wrong hands," let’s consider that idea.

If we were to do away with the Instant Background Check, the question is frequently asked, how would we keep guns out of the wrong hands. The answer is, we would be as successful without the check as with it. How do we know?

The Centers for Disease Control, an anti-gun federal agency, has examined several studies that focused on guns and crime. Their conclusion? They found that there is no impact from gun control laws, including the Brady Law, on crime.

More dramatic evidence comes from the "laboratory" of England. This island nation has banned handguns. They don't need a background check because there are no legitimate sales. Following the confiscation of over 1.5 million guns, including all legally owned handguns in 1997, violent crime has skyrocketed. Illegal handguns are estimated by police to number over 3,000,000. According to a UN study in 2000, England is the most violent of all the world's industrial countries.

Unless England can figure out how to keep guns out of the "wrong hands"' how does anyone expect an instant background check to do anything? Even if a criminal did not have a friend or a false ID, it would not be difficult to get a gun in other ways.

So, if the Instant Background Check is useless, why are we violating the Constitution which gives no authority to the federal government to regulate guns? Moreover, the background check is based on a presumption of guilt, requiring the accused ("Why do you need a gun?") to prove his innocence -- a total reversal of the presumption of innocence required in our legal system.

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