Virginia background checks for gun sales challenged

RICHMOND

Virginia's criminal background check system for firearm purchases, the first of its kind in the nation, is being targeted for elimination.

Gun-rights advocates have lobbied Gov. Bob McDonnell to scrap the program, arguing that it is redundant because a federal background check system can replace it.

Gun-control groups say doing so would take a valuable law enforcement tool away from Virginia State Police and undermine state gun laws.

Efforts to cancel the state's 22-year-old background check system, known as the Virginia Firearms Transaction Program, could be debated in the upcoming General Assembly session. Republicans will control state government for the first time since 2001 and a determined push to loosen state gun laws is expected.

Some of those supporting looser controls on guns are the National Rifle Association, which has urged Virginians to lobby McDonnell on background checks, and the Virginia Citizens Defense League.

A spokeswoman for McDonnell said "informal discussions with interested parties" about the background check system have been held and the subject remains under review.

Ending the state background check could be a tricky political issue for McDonnell, a pro-gun Republican who doesn't own firearms.

Doing away with it would likely shrink the state bureaucracy and at least nominally reduce spending, areas where the governor has worked to distinguish himself. But it also invites potential blowback from gun-control and public-safety advocates at a time that McDonnell is nurturing vice-presidential aspirations.

By law, prospective gun buyers must clear background investigations before dealers are permitted to sell to them.

The state program and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System screen purchasers for criminal history, illegal presence in the country, drug offenses, dishonorable military discharge, mental health adjudications and protective orders against them.

While there is overlap, the state system is not exactly the same as federal system, which has been around since 1998 and is overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Some Virginia standards are stricter than the federal prohibitions, State Police officials said, and ending the state program would undercut aspects of state gun law.

Among the key disparities: State protective order rules apply to more family situations than the federal standards; Virginia's drug policy disqualifies buyers for longer periods of time; and rules on foreign-born purchasers differ.

What's more, Virginia law blocks people with juvenile felony convictions from obtaining a weapon. Because the state severely limits access to state juvenile criminal records, however, information about youthful felonies doesn't appear in the federal background check system.

There's also a difference between how the state and federal systems view mental health treatment.

Both bar those who have been involuntarily committed from purchasing guns.

But Virginia law also specifies that someone evaluated under a temporary detention order who then submits to voluntary treatment would be barred from purchasing a weapon - an outgrowth of the response to Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho's history with the mental health system.

Perhaps most distressing to some gun-control advocates, the federal system doesn't limit handgun purchases to one a month, as Virginia law does. As a delegate, McDonnell voted for the one-gun-a-month law, but he has since said he would sign legislation overturning it.

Getting rid of "the piece of law that's stuck in our craw since 1993" is a goal for gun-rights activists, said Virginia Citizens Defense League president Philip Van Cleave.

Like the NRA, Van Cleave's group has problems with the state background check system, but for different reasons: Members says it has ceased to be the rapid-response system it was initially billed as.

"There was a promise made to gun owners back then that this was going to be so smooth, so quick," Van Cleave said, noting that at the system's inception, "state police in Virginia were showing everyone in the nation how this should be done."

Over time, he said, the federal system has eclipsed Virginia's program.

State Police officials said any delays in processing checks and replying to gun dealers is due to steady growth in application volume even as the economy has dipped and the number of staffers doing the checks has shrunk. The department processed roughly 276,000 transactions last year.

Gun-rights advocates also bridle at the $2 state fee charged to purchasers, which goes to the State Police to offset program costs. There is no such federal fee, they say.

Response times might improve, State Police say, if legislation to boost the criminal history check fee clears the General Assembly.

A bill to boost the fee to $5 was filed by Sen. John Watkins in 2009, but it died in the House of Delegates. Watkins is a Powhatan County Republican who, like McDonnell, voted for the handgun limit law in the 1990s but now favors repealing it.

However, he doesn't support doing away with state background checks because he fears it would undermine Virginia standards.

"I'm worried that the federal system is not going to protect us from the sale of weapons to people like Cho," Watkins said. "The system has got to work better and the only way I think you're going to get that is to set your own standards and impose them."

That sentiment is shared by others who support keeping the state system.

"Our state police are leaders in the country in processing background checks," keeping guns away from those disqualified to purchase them and apprehending those who try to illegally obtain firearms, said Lori Haas, a board member with the Virginia Center for Public Safety and the mother of a student shot at Virginia Tech in 2007.