Lax Rules at Gun Shows

An unwieldy infringement on the 2nd Amendment’s right of access to guns. That’s the nonsense the House stuck to last summer as it defeated an extension of the Brady law’s background check to gun shows. Do House members seriously believe that prospective gun owners with a criminal conviction or a history of mental instability, already blocked from buying a gun in a store, deserve “access” to a firearm at gun shows and swap meets? If not, how else can they explain their failure to meet in conference committee with their Senate colleagues, who last summer adopted tough language requiring the background checks at gun shows. House conferees have unfortunately revealed themselves as little more than mindless captives to the gun lobby’s campaign largess and pressure tactics.

The Senate’s gun show provision, part of its $1-billion juvenile crime bill, would close a big loophole in the 1992 Brady law that exempts handgun sales at swap meets and gun shows from the background check requirements imposed on gun stores.

The Senate bill also mandates that new handguns be sold with trigger locks and bans the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines. The public overwhelmingly supports these steps--89% of California voters, according to a recent Times poll.

A newly published Justice Department report shows why: The Brady law has stopped the purchase of an estimated 100,000 handguns by felons, fugitives and those with a history of serious mental instability. Surely even the most ardent gun enthusiasts don’t believe felons have any business owning guns.

Yet the House defeated proposals to include the Senate’s gun show language, and a conference committee that is supposed to iron out differences in the two versions met only once, with no future meetings scheduled.

Republican committee leaders claim Democrats are asking too much with the gun show provision and could jeopardize the many valuable programs in the juvenile crime bill of which it is a part. Yet preventing more crime by keeping guns out of the wrong hands is a far wiser use of taxpayer funds than appropriating billions to punish or rehabilitate criminals after the fact. The conference committee should take up the juvenile crime bill now and adopt the Senate’s gun show language.