Will Gun Show Rules Be Altered?

Despite what is likely to be a full court press by Governor Tim Kaine, and the gun ban lobby, according to the Virginian-Pilot, some legislators will ask those pushing background checks on private gun sales at gun shows to show the correlation between those sales and what happened at Virginia Tech. Kaine and the gun ban lobby are using the shootings at Virginia Tech to push their cause but many legislators are not buying their song and dance.

Kaine is scheduled to have a press conference with some family members of the Tech victims on Tuesday, January 9th where he will likely unveil his legislation to close the so-called "gun show loophole."

The Washington Post carried an article focusing on a meeting family members had with legislators in Northern Virginia. One family member claimed that had Cho not been able to buy his guns at a gun shop, as he did, he could easily have gone to a gun show and bought from a private seller. Kaine has made the same argument.

Sadly these folks have bought in to the picture of gun shows painted by the gun ban crowd. That of a gathering of tables among tables of privates sellers with multiple guns for sale. I can't speak for shows held in other parts of the Virginia but at the Richmond shows I have attended regularly, you don't see a guy with a table of one or two guns or even ten or twenty to sell from his private collection. The private sellers I see walk through the door with a shotgun or rifle over his shoulder with a for sale sign. About a half-hour later, I see the same guy walk out of the show with the gun. Private sales make up very little of the business at gun shows.

Gun owners will have to redouble their efforts to insure this bill meets the same fate as its predecessors.