"Nothing came up."

On February 12, professor Amy Bishop, 45, sat with her colleagues in a biology faculty meeting at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. Suddenly, without warning, she drew a semi-automatic 9 mm handgun and began methodically shooting those sitting closest to her. Bishop killed three and critically wounded three other colleagues before her weapon jammed. Faculty members were then able to push her out of the room and barricade the door. “She looked like she was intent on doing this, and she was angry,” said one of the survivors. Bishop was arrested outside the university shortly after calling her husband, James Anderson, to pick her up. As she was placed in a police car, she quietly muttered, “It didn’t happen ... There’s no way … They are still alive.”

The shooting occurred after the university had denied Bishop’s last appeal for tenure. Her husband said she was frustrated with what he called a “tough, long, hard battle.” He also indicated she recently acquired the handgun used in the shootings. Bishop would only say that she borrowed the gun and was “cagey” about the details, according to Anderson. He had joined her in a trip to an indoor shooting range where she practiced her marksmanship.

After the massacre, Alabama police officials ran a background check on Bishop. “Nothing came up,” they reported. That nothing did is disturbing, and speaks to how America’s weak gun laws are incapable of stopping individuals who are clearly violent and deranged from legally acquiring guns.

Within hours after the shooting, news reports began to surface about Bishop’s bizarre past... In 1986, she fatally shot her 18-year old brother in their hometown of Braintree, Massachusetts. According to a police report, Bishop—who was 21 at the time—was trying to unload the family’s shotgun and accidentally discharged it into her bedroom wall. She then came downstairs to ask her mother for assistance and allegedly discharged the weapon as her brother walked past her in the kitchen, killing him. Bishop then ran out of the house, discharging the weapon into the wall on her way out.

Bishop fled to a nearby auto repair shop, where she entered the storefront and began searching for car keys. When two nearby men came to investigate, she turned her shotgun on them and told them to get their hands up. As one of the men recalled, Bishop was saying, “I need a car, I need to get out of here,” and ranting about how “[her husband] would be looking for her, and that if he found her he would kill her.” [Bishop was not married at the time.] Finally, police arrived. “I drew my service revolver and yelled three times ‘drop the rifle’,” Officer Timothy Murphy remembers. “After the third time, she did.” Bishop, however, was released from jail within hours and not questioned until 11 days later. She was never charged with any crime.

The man who was the Chief of the Braintree Police Department at the time, John Polio, said he never saw the police report in the case and called the investigation “shoddy and definitely fishy.” “To say someone accidentally fired a shot gun three times is crazy,” Polio states.

In 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) questioned Bishop and her husband about two pipe bombs that were sent to Dr. Paul Rosenberg, a former colleague of Bishop’s at Boston’s Children Hospital. Rosenberg told ATF investigators that he played a role in Bishop’s resignation as a postdoctorate research fellow at the hospital’s neurobiology lab, explaining that Bishop “exhibited violent behavior” and “was not stable.” Another witness recalled that, “Anderson stated that he wanted to get back at Dr. Rosenberg and that he wanted to shoot him, bomb him, stab him or strangle [him].” The couple was never charged and the case remains unsolved to this day.

A third incident in Peabody, Massachusetts, occurred in 2002, when Bishop was arrested for punching a woman in the head at an International House of Pancakes after the woman took the restaurant’s last booster seat. According to the police report, Bishop struck the woman while yelling, “I am Dr. Amy Bishop!” Bishop was charged with assault, battery, and disorderly conduct. She eventually admitted to the assault, served probation, and the charges against her were dismissed.

How could someone with so many red flags in her background possibly come up clear in a background check?

There has been no formal confirmation from ATF as to where Bishop got her handgun, but she was a legal firearm purchaser under federal law. Federal law prohibits convicted felons, those under active restraining orders, those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence offenses, and those who have been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution or adjudicated as a “mental defective” from purchasing guns (along with certain other categories). Individuals purchasing guns from Federally Licensed Firearm Dealers (FFLs) are run through the FBI’s National Instant Computer Background Check System (NICS) and, sometimes, through a state database. Because Bishop did fall under any of the prohibited categories mentioned above, she had no disqualifying records in the system.

