Kaine to Push Background Checks at Gun Shows

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announces his support of legislation to require background checks in all firearms sales at gun shows. Private sales at gun shows are now exempt from checks. Joining him at the news conference were relatives of the Virginia Tech shootings in April. (By Steve Helber -- Associated Press)

Federal and Virginia laws require licensed gun dealers to screen customers through instant background checks. In Virginia, felons, mentally ill people and domestic abusers are not allowed to buy firearms. But the state does not require background checks for people who buy guns in private sales at gun shows.

In the past, gun-control advocates have supported measures to require background checks for one-on-one gun sales, including sales at gun shows. Kaine said it would be difficult to regulate all one-on-one sales, so his proposal deals only with gun shows. Fifteen states require background checks at gun shows.

Cho, of Fairfax County, passed two background checks when he bought two handguns used in the Virginia Tech massacre. Although a judge had found Cho a danger to himself and ordered him to undergo outpatient mental health treatment, Virginia at the time required that only the names of those committed to mental hospitals be reported to the FBI.

Kaine has since signed an executive order requiring that anyone ordered by a court to receive mental health treatment be added to a state police database of people barred from buying guns.

Had Cho been turned away at a gun store, experts say, he could have gone to a gun show and easily bought a gun out of the trunk of a private dealer's car, no questions asked. For that reason, the Virginia Tech Review Panel recommended requiring background checks at gun shows.

"It is an idea whose time has come,'' said Sen. Henry L. Marsh III (D-Richmond), who has tried to pass a similar bill since 2004 and will introduce this year's bill.

The General Assembly last passed laws restricting gun ownership more than a decade ago. In recent years, legislators have made it easier to obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon. They also have made it easier to carry such weapons into once-forbidden areas, such as the parking lot of Reagan National Airport.