Monday, July 19, 2010
Editorial: Keeping at the gun show loophole
A U.S. House forum at least keeps the issue alive.
From the RoundTable blog
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Even in the immediate aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, state lawmakers could not be moved to close Virginia's gun show loophole. As public horror fades, the chance of action in Richmond only lessens.
The issue is too important to go away, though, and it won't. At least no farther than Washington, D.C., where Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia's 3rd District scheduled a forum on the issue last week.
Advocates might have better luck getting Congress to act on federal gun show regulations -- though not this year, an election year when Democrats are fighting to hold onto their House majority.
Such is the power of the NRA lobby and the passion of many gun owners that H.R. 2324, the "Closing the Gun Show Loophole Act of 2009," couldn't even get a hearing on Capitol Hill.
Scott showed his moxie by chairing the forum, which included among invited panelists Gerald Massengill, retired Virginia State Police superintendent, who was chairman of the state investigation of the Virginia Tech rampage of gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, who took 32 people's lives.
Among the investigators' conclusions was that Virginia should close the so-called gun show loophole, a provision that allows private sales at gun shows without running computerized background checks on buyers, as federally licensed firearms dealers must do.
That provision, meant to protect gun owners' rights to sell personal property, is too easily abused.
One of Scott's panelists, former Tech student Colin Goddard, who survived being shot by Cho four times, showed in an undercover video how easily someone barred from owning a gun could pick one up at a gun show.
Even when he warned private sellers that he could not pass a background check, they sold him weapons.
Congress won't act to change this appalling gap in gun laws this year. But the message Goddard and other gun control advocates are sending bears repeating as often as it takes to bring change.
