Virginia's superior gun check system

If Virginia has a choice between two background check systems for people who want to buy guns, it should use the better one.

Right now, the better system belongs to the state, not the federal government.

When Virginia established its point-of-sale background check program in 1989, it was the first of its type. Virginia built its program around state police-maintained databases that provide near-instant review of criminal and other records that would block a sale.

A similar national program was established in 1998. Gun buyers in Virginia currently submit to background checks through both systems. Complaints about slow processing times and a $2 fee for Virginia's check have fueled the call for a move to a single system.

The National Rifle Association is among the groups lobbying the governor. It says Virginia's system is redundant to the national system and that other states rely only on the federal system.

The state background check does overlap the federal check in many ways. Both look for criminal history, residency status, dishonorable military discharge.

But Virginia's laws prescribe crucial differences.

Its rules for protective orders apply to more situations than federal standards. Virginia prevents people with juvenile felony convictions from buying weapons, and rightly guards access to its juvenile criminal information.

Most importantly, Virginia's law requires that a person whose mental health is evaluated under a temporary detention order who then voluntarily enters treatment be prevented from buying a weapon. That law came about after Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman who killed 32 people and himself on the campus of Virginia Tech in April 2007, bought a gun after a judge issued a court order finding that Cho was a threat to himself and requiring him to seek outpatient treatment.

Virginia also limits handgun purchases to one a month. Federal law imposes no limit on the number of guns sold in a single purchase.

That is the real reason for the push to switch from the state to the federal standard. The federal rules are looser and laxer.

The push to embrace the federal standard is an especially instructive bit of logical gymnastics when it comes from legislators and activists ordinarily slavish to the principles of states' rights.

If anything, Virginia should do more to enforce its superior procedures on legal gun purchases.

Last month, an investigation by Mayors Against Illegal Guns found that five of eight Internet sellers in Virginia agreed to sell guns illegally when investigators said they probably couldn't pass a background check. Two of the sellers were in Chesapeake and Suffolk.

A short delay, a $2 fee and a one-gun-per-month limit seem but minor inconveniences to ensure that only those who may legally purchase guns can do so in Virginia. The state should retain its background check system until the federal program matches or surpasses it.