Part 2

"The gun lobby claims that individuals with permits to carry concealed weapons are ' law -abiding,' and that increasing the number of such individuals reduces crime . Yet Richard Poplawski was given a permit despite his checkered past."
First, I like how they put quotes around "law-abiding" as if it's some industry term, or made up. This is a fact that is indisputable. Permit holders are convicted of crimes at a much lower rate than the general public. Let's use the state of Florida as an example (they have more carry permit holders than any other state, so they are often chosen as a good example). Florida has a population of approximately 18,328,000. Of those, about 8%, or 1,500,000 have a permit to carry a firearm. Of that 1.5M, since 1996 166, or a little over 1/100 of 1% of the total have had them revoked after the fact due to crimes committed. And that's over a ten year period. That's 16 per year for those of you without a calculator handy.
During the last 10 years, the average crime rate in Florida is over 890,000 crimes per year, meaning that on average, roughly 5% of Florida's general population (if there were 1 crime per one person, an admittedly flawed number, but useful in making the point) commits crimes. Even given the flaw in the number, let's assume that it's actually much lower, like 1%, and that they commit multiple crimes (like many often do). That's still a rate more than 1000 times that of permit holders. And again, that is a conservative estimate. So if you want to put up your silly quotes, Brady Bunch, it should have read that the general public is "law-abiding."
Second, the fact that Poplawski was able to get a gun is a flaw in the background check system, not the law .
"A recent report (since withdrawn) by the Department of Homeland Security found that "the consequences of a prolonged economic downturn," as well as "the election of the first African American president," could “create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremism and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities."
The reason the report was withdrawn is that was complete left-wing fear-mongering garbage. It painted everyone who owns guns , has served in the military , believes in God, or thinks that abortion is wrong as a potential terrorist. It was not only insulting, but had very little basis in fact. If the report had any basis in reality, I would be on the terror watch list for meeting at least 9 of their criteria for being a terrorist. Therefore, everything in it can be, and was by most, considered irrelevant and horribly biased. The Brady report mentions this report several times, though it can be completely ignored since it has very little to do with reality.
"These loopholes enabled a gun trafficker to acquire over 70 cheap handguns from a corrupt gun dealer[.]"
How exactly would closing a loophole affect this? He's corrupt. He doesn't care about laws and loopholes.
"[T]he gun lobby should rein in its rhetoric, and speak more truthfully and responsibly."
This statement had me in tears. From laughing so hard. One definition of rhetoric is "Loud and confused and empty talk." I interpret "empty talk" as being void of fact, i.e. most everything put forth by the Brady Campaign. They produce no studies or statistics that show we would be safer if we banned guns, then accuse the pro-gun folks of rhetoric despite the fact that can back up their "rhetoric" with numerous studies supporting their position. They lambast the NRA, Gun Owners of America, and anyone else that is pro-gun for praying on people's fears, then turn out reports like this.
Now I'm not saying that the hate crimes in these reports are not something we should work toward eliminating, but we must do so in the context of the overall problem. First, they point out that hate groups display their propaganda at gun shows . While this is apparently true (not at the gun shows I have attended, but they have pictures of some in Virginia), the fact is that they are doing so within the limits of their 1st Amendment rights. You don't have to like what they say (and the vast majority of pro-gun people do not) but you have to love a country that allows you to say something that is distasteful to probably better than 99% of the population. Second, the ratio of hate crimes to all others is very, very small. For example out of a total of 23,390,528 crimes reported in 2004 ( http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/offense_tabulations/table_02.html ), 7,145 were classified as hate crimes ( http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/hate_crime/index.html ). That's somewhere in the order of .03%. The reason the Brady Campaign has chosen this particular segment is because it is so incendiary.