Close the gun-show loophole

— Whether it’s the indelible horror of the massacre at Newtown, Conn., or the tone-deaf response of the National Rifle Association and its allies who have shown themselves so hysterical and paranoid on the subject of gun rights, the public’s hunger for action on gun violence shows little sign of weakening.

As a Republican candidate for president, Sen. John McCain endorsed closing the “gunshow loophole” that allows gun buyers to avoid background checks when they make purchases at such gatherings from sellers who are not fulltime firearms dealers.

The NRA wasn’t pleased by his position, but it didn’t stop the influential group from endorsing him in the 2008 contest despite its having declined to endorse some Republican presidential nominees in the past. Clearly, background checks are not wholly unpalatable to gun-rights advocates-or at least they haven’t been.

Why? Because a background check isn’t really about controlling guns but about controlling convicted felons, drug addicts and the seriously mentally ill with violent tendencies, who shouldn’t have access to a gun in the first place. These are the potential “bad guys with guns” that the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre thinks are best addressed by “good guys with guns.” But most rational people would agree that it’s far better to keep the gun out of the bad guy’s hands in the first place.

Some states have closed this loophole on their own, but the majority have not. And studies have shown that gun shows are a major source of firearms for those who shouldn’t be allowed to own them. Research by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosivesfound such shows to be the second-leading source of illegally diverted guns, after straw purchases (where those who can’t qualify to buy a gun have a third party do it for them).

Make no mistake, this is not the whole solution to gun violence, and it likely would have had little impact on the circumstances at Sandy Hook Elementary School or at the movie theater in Aurora, Colo. But to a vast majority of Americans, it seems ludicrous to not require criminal background checks of all gun purchases. Polls have shown that even NRA members overwhelmingly support criminal background checks.

Closing the gun-show loophole is only a start. It’s also necessary to make the background checks meaningful and accurate, and in this, the current National Instant Criminal Background Check System supervised by the Federal Bureau of Investigation has often been found wanting. The databases will need to be made more thorough, accurate and up to date, a step that will likely require not only greater investment by Uncle Sam but grappling with some difficult privacy and states’ rights issues, particularly in identifying chronic drug abusers and the dangerously mentally ill. Currently, at least 19 states don’t even attempt to report such people to the system.

Liberals may not get all that excited by the prospect of improved background checks, but such reforms are likely to have a greater impact on the nation’s gun violence than a ban on assault weapons, which are not what run-of-themill murderers tend to use. That’s not to suggest that limiting access to certain types of weapons and high-capacity magazines isn’t important, too, but a universal background check is just too sensible for Washington to refuse any longer.

Editorial, Pages 14 on 01/17/2013

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