Gun sale loopholes guarantee eventual disastrous ending

Is it the rule of law or is it the rule of loopholes?
If you needed more ammunition to question the “gun show loophole” a recent local arrest was right on target.
Backgrou nd checks screen for individuals not permitted by law to own a gun, including criminals and those who pose a public safety threat.
But it’s perfectly legal not to perform background checks in private sales of firearms sold or traded at gun shows by private individuals in 29 states, including West Virginia.
Federal law does require background checks on guns sold by federally licensed dealers and many sales at gun shows are by licensed dealers.
However, recently, authorities arrested two men, both convicted felons, after they purchased two handguns at a local gun show from a private citizen.
Estimates vary between 22%-40% of firearms are sold without a background check at such gun shows..
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF), that participated in last week’s local arrests, estimates 5,000 gun shows are held yearly in the U.S.
These shows attracts tens of thousands and result in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of guns. Altogether, private sales account for millions of adults acquiring guns with background checks.
How many are used in random crimes, domestic violence, or are sold to persons suffering mental illness or are felons and so on is not known.
But it’s safe to say just one incident where firearms fall into the wrong hands without a proper background check can result in a tragedy beyond reckoning.
Want a good example, a little more than five years ago a convicted felon killed four people and took his own life in Monongalia County after buying a 9 mm handgun online.
We’re unsure but more than likely he bought that weapon from a “responsible” gun owner, while exploiting the online firearms sales loophole.
Any gun sale, aside from perhaps to a family member, should require a proper background check. Otherwise, that sale should be illegal.
Especially in a state that had the ninth most deaths from gun violence in 2017 — 18.6 per 100,000 —and ranks second in gun-crime exportation.
Such rankings may not dissuade someone or some business from relocating here or discourage a parent from sending their son or daughter to WVU, but it cannot help.
We don’t know what those two felons were convicted of that put them on a watch list. But we are grateful they were apprehended just 20 minutes after buying those handguns.
Still, we cannot appreciate a law that lets anyone slip through a loophole and shoulder no responsibility for the consequences.
Like some kind of American roulette our state is playing a game that’s guaranteed to eventually end with tragic results.