Virginia Gun Debate Goes to Congress; Tech Victims, Families Lobby on Gun Show Rules

By Stephen Groves, of Virginia Statehouse News Friday, July 16, 2010

Washington, DC - Survivors and family members of the victims of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting took their fight to require private gun collectors to perform background checks to Congress on Wednesday.

Advocates of tightening the law to require background checks for all vendors at gun shows crowded into the U.S. House Judiciary Committee room at the forum hosted by U.S. Reps. Bobby Scott, D-Va., Michael Castle, R-Del., Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY, and Mike Quigley, D-Ill.
Currently, to buy a gun from a private collector in Virginia, people only need identification that proves Virginia residency. Commercial dealers, on the other hand, are required to run a background check before selling a gun.

Gun control groups say the law allows people who wouldn’t normally be allowed to purchase a gun to get their hands on guns.

But opponents of the legislation say that guns bought from private collectors are rarely used in crimes, and they are a part of their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Advocates of requiring private collectors to perform background checks at gun shows have been trying for several years to pass laws at both the federal and state levels. But the move doesn’t seem to be gaining traction in Virginia. State lawmakers shot down bills introduced in the Virginia House and Senate last year. Both bills failed to make it past their respective committees. The farthest a bill got was being voted down on the floor of the Virginia Senate in 2009.

Thirty-seven states allow private collectors to sell guns at gun shows without performing a background check. Now, advocates for requiring the background checks are taking their case to the federal government.

The “Gun Show Loophole Closing Act of 2009,” is not expected to go very far, especially in an election year when members of Congress are trying to avoid getting their hands dirty with issues such as this one. But advocates of the legislation said they saw it as a first step and a way to draw attention to what they call “a loophole.”

“Being in this location and having this many people together has got to be positive for us,” said Andrew Goddard, whose son was injured during the Virginia Tech shootings. “We want to go through a formal hearing. Then we could have the other side represented, and we could debate it out in public through that.”

He said the eventual goal was to bring the bill to the floor of the House to have it voted on.

Among the contingent from Virginia who spoke were Goddard, and Col. Gerald Massengill, a retired Virginia State Police Superintendent.

Massengill compared buying a gun from a private collector at a gun show “like buying a candy bar from a candy store – you can just walk up and buy it.”

The Virginia Tech shootings are frequently used as a rallying point to require the background checks. While the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, did not purchase his guns from a private collector, he had been deemed mentally ill by a Virginia special justice. Laws have since been passed that would prevent someone in Cho’s condition from purchasing a firearm from a licensed dealer. But the families of Virginia Tech victims have taken the fight to gun shows.

As Massengill pointed out, “Where would such a shooter today go to buy a firearm?” He would likely go to a gun show where a gun can be bought without passing a background check, he said.

But any legislation that tightens gun control can be unpopular.

Goddard said legislators hesitate to pass laws that threaten any gun rights. “A lot of lawmakers have a lot of things on their plate, and they don’t want to take on any extra risk.”