Loophole ‘solution’ shifts burden

Closing the Virginia gun show loophole (“Closing Virginia’s gun show loophole,” The Daily Progress, Oct. 18) is a fine idea. Problem is, none of the change’s proponents are addressing the other side’s concerns about how this will be done. The real fight here is about money, not safety or lawful conduct.
Freelance gun sellers — private citizens or small business owners whose primary business is not the sale of firearms — will be required to run background checks on everyone they sell to. Currently, they are required to run such checks only if they are licensed.
Freelance sellers will also be required to pay for those background checks, which probably means paying a larger gun seller to run the National Instant Criminal Background Check System check for them because the relevant databases (containing oodles of personal information) are not public record.
Big business will swallow neighborhood enterprise, and some sales conducted exactly as before will simply be criminalized. Suddenly, there will be a new crime wave taxpayers have to pay for the government to address, although the public safety picture will not have changed a pixel.
If the government wants to require an extra bureaucratic dance from everyone at the disco, it ought to foot the bill. Otherwise, closing the loophole will only create more crime — by criminalizing the sale of firearms between small sellers and bargain-shoppers who can’t afford to pay for the government to do its job.
Make the criminal background check available to freelance sellers free of charge at a booth staffed by a public servant, and the Virginia gun show loophole will close itself.

Katelyn Sack
Charlottesville