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VIRGINIA HAS tough penalties for those convicted of illegal possession of a weapon. Violent felons spend at least five years in prison if they’re caught with a gun.
It seems incongruous to punish people for doing something the law allows. In Virginia, anyone, criminals included, can buy a gun without undergoing a criminal background check if they buy from a hobbyist, not a licensed dealer.
Last week, Gov. Tim Kaine correctly said the legislature needs to fix that and require background checks on all private gun sales. “You either want folks who are felons to have guns, or you don’t.”
The International Association of Chiefs of Police supports background checks for all gun sales. Period.
And the Virginia Tech Review Panel, which investigated the April 16 shootings, recommended that lawmakers eliminate exemptions, including the one known as the gun-show loophole, that allow criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to buy guns.
Background checks, said panel chairman and retired state police superintendent Gerald Massengill, don’t curb law-abiding citizens, but they might keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.
The law allows domestic abusers, drug addicts and people found to be mentally ill to bypass licensed gun dealers, who are required under federal law to do instant background checks on buyers for a small fee.
Too many guns have landed in the wrong hands. The shootings at Virginia Tech, at the mall in Nebraska, at a church and a missionary training school in Colorado, have made that clear.
It’s time for the legislature, at the start of its 2008 session, to say: Enough. There’s no reason to have a legal way for a criminal to get a gun.
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Background checks for private gun sales.
"It’s time for the legislature, at the start of its 2008 session, to say: Enough. There’s no reason to have a legal way for a criminal to get a gun."
What the hell are you talking about. There is NO LEGAL WAY for a criminal to get a gun. And passing more B.S. gun control laws will not stop them from acquiring them ILLEGALLY! Pull your head out of the sand and stop spreading all this anti-gun rhetoric. Gun control is not about guns...it's about government control over the private lives of its citizens. Also, check your history. Registration is the first step a government will take toward disarming its populace.
Idiot.
No, it wont end sales to
No, it wont end sales to those that shouldnt have them, but it will have some impact.
The only "impact" it would have is to make new and improved criminals out of unsuspecting, otherwise law abiding citizens. Use your head. Do you think a criminal would buy a Glock from a legal owner for $500 when he can buy a stolen one on the street for $100 (or a rock of crack)? This law would only affect law abiding citizens. Not criminals.
Even editors are logically challenged
Come on guys. So you want to make a law that requires every Virginian to do a background check if they sell a gun to their uncle or best friend or co-worker or wife or son or their neighbor in the national guard?
You must write fast because it seems that you write faster that you think. You remind me of my mom telling me in jr high school to think before I talk. At least go back and read what you write.
And the Va Tech panel should NOT have a voice in personal firearm sales between individuals because that is not how that crazy student got a gun.
Then you say, "Too many guns have landed in the wrong hands." And you use that as a reason to take away citizen's freedom. Well, I don't hear you saying that auto dealers and private citizens should not sell so many new and used cars because we already have too many accidents. Your poor use of reasoning is disappointing.
Agree
To sum up the other posters here, "Lets not even try". Rediculous. Closing the gunshow loophole and requiring background checks for private sellers should be implimented. No, it wont end sales to those that shouldnt have them, but it will have some impact. And god knows any impact would be helpful. There are more controls in place for car and dog licensing, than to gun buying and proper gun storage. "There is no proof" because we havent tried it. Closing the loophole is "concentrating on the criminals" by focusing on a method criminals use to aquire guns.
Impossible to Implement
I can't see how there is anyway you can realistically apply universal background checks on fireams sales. If a guy wants to sell a shotgun to his neighbor, he would have to go somewhere like a gun shop and pay a transfer fee and have the background check done. This scenario has a higher probability of making a criminals out of a normally law abiding citizens rather than stopping illegal gun sales.
Perhaps the public would be better served if they integrated the data from mental health facilities and the courts with the background check database better so people like Cho who had a background check and bought their gun through a dealer would be stopped before committing murder.
Fix the system we have instead of creating a new system only to make things harder for law abiding folks.
How?
How would mandated checks of private sales between individuals be implemented? The honor system? The only way to effectively monitor such a program would be registration. Registration has historically ALWAYS led to confiscation. And the bottom line is that criminals will just ignore this law like any other. The only people affected will be law abiding citizens. It is a "feel-good" measure that would accomplish nothing.
Nothing new from anti-gun group
It is my view that the police are the ones that are looking for ways to thwart law abiding citizens from defending themselves from these nuts who steal firearms to cause caos and meyhem. I really don't care what retired state police chief superintendent Gerald Massengill or the International Association of Police Chief think. Period. There are laws against murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, and the like. Heroin, crack cocaine, and methamphetamines are readily available despite laws prohibiting their possession. Does anyone believe that a felon cannot get a gun to use in a crime or whether they care they are in violation of Title 18 section 308 of the Virginia state code? Police cannot be everywhere. Requiring background checks at gun shows is a waste of time.
Use the laws we already have before adding more
It is not legal for a felon to buy a gun from anyone. A private seller is not required to consult the NICS database, but the felon knows he is a felon and cannot legally buy the gun.
Further, both State and Federal governments have misused background check information for unlawful data mining that could lead to a back door form of registration. Registration leads to confiscation, or at least makes it possible. I am far more worried about governments that are not restrained by law than criminals.
Another useless or worse idea
Why is the media so ignorant. There is no proof these things ever work. What makes it bad is that people think something is being done. So time and effort that could solve the real problem is mis-directed to this sort of nonsense. Concentrate on the criminals.