There’s been a bill calling for universal background checks in the House for a little while now. It’s not a new story by any stretch. It’s also not new news that Democrats control the House, meaning it’ll probably pass in that chamber of Congress.

So why is NBC News running this story?

When a Wisconsin man opened fire inside a suburban Milwaukee spa in 2012, he used a handgun he bought only a day before from a seller he found online.

[Name redacted] killed four people, then turned the gun on himself. But if he had tried to get that gun from a licensed dealer, the sale likely would have been blocked. He was legally disqualified from owning a firearm because he was subject to a restraining order for abusing his wife, Zina, who became one of his shooting victims.

“Had there been a background check done, chances are she’d still be with us today,” her brother, Elvin Daniel, says. “If we can prevent one family from going through what we went through, I think that would be a tremendous help.”

He supports a bill before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that would require background checks on almost all private sales. Advocates say it would close off a source of guns used by criminals. But opponents say universal background checks are unnecessary and ineffective.

…

But opponents of universal background checks say they’re ineffective and would complicate transactions for legitimate buyers and sellers.

“So-called universal background checks will never be universal because criminals do not comply with the law,” Jennifer Baker of the National Rifle Association says.

She notes that a 2016 Department of Justice survey of state and federal prisoners found that 90 percent of them said they stole their guns or bought them on the black market, not from legitimate sellers like those on websites. Fewer than one percent got their firearms at a gun show.

First, I find it amusing that NBC had to go back to 2012 to dig up a case where someone bought a gun via a face-to-face transfer, then turned around and committed an atrocity with it. Clearly, this is a real crisis that needs to be addressed since the one example of it happening came from almost six and a half years ago (October 2012, to be exact).

Second, why run this story now? The bill isn’t new. While it’s going before the judiciary committee today, there are a lot of others that go before committees that are never commented on by the media. So why now?

The answer is simple. This is part of the media’s push on gun control. The same one that’s been going on since Parkland. They’re trying to work with House Democrats to create new gun regulations and to turn up the heat on any lawmaker who refuses to go along with the program. They’re going to try and push this, all while pretending they’re still unbiased.

They might as well try to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge. I can at least respect the industriousness of an honest crook.