Paranoid Pentagon Shooter Obtains Firearm Through Gun Show Loophole
WASHINGTON --- Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, issued the following statement about news reports that John Patrick Bedell, the dangerously mentally ill California man who opened fire on police guarding the Pentagon March 4, was armed with a gun sold without a Brady background check at a gun show in Las Vegas, Nevada:
"If media reports are correct, a dangerous and delusional man was denied a gun by a Brady background check in California, but was able to arm himself with a gun purchased at a Las Vegas gun show without a Brady background check.
“Again we see the cost of the loophole in the Brady Law that allows guns to be purchased from so-called private sellers, most often at gun shows, without a background check. A man is dead, and two law enforcement officers are recovering from gunshot wounds, and Congress still refuses to take action to close this loophole. The Pentagon attack shows that our weak gun laws are not just a public safety issue but also a national security issue.
“Nearly a hundred members of Congress have signed on as cosponsors of legislation to require background checks on firearm sales at gun shows. It is long past time to close this dangerous loophole.”
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If it is a loophole it is a "private citizen sale", a "classified ads" or a "I'll do what I want with my stuff" loophole.
All Federally Licensed Firearm Dealers MUST preform a background check. If there was no background check then he bought the gun from an individual. It could have happened anyplace and the purchase at a gun show is a strawman.
Every state has laws that prohibit certain persons from obtaining firearms , why do we need another that prohibits the same people from obtaining firearms?
FFL's run background checks, private sellers do not. A private sale could occur anywhere- this is true. Gun show are fairly unique events in that they concentrate many private sellers, who intend to sell guns , with willing buyers. Private sales are really the issue, and "gun show loophole" doesn't do the best job of summarizing the full legal picture.
There are federal laws outlawing possession by a prohibited person, but without a background check, the transaction can still take place.
The endless, petty, back and forth between pro and anti gun regulation is so tiresome and ultimately most of it is meaningless. No single case of either where more gun control could have helped or where someone owning a gun helped is indicative of anything!
Individual cases are immaterial in the scope of a national or state law decision, since practically anything can happen once. What I really care about are statistics and logical arguments. So even though I tend to come down on the gun control side of the argument I am extremely disappointed in the brady campaign parading this example.
If the debate continues with both sides combing the newstories for hard-hitting, emotion based examples to make their cases I will continue to disregard their positions.
Most discussion of the "help" of gun ownership is by necessity purely conjectural. The examples of fatalities by criminal owners of purchased guns are real. I doubt the intent of the writer who "tend(s) to the control side"