Associated Press

Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, is sponsoring legislation to make Kaine's executive order permanent.

By the numbers

Blocked gun transactions

• 79 in eight months following Gov. Tim Kaine's executive order
• 85 during same period in 2006

Message board

• Post your thoughts: Closing the firearms loophole

After Virginia closed a loophole that allowed Seung-Hui Cho to purchase his weapons of mass murder, the hope was that more people with mental health problems like Cho's would be barred from buying guns.

That hasn't happened.

In fact, the number of gun transactions blocked for mental health reasons has decreased slightly since Gov. Tim Kaine signed an executive order requiring all people who receive court-ordered mental health treatment to be included in a database used to screen potential gun buyers.

In the eight months following the May executive order, 79 transactions were denied for mental health reasons.

During the same time period in 2006, 85 potential gun sales were stopped for the same reason, according to figures compiled by the Virginia State Police.

As the General Assembly considers bills that would codify Kaine's executive order, it's unclear why his action, taken just two weeks after Cho killed 32 people and then himself on the Virginia Tech campus, hasn't led to more noticeable results.

Before the shootings, only those who had been committed to a mental institution were included in a state police database of prohibited gun owners. Because a special justice ordered Cho to receive outpatient treatment, his case was not included in the database, allowing him to pass background checks before he purchased his two handguns in the months before the April 16 shootings.

Supporters of closing the loophole -- first by executive order and now by legislative action -- say that while it's too late to stop Cho, the state can still prevent more people like him from buying guns in the future.

Corinne Geller, a state police spokeswoman, said authorities know of "no absolute reason or rationale" for why the number of denials went down following Kaine's order.

The numbers, which are relatively small, tend to fluctuate from year to year, Geller said.

In 2005, background checks prevented 129 gun sales to people with mental health commitments. That number dropped to 121 in 2006 and to 109 last year.

Mental heath commitments account for only a small percentage of blocked firearms sales in Virginia.

In 2006, for example, 2,380 potential sales were stopped by the background checks, which search the database for people barred from having a gun for several reasons -- including felony convictions, mental health commitments, misdemeanor domestic assault convictions and protective orders.

Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, is sponsoring legislation to make Kaine's executive order permanent.

Edwards said tightening the mental commitment reporting is more important than another "loophole" issue in the news this week -- a bill that would have eliminated the so-called gun show loophole. Committees in both the House and Senate defeated proposals to required all vendors at gun shows, both licensed and unlicensed, to conduct background checks on potential buyers. Currently, only licensed gun dealers are required to do so.

Some say it's too early to judge the effectiveness of Kaine's executive order, considering the short time it has been in effect and the fact that gun sale denials for mental health reasons dropped by just six in the last eight months of 2007.

"I wouldn't call that a statistically significant number," said Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Everitt said the huge amount of publicity surrounding the Tech shootings and Kaine's subsequent executive order might have prompted some people barred from legally possessing a gun to seek other avenues, such as going to an unlicensed seller.

For those determined to skirt the law, Everitt said, all it takes is a visit to an unlicensed dealer at a gun show or a "straw purchase" in which someone who is allowed to have a gun makes the purchase for someone who is not.

"Given that there are still loopholes, and ones that you could fly a plane through, there are people who will change their strategy to walk through the loopholes that are there," he said.

While it's impossible to say how many people with histories of mental commitments try to buy guns, the recent state police numbers indicate to some that the number is low.

"If nothing else, we're seeing that there's not a large number of mentally ill people standing in line to get a firearm to hurt themselves or to hurt someone else," said David Adams, president of the Virginia Shooting Sports Association, the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association.

Adams said his group does not oppose legislation that would make a mental health commitment -- either on an inpatient or outpatient basis -- grounds for denying someone access to a gun.

The only caveat, he said, is that there should be a process for those committed to outpatient treatment to have their rights restored in the future if they can present medical proof of their recovery.

In the eight months since Kaine's executive order took effect, there has been a significant increase in the number of mental health commitments forwarded to state police by the local courts for inclusion in the database.

From May to the end of December, 8,379 commitment orders were added to the database, compared to 5,486 during the same eight-month span in 2006.

"Anytime the system has more records of people who shouldn't have guns, that's a good thing," said Chad Ramsey, associate director of state legislation and politics for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

While Kaine's executive order has not led to an increase in gun sale denials, "it's important to note that it only took one Cho," Ramsey said. "The total number of denials is not as important as exactly who is being denied."

Legislators and Kaine administration officials expressed only mild surprise over the statistics.

"One possible explanation is that there's been so much publicity about it that someone who knew they would be rejected might not even try to purchase a gun," said Kaine spokeswoman Delacey Skinner.

Skinner said a more telling indicator of the effectiveness of Kaine's order is the number of names added to the criminal records database since the governor acted. And, despite the statistics, Kaine's order makes it much more difficult for someone with a history such as Cho's to get a gun, she said.

Del. Dave Albo, R-Fairfax County, called the data "surprising but explainable."

"You're talking about a very small percentage of the population," said Albo, the chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee, who is also carrying legislation to codify the governor's executive order.

Albo's bill, which also requires reporting information for people who had a temporary detention order and a commitment hearing and agreed to voluntary treatment, was approved Friday by the House Courts of Justice Committee.

Staff writers Michael Sluss and Mason Adams contributed to this report.