Posted on 11/29/2007 1:31:04 PM PST by neverdem
RICHMOND
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine called Tuesday for new restrictions on firearm sales at gun shows but stopped short of declaring passage of the legislation as a high priority for the 2008 General Assembly session.
Under current law, background checks on buyers are not required by unlicensed dealers who privately sell and trade firearms at the shows.
Kaine endorsed closing the loophole, saying it provides an opening for felons and mentally ill people to buy weapons they are otherwise forbidden to purchase.
"You either want felons to have guns or you don't,"
Kaine said on a morning radio show. "You want people who are mentally adjudicated to be dangerous to have guns or you don't. If you don't want them to, then you ought to close that gun show loophole."
In the wake of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech, the General Assembly this winter is expected to vigorously debate gun control. Seung-Hui Cho, an emotionally troubled Tech
senior, fatally shot 32 students and professors before killing himself.
In August, an eight-member task force appointed by Kaine to investigate the killings recommended in its final report that the gun show loophole be closed.
Former state police Superintendent Gerald Massengill, whom Kaine appointed to head the task force, has been calling for the end of the loophole in a series of speeches and interviews. Massengill has said the only exemption to background checks should be for gun sales and trades among family members.
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Kaine criticized the gun show exemption when he ran for governor in 2005 and in the days after the Tech shooting. He repeated his concern Tuesday in response to a listener's question during the governor's monthly call-in show on WTOP radio in Washington.
Later in the day, Gordon Hickey, Kaine's press secretary, said the governor has not decided whether he will spend political capital to expand background checks.
"Just because he said it doesn't make it the highest priority," Hickey said. "He hasn't gotten anywhere near making that kind of decision yet."
The legislation will travel an uphill road in the General
Assembly. Bills to close the gun show loophole have been defeated three years in a row in the state Senate. The House of Delegates, which has not taken up the measure recently, strongly backs gun rights.
Gun advocates note that Cho legally purchased his guns, even though he was held overnight in a mental hospital in 2005 and judged an "imminent danger" to himself. Because his hospitalization was brief, it was not reported to law enforcement officials and not detected on background checks when Cho bought firearms.
After the Tech shootings, Kaine issued more rigorous guidelines for reporting dangerous mental health problems to law enforcement officials.
House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, said if the General Assembly "wants to make sure there's no repeat of Cho," it should focus on mental health reform, not gun control. "That's a much better long-term solution than taking away rights from law-abiding citizens," he said.
Warren Fiske, (804) 697-1565, warren.fiske@pilotonline.com
Is that for long guns or handguns, or both?
In CT. if you want to buy a handgun at a show, it's just as if you were in the gun store. Full background check, must have a CCW, etc.
b.s. Here is Ga. they run background checks in gun shows.
Kaine's legislation would require any private individual selling a firearm to do a background check first, effectively requiring all sales go through a licensed dealer.
There's no such thing as a "private dealer". The reporter (as usual) hasn't a clue.
Why not do background checks on workers to send the illegals packing for home!
Of course that dolt Kaine never brings up this fact that his proposed restrictions would not have prevented Cho from killing.
What may have prevented Cho from killing is if someone on campus, other than himself, was armed. Of course, Kaine won't go there.
...only if you're buying from a retail outfit with a booth at the show. There are a fair number of face-to-face private sales at the shows too.
That said, I don't see much distinction between an in-state, FTF transaction whether it's at a gunshow or over an internet equipment exchange or on the tailgate of my truck at the shooting range. This is just more anti-gun bravo sierra.
Making it harder for innocent civilians to own firearms does not PROTECT innocent civilians from felonious actions.
Felons will get their hands on weapons no matter what Governors like this idiot try and pass into law. This isn't about "criminal control", it's just plain old CONTROL he is after.
This guy is either Stupid, Insane, or just plain Evil.
That's a contradiction in terms. If someone is selling a firearm privately, HE'S NOT A DEALER. He's a private citizen.
The Eyebrow (Kaine) and the Virginian-Puke are lying to you.
I'd rather arm felons than disarm non felons.
Besides, I assume that felons that want guns already have them.
But Guv, I'd say to you that you either want maximum freedom for your subjects or you don't.
"You either want felons to have guns or you don't,"
And I imagine in five or less years we will see the same quote used to "close the private sale loophole"
Good Lord.
A $50 fake ID fools NICS everytime; as long as the phony ID doesn’t have a record........
More media “code” words. “Unlicensed Dealer” means an individual. So you can’t sell your property if it is a firearm unless it is through an “approved” network and sanctioned by the government.
The heck with that. If a citizen can’t be trusted with a firearm, they shouldn’t be loose.
NICS can’t prove you are not whom you tell it you are:
A. Undercover Agents Were Successful in All States Attempted
The GAO undercover agents were successful in purchasing firearms with false identifications from licensed dealers in all five states they attempted: Virginia, West Virginia,
Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona. Their success rate was 100%. In no instance did NICS background checks detect that the GAO agents were using false identifications, and in no
instance did gun dealers refrain from selling weapons to the agents. The GAO report is attached
as Exhibit 1 to this report.5
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20040608092918-29119.pdf
Thank you. Cho’s purchase was illegal, but the state of Virginia never forwarded the info to the feds Insta-check system.
The state completely failed it citizens and the students at VA Tech. Now, they want more laws.
What is it Red Forman used to say...? Dumb-a55!
Virginia does not place restrictions on sales of firearms between individuals. A gunshow is simply a venue, and a guy trying to sell off last season’s Marlin 30-30 is not a loophole, but a citizen looking to modify his collection.
ruefully
Uh.....I wouldn't know!
Thanks for the link.
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