It’s Clear, We Need to Close the Gun Show Loophole
By Joel McDonald • Feb 10th, 2010 • Category: Blog, Related News
You know, I’ve never written about guns or gun control. On more than one occasion I’ve mentioned that I don’t have a problem with people owning guns or even being licensed to conceal them. This isn’t an issue that is close to home for me, and I don’t swing to what some would say is the radical left in demanding that citizens not be allowed to acquire guns. I do, however, believe in gun control.
I feel that, just as with anything in society that could cause significant harm or death, there should be a process through which a person should go through to purchase or carry a weapon. I wouldn’t want to board a flight with untrained and irresponsible pilots or share the highway with unproven drivers; why would I want to live in a society that did nothing to keep untrained, irresponsible, and unproven people from acquiring guns, especially when guns were developed for the sole purpose of killing or maiming.
We have a problem in Virginia. The problem is that our state legislature keeps allowing guns to be sold without any sort of protections in place. No background checks, no sales records, nothing. These types of sales happen at gun shows throughout the state, and even though the problem is known, and there are those who are fighting to solve this problem, Virginia is such a place where anyone can walk up to to a dealer at a gun show and purchase a deadly weapon; possibly untrained, irresponsible, and unproven.
To understand the depth and reality of this problem, please watch this video.
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Joel McDonald has been following Virginia politics since February 2008, starting with the Democratic Presidential Primary. Since then, he has been the primary new media contact for progressive district and statewide campaigns.
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Why is this video from 9 months ago getting circulation again?
Joel, I appreciate your reluctance to question gun ownership. Maybe you have never lost a loved one or been personally confronted by someone wielding a gun in your life’s orbit. We live in a 24/7 news cycle (tv or print media) that says if it bleeds it leads. I have read too many headlines about innocent people being murdered or maimed by guns. The ususal excuses are always given. The shooter was a criminal, a recently laid off worker, an undiagnosed mental patient, a recently wronged lover, marital infidelity, someone just snapped, a child playing with a loaded gun. It’s all so innocent. We are enured to what the Second ammendment has done to the now nameless and faceless victims that have paid the ultimate price for us to form a militia when under attack. We have but hollow words to offer to those who have lost people that mattered in their lives. The last time I checked there are no men wearing tricorn hats and there are no Redcoats invading my neighborhood. Everytime there is a mass shooting or I read or view news about another death by gun, I tell myself it is just another body or bodies laid on the Altar of the Second Amendment. Someday, I hope there will be a tipping point when reasonable americans are weary of the senseless death that occurs every day in this country because of an amendment written when the Red Coats were coming to claim us for Mother England. The NRA is a business. They make millions of dollars every year inciting fear and paranoia. Meanwhile, we lose our loved ones, neighbors and acquaintances every day to preserve a Second Amendment. IMO, my right to live and not be shot by a gun supercedes anyones right to own a gun.
Jamie,
9 months ago we were focused on a heated primary battle between Brian Moran, Terry McAuliffe, and Creigh Deeds. I don’t watch much TV, so I would have easily missed it.
Frances,
I appreciate your comment and arguments on restricting gun ownership. I think there is room for argument on both sides of this issue, as at the root of the debate is how those when are intent on doing harm will do so. Will they go out of their way to acquire guns, will they use other weapons? If guns are completely banned, will those who have no regard for the law continue to acquire guns while those who are law abiding citizens are left unarmed relying on the speed of police to respond to a home invasion or other incident?
I absolutely agree that your right to live supersedes anyone’s right to own a gun. However, I would also respectfully submit that you’re living is a constant in your life, while the threat of having your life ended by gun violence is not, and gun ownership alone does not represent a threat to your right to live. The issue is deeper and more chaotic than any clear black/white argument.
I do feel that we should be doing everything in our power to ensure that those purchasing guns be trained and responsible, and not closing the gun show loophole keeps us from doing this.
More importantly, we should close the blog loophole to the exercise of First Amendment rights.
Oh! You don’t think there is such a thing as “loopholes” to First Amendment rights?
Pity you don’t have as much respect for the Second Amendment, the constitutional right that ACTUALLY secures liberty.
James,
I respect the 2nd Amendment due to it being in the Constitution. However, I would argue that the right to bear arms was said to be needed in order to have a “well regulated militia” for the security of the “State”, and that closing the gunshow loophole would not, in any way, stand in the way of the formation of a well regulated militia.
…and then there’s the argument over the actual necessity of a militia independent of the standing military in these days.
The notion that the Second Amendment “secures liberty” in one that may give some warm fuzzies, but I think most would see it as being archaic. I don’t think those you would view as governing tyrants really care what you have proudly displayed in your gun case.
Sorry, You don’t like my opinion. What are you going to do, come over to my house and beat me up?
You seem to be pretty reasonable about the issue, unlike some of your readers.
Attempting to paint the 99.98% of law abiding gun owners with the same brush as the .02% of criminals who abuse guns is no more valid this time as it has been the previous umpty-million times it’s been tried.
The NRA is not a “business”. It is a non-profit organization just like the American Red Cross, The Humane Society of the United States or The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership…er…Violence.
Arguments that the Second Amendment only applies to militia service were firmly put to rest by the Heller decision. Until that decision is overturned, the individual right to keep and bear arms unconnected with militia service is the law of the land.
Besides, according to the Code of Virginia, Title 44, Section 44-1, every citizen of Virginia from 16 to 55 is a member of the militia. You are likely all members of the militia whether you want to be or not.
But to get back to the point of your post:
In showing that ABC piece, I have to wonder if you are aware that the Virginia Tech perpetrator did not get his guns from gun shows. He actually got them from licensed dealers after passing the required background checks. He passed the checks due to a loophole (an actual one) in the mental health reporting requirements. That loophole has since been closed…an action that was supported by both the NRA and Virginia state level gun rights organizations.
Although you, your readers, and ABC obviously have every right to support legislation to require background checks for private sales at gun shows, the implication that such legislation has anything at all to do with Virginia Tech or its victims is patently specious.
The implication that passing such legislation would be “closing a loophole” is also specious.
The fact is that the provision in the law that exempts private citizens from the background check and record keeping requirements applicable to licensed dealers was an intentional provision designed to protect the personal property and privacy rights of citizens. It is not an unintentional oversight that allows one to skirt the law, it is an intentional and integral part of the law.
Secondly, the provision in question applies equally everywhere, it has nothing to do with gun shows.
Legislation requiring background checks to be run by private citizens at gun shows would not be closing a loophole, it would be creating a special case in the law that infringes upon the property and privacy rights of citizens, but ONLY at gun shows.
The most important question to be asked about any any legislation that would criminalize an otherwise lawful act is: would this legislation be effective in its intended goal?
In this case, since all a seller and buyer would have to do is go across the street to make the sale perfectly legally sans background checks, it is painfully obvious that this law would do absolutely nothing to impact the availability of firearms to criminals. All it would really do is create criminals out of otherwise law abiding citizens who are unaware of the special rules that apply only at gun shows.
It is already a federal felony for a prohibited person to possess a firearm. It is already a federal felony for an private citizen to knowingly transfer a firearm to a prohibited person. It is already a federal felony for individuals to “engage in the business” of selling firearms without a license and the record keeping and background checks that such a license entails.
Versus enacting feel-good, obviously ineffectual laws that criminalize lawful activities and infringe upon the privacy and property rights of the law abiding, how about we concentrate on enforcing the laws already on the books that penalize actual criminal behavior?