Close gun-show loophole; don’t study it further

Virginia has a vested interest in keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.

The venue in which the weapons are sold makes no difference. Instant background checks should be the standard at gun shops and gun shows. State lawmakers need to close the gun-show loophole.

But instead of acting, the Senate Courts of Justice Committee on Wednesday referred the matter to the Crime Commission for further study. A House committee killed the bill outright last week. So much for common sense and political courage. These qualities must be in short supply in Richmond.

State law already requires federally licensed firearms dealers to conduct instant background checks on potential buyers. This restriction applies equally to transactions at permanent businesses, like gun shops and pawn shops, and to gun show sales that involve licensed dealers.

The law’s flaw is that it allows unlicensed dealers to sell weapons at gun shows without conducting background checks. Why the distinction?

Background checks exist to identify potential gun purchasers who aren’t legally entitled to have a weapon. This includes criminals, the mentally ill and convicted domestic abusers.

Certainly, no legitimate gun dealer – whether a licensed professional or an unlicensed gun enthusiast – wants to sell a weapon to someone in one of these categories. Most aren’t looking to skirt the law; they want to follow it. Background checks are the means to do so.

Those who oppose closing the loophole often argue that checking the background of every purchaser at a gun show is too onerous a burden for unlicensed dealers. They argue that these aren’t professional gun dealers, but private citizens who buy and sell a small number of firearms at gun shows.

We get the distinction, but believe there should be a creative solution that protects the public and allows law-abiding citizens to buy and sell guns. For instance, licensed firearm dealers could conduct instant background checks for their unlicensed colleagues or gun show organizers could give unlicensed dealers access to background-checking databases. In the alternative, gun show organizers could limit their shows to licensed dealers.

The gun show loophole has come under additional scrutiny in the wake of last year’s tragic shootings at Virginia Tech. Indeed, Tech victims and some of their families were among those who went to Richmond on Monday to lobby for a more stringent law.

Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman who took 32 lives at Tech before killing himself, didn’t buy his weapons at a gun show. The sales were legal – one at a gun shop, the other ordered over the Internet and picked up at a pawn shop. Cho passed the required background checks even though a court had ordered him to receive outpatient mental health treatment. That failing in the law has since been rectified, and all court orders for mental health treatment – whether inpatient or outpatient – are entered in the database.

That Cho didn’t buy weapons at a gun show isn’t a reason to allow purchases without background checks to continue. The Cho case was a warning that flawed laws can endanger a society.

We don’t oppose gun ownership; it’s a constitutionally protected right we embrace. We don’t suggest the government intervene in private firearms transactions between friends or neighbors. But those private sales shouldn’t take place in the context of gun shows, where the seller might know nothing about the purchaser. Selling to a stranger is not the same as selling a gun to your cousin or co-worker.

Lawmakers should close this loophole that could put guns in the wrong hands. The background investigation law should apply to all.