An instant computer check (normally completed in a matter of minutes), however, is no background investigation. Only a few states in the country license handgun purchasers and conduct such investigations (i.e., New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts), in addition to running them through the NICS system (virtually every other industrialized democracy has licensing and registration processes for firearm purchasers that include background investigations). These investigations can involve detailed questionnaires and interviews with character witnesses (i.e., spouses, co-workers, friends, etc.). Law enforcement is typically given the discretion to deny licenses to individuals who present a threat to public safety.

Such background investigations are capable of yielding important information about individuals like Amy Bishop who fall through the cracks of a computer check but present numerous red flags in their backgrounds. Not coincidentally, states that conduct such investigations on handgun purchasers have some of the lowest gun death rates in the country.

The gun lobby has effectively bullied America’s legislators into believing that even minor inconveniences during the gun purchasing process are “infringements” on Second Amendment rights. But does anyone seriously believe that a system that is incapable of stopping individuals like Amy Bishop from buying guns would have been endorsed by our Founders? Or that they would have failed to see it as an obvious threat to individual liberty, given the resulting carnage?

The Lessons of Fort Hood

On November 5, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a licensed Army psychiatrist, walked into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Fort Hood military base in Killeen, Texas. After yelling “Allahu akbar,” Hasan, 39, opened fired with a semiautomatic handgun, killing 13 people (12 of them Soldiers) and wounding 32 others before he was shot by military police. Hasan sustained multiple injuries and is currently hospitalized in stable condition at an Army hospital in San Antonio. He will face 13 charges of premeditated murder in a military court.

The Fort Hood shooting ranks as the nation's worst ever on a military installation. It also has raised new fears about terrorist attacks on the homeland, as Hasan had been in contact with a radical imam that has praised the killings.

The U.S. Congress is now preparing to investigate the shooting to determine what action they might take to prevent similar tragedies in the future. Later in the month, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, headed by Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), will begin hearings on the subject. As these inquiries commence, we would urge legislators to take several important actions concerning America’s gun laws:

1) Close the “Terror Gap” in Gun Purchasing Laws and Allow Federal Agencies to Share Critical Information
A May 2009 Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found that 865 individuals on the FBI’s Terrorist Watch List were allowed to purchase firearms from federally licensed gun dealers between February 2004 and February 2009. Amazingly, while individuals on the FBI’s list are prohibited from boarding planes, they can purchase as many guns as they want as long as they can pass an instant computer background check.

While there has been no indication from federal officials that Hasan was on the Terrorist Watch List, the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force had investigated Hasan after they discovered 10-20 email communications between him and Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki, a radical imam now living in Yemen, was known to have associated with two of the 9/11 hijackers. Hasan worshipped at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque, led at the time by al-Alwaki, in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 along with the two hijackers.

When Hasan purchased his weapons in August 2009, the Joint Terrorism Task Force was not informed. An NRA-drafted provision in the “Tiahrt Amendments” attached to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) appropriations bill requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) to destroy completed background check records within 24 hours. The NRA has also been able to enact restrictions that restrict federal agencies from sharing information about legal gun purchases.

"The piece of information about the gun could have been critical," said former FBI Special Agent Brad Garrett. "One of the problems is that the law sometimes restricts you in what you can do." "We need to be smarter about sharing information," added former 9/11 commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste. "It's very disturbing to see…that the FBI is precluded from sharing information."

There is no rational reason to allow potential terrorists to purchase firearms. The U.S. Congress should act immediately to pass S. 1317—sponsored by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)—and H.R. 2159, sponsored by Representative Peter King (R-NY). This legislation would give DOJ the discretion—subject to judicial review— to block gun sales to individuals on the Terrorist Watch List. Congress should also remove current information-sharing restrictions on federal agencies so that they can better monitor gun purchases.

2) Oppose and Defeat the “Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act”
In the U.S. Senate, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) has offered a legislative proposal, the “Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act,” that would require that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to stop submitting the records of those found to “lack the mental capacity to contract or manage their own affairs” to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The immediate effect of this measure would be the removal of approximately 116,000 such records already in the system. These individuals would be free to purchase and own firearms even if the VA determined they are “mentally incapacitated,” “mentally incompetent,” or “experiencing an extended loss of consciousness.”

