Law enforcement officials back closing the 'gun-show loophole' [View all]

[Meiko]

I for one am glad to see this and it has been a long time coming. This will close one of the gateways that is currently being used for people to buy guns who should't ordinarily be able to own a gun. I just hope they don't try and load up the legislation with a bunch of unrelated non-sense. Time will tell as I don't think any real legislation has of yet been written.

Law enforcement officials from across the state on Tuesday called for stricter background checks to make it more difficult for criminals to obtain firearms if they are prohibited by law from having guns.

"This is not about infringing on people's right to own guns, purchase guns, sell guns," Fairfax City Police Chief Richard J. Rappoport said. "Law enforcement and lawmakers ought to sit down and try to figure out how we can regulate that in a way that keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous people."

Rappoport, a past president of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, joined several law enforcement officials from around Virginia and elsewhere at a news conference Tuesday at the Berkeley Hotel in Richmond.

Speakers said they support a federal law that would close the so-called "gun-show loophole," which allows buyers to purchase from unlicensed sellers without having to go through a criminal background check.

"We need a federal law to address these issues," said Hubert Williams, chairman of the National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence.

Rappoport said a solution needs to be found to keep dangerous people from going online, putting the word out that they need a gun and getting one without having to submit to a background check.

"A person can go on the Internet using the pseudonym 'Fred' and arrange to buy a semiautomatic weapon from someone using the pseudonym 'Sam' and meet in a dark parking lot and money exchange hands and weapons exchange hands," he said.

Rappoport said those kinds of sales need to be made illegal "so that we move legitimate buyers and legitimate sellers into a legitimate marketplace that's regulated."

Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun-rights organization, countered that people should be able to meet and sell guns just as they would sell anything else online at sites such as Craigslist.com.

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http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/jun/27/tdmet02-law-enforcement-officials-back-closing-the-ar-2015984/