Gun-crazy Virginia
Anyone who wonders in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy whether the state of Virginia seriously wants to stop illegal guns sales should consider this story in today's Washington Post. Virginia's Republican attorney general has issued a cease-and-desist letter of sorts to police in New York City. Why, you ask? New York police were conducting gun stings at Virginia gun shops, hoping to make a dent in the "straw purchase" market.
It's easy to buy a gun in Virginia, as the murderous rampage at Virginia Tech showed. But far less publicized violence involving guns purchased illegally in Virginia occur nearly every day on the streets of New York and elsewhere on the East Coast. What New York undercover investigators did was send a man and a woman into the gun shop armed with hidden cameras. The man picked out a gun, then the woman filled out the paperwork in her own name. Then the man paid cash for the gun and carried it out of the store. That's how a straw purchase works. Someone without a criminal record buys guns in an easy-gun state like Virginia then resells them or turns them over to the bad guys in states and cities where gun laws are much tougher.
New York used the evidence in civil suits against Virginia gun dealers, and some of them signed consent agreements to stop. Howls of outrage from the gun lobby when the New York stings became known led the Virginia legislature to pass a law requiring an officer from a Virginia police organization or the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to be present when the sting went down. Everyone knows that those officers just 'wouldn't be available' at the proper time. Violations would be a felony. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office suggested that if Virginia would enforce it's gun laws, such stings wouldn't be necessary.