Proving, of course, that the calls for more gun control in the wake of the Hokie Horror are as doomed to failure as the laws currently on the books.

Under federal law, the Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho should have been prohibited from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a state official and several legal experts said Friday.

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective,” as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from buying a gun.

The special justiceÂ’s order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of VirginiaÂ’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.

A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said that if Mr. Cho had been found mentally defective by a court, he should have been denied the right to purchase a gun.

The federal law defines adjudication as a mental defective to include “determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority” that as a result of mental illness, the person is a “danger to himself or others.”

Mr. ChoÂ’s ability to buy two guns despite his history has brought new attention to the adequacy of background checks that scrutinize potential gun buyers. And since federal gun laws depend on states for enforcement, the failure of Virginia to flag Mr. Cho highlights the often incomplete information provided by states to federal authorities.

So the problem is not a lack of laws, it is the inadequacy of the enforcement of those laws (sounds rather like our border situation, doesn't it?). So our choice is to more stringently enforce the laws on the book -- or to round up the 250,000,000 to 300,000,000 guns that are in private hands in this country. The latter is a virtually impossible job -- if we cannot find and expel 12 million illegal aliens, how could we possibly round up and destroy 20-25 times as many guns -- as well as a betrayal of our constitutional heritage. So enforcement it must be, unless America is willing to wake up and see that fewer gun laws, rather than more limitations on a constitutional right, may just be the proper solution.

Posted by: Greg at 02:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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