Today’s gun policy editorial in the Star

by David Safier

Today's Star editorial addresses the system designed to keep guns out of the hands of people who [almost] everyone agrees should not have guns. You know, criminals, the mentally ill, people like that.

The three main problems the editorial said need to be fixed: 1) the "gunshow loophole"; 2) the lack of complete information in the hands of the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System); and 3) the lack of a higher threshhold to prohibit the mentally ill from buying guns.

Excerpts from the editorial:

1. Federal law only requires that background checks be made by federally licensed gun sellers. That means an estimated 40 percent of "secondary market" (garage sales, flea markets, co-workers, shooting range pals) gun purchases aren't subject to any background check. [snip]
2. The FBI runs the computerized [NICS] system but relies heavily on states to feed in accurate, complete information. That's not working.
   According to a 2007 study by Third Way, which Politico.com describes as a moderate think tank, one-quarter of all felony convictions weren't then in the NICS computer. Worse, 90 percent of disqualifying mental health records were not either; the U.S. Justice Department reported that 28 states – including Arizona – were providing either few or no mental health records to NICS. [snip]
3. [Jared Lee Loughner] passed an NICS check when he bought his semi-automatic Glock at a Tucson store in November. The bizarre behaviors that prompted his college to ban him until he produced a mental health evaluation weren't enough to prevent the purchase. The fact that Loughner had been arrested on misdemeanor drug charges wasn't either.

Once again, kudos to the Star for taking a strong stand on this important issue.

GUN POLICY OP ED: The Star also ran an op ed, Other nations' restrictive gun laws cut down on shooting deaths, comparing our gun laws to those of other nations. The author, David Hemenway, is "Professor of Health Policy Director, Harvard Injury Control Research Center Harvard School of Public Health."