One gun a month should be enough

The irony - and absurdity - of Del. Scott Lingamfelter's statements on handguns seemed to fly right over his head. Or maybe he ducked, just in time.

The Prince William Republican, a gun rights absolutist, explained that there's no longer any reason for Virginia to keep its one-handgun-a-month law, which passed in 1993 under Gov. Doug Wilder. "The rationale for this statute has been neutered by all the exemptions that now exist," he said. "Criminals who are inclined to break the law don't obey this one."

Well, part of the reason the 1993 law has so many loopholes is that the delegate and his colleagues in the General Assembly have continued to weaken it. On Tuesday, the repeal passed the House of Delegates.

Criminals, by their very definition, aren't good about walking the straight and narrow. The idea behind the law was to make it as tough as possible for crooks to obtain firearms they could resell for ready cash. Repealing the law will make their task easier.

Lingamfelter, in another head-scratching moment, said improvements in instant criminal background checks make the law obsolete.

But a subcommittee of the House Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee - the same committee that passed his bill - last month killed a measure to close the gun-show loophole and require private dealers to use that same system. Currently, prospective buyers from private sellers get to skirt the system Lingamfelter thinks is so critical.

Taken together, the gun show loophole and repeal of one handgun a month could easily be called something else: The Strawman's Bill of Rights.

Law enforcement officials and big-city mayors north of Virginia, especially along the East Coast, have long complained about "the iron pipeline." That's the Interstate 95 route in which handguns bought in the commonwealth of Virginia travel to criminals elsewhere.

Straw purchasers - people with clean criminal records who can pass background checks - buy the firearms initially, then turn them over to illegal gun dealers. They, in turn, resell the guns.

The trade is so deadly and disruptive outside Virginia that officials elsewhere have actually come to the commonwealth to investigate illegal sales. That should mortify Richmond, but those embarrassments have instead prompted Virginia lawmakers to try to make the investigations illegal.

All the Wilder-era law does is restrict the ability of straw purchasers to buy handguns. It does not limit the sale of rifles and shotguns. Law-abiding citizens can still buy up to 12 handguns in any given year. It's a very reasonable tool.

If the General Assembly passes Lingamfelter's bill, it can take comfort knowing that more handguns - the overwhelming weapon of choice in street crimes - will flood communities from Hampton Roads to Richmond, New York and beyond.

That's one way for lawmakers to burnish their gun bona fides. It's also a terrible legacy that they won't be able to duck.