Thursday, January 24, 2008
Don't we have a duty to close gun loopholes?
Read Shanna's blog
Shanna Flowers is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
Shanna Flowers
Recent columns
Virginians do love their guns.
Roanoke-area gun rights advocate Bobby Woolwine copied me on an e-mail he sent this week to one of my colleagues. Among the things that had Woolwine a little steamed under the collar was that friends and kin of Virginia Tech shooting victims sought to close a loophole in the state's gun laws that allows unlicensed sellers at gun shows to skip background checks on buyers.
Even with Wednesday's defeat of a state Senate bill on the issue, we haven't heard the last in the long-running debate on gun shows.
Like any decent person, Woolwine offered his deepest sympathy for the April 16 tragedy -- though he thought the efforts of the grief-stricken and their supporters were misdirected.
"Don't the people doing the protesting realize that the gunman did not buy his guns at a gun show and that gun show purchases represent less than 1% of the firearms used to commit crimes?" Woolwine wrote.
Woolwine is right -- about one thing. Seung-Hui Cho, the mentally ill Tech gunman, didn't buy his tools of mass killing at a gun show. There is no question that, had the gun show loophole been closed, it would not have prevented Cho's deadly actions.
But does that mean Virginia has no responsibility to close loopholes that could allow gun sales to people who shouldn't have them?
If it was important for Gov. Tim Kaine to close a loophole that permitted Cho to buy guns from licensed firearms dealers, why isn't it also important to make sure Cho couldn't also have bought weapons from an unlicensed gun seller at a gun show?
And another thing, Woolwine added, "Had Virginia Tech not took it upon themselves to disarm all students perhaps the tragedy could have been held to a minimum."
I don't know, but the idea of more people on campus packing heat doesn't leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
By the same stretch of logic, the world would be safer if more countries possessed nuclear weapons. Does anyone believe that?
About two weeks after the April 16 shooting, Kaine signed an executive order that would forbid licensed gun dealers from selling firearms to people who have been ordered into mental treatment.
Lawmakers also will address that issue during the session. But this week's defeat of the gun show bills makes me wonder if they'll pass even that kind of modest gun-control legislation.
April 16 was a cataclysmic event that forced Virginia to look at its policies and procedures in a number of areas. Gun laws should not be exempt from that scrutiny.