Senator Burr’s legislation would put veterans, their families, and the public in danger. Researchers are predicting that the rate of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among veterans returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom could be as high as 35%. Furthermore, the Army suicide rate is at its highest level in three decades. The New York Times reported that “at least 128 soldiers killed themselves [in 2008], and the Army suicide rate surpassed that for civilians for the first time since the Vietnam War.” All told, 12,000 veterans under VA care attempt suicide each year. A 2007 study by researchers at Portland State University and Oregon Health & Science University found that male veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide as their civilian counterparts. The study also found that veterans are 58% more likely to use firearms to commit suicide than non-veterans.

The shooting at Fort Hood wasn’t the only recent tragedy to remind us of how lethal the combination of mental illness and guns can be. Just two days after Hasan’s attack, a 63 year-old veteran suffering from PTSD opened fire while being escorted out of a bar in Vail, Colorado, killing one and injuring three.

The “Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act” is an affront to common sense and the well-being of America’s veterans and should be rejected by Congress.

3) Enact Licensing Laws for Handgun Purchasers
Currently, only 11 states in the entire country require the licensing of handgun purchasers. Of these, nine states conduct a thorough background investigation on licensees that goes far beyond a simple instant computer check through the FBI’s National Instant Computer Background Check System (NICS).

The problem with NICS checks (like the one which Hasan passed at Guns Galore) is that they lack critical information from state and local authorities. According to a Third Way report entitled “Missing Records,” “91% of those adjudicated mentally ill or involuntarily committed cannot be stopped by a gun buyer background check” because their disqualifying records are not in the system. In addition, one out of four felony conviction records are not in NICS. Third Way’s overall assessment of the database is that it is “deeply flawed.”

Would a background investigation (as opposed to a computer check) have stopped Nidal Malik Hasan from purchasing a handgun? Possibly.

There were several red flags in Hasan’s background that suggested he might have been a threat to himself or others. He had been working with service members suffering from PTSD for more than six years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and experienced problems that required counseling.. He had also begun openly opposing America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and espousing extremist Islamic views. While a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed, Hasan gave a PowerPoint presentation to mental health staff members which concluded, “It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.” In the Spring of 2008 and again in the Spring of 2009, key officials from Walter Reed and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences met and expressed concern about Hasan's behavior, which fellow students and faculty had described as "disconnected, aloof, paranoid, belligerent and schizoid."

Finally, as described above, Hasan was being monitored by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force because of emails he had exchanged with the radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki. The FBI was also investigating whether he was behind violent anti-American comments left on a website under the screen name of "NidalHasan."

None of these warning signs were revealed by the NICS check that Hasan underwent at Guns Galore. But any or all of this information might have been uncovered by a background investigation if Hasan had had to obtain a license in order to purchase a handgun. Such investigations typically involve interviews with licensees’ family, friends, and co-workers/colleagues.

Because instant computer checks are imperfect, the U.S. Congress should adopt licensing standards for handgun purchasers similar to those enacted in New York and New Jersey. This would help ensure that dangerous individuals do not legally acquire handguns.

4) Regulate High-Powered Firearms on the Civilian Market
Hasan used a Belgian-made FN Herstal Five-seveN semi-automatic pistol during the shooting which he legally purchased at Guns Galore in Killeen. The weapon's name refers to its 5.7 mm bullet diameter. The Five-seveN is popular with U.S Secret Service agents and police SWAT teams because of its ability to penetrate body armor. It is also popular with the Mexican drug cartels, who call the Five-seveN the “Mata Policia” (“Cop Killer”).

The Legislative Director of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Steve Lenkhart, has called the Five-seveN "an assault rifle that fits in your pocket."

FN Herstal maintains that armor-piercing ammunition for the Five-seveN is only available to law enforcement and military personnel. However, when first launched for civilian sales, FN officials advertised that “enemy personnel, even wearing body armor can be effectively engaged up to 200 meters.” Additionally, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence tested the Five-seveN in January 2005 with commercially-available SS192 ammunition and found that it penetrated both Level IIA and Level IIIA body armor.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence joined the Violence Policy Center, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Legal Community Against Violence, Freedom States Alliance, and States United to Prevent Gun Violence on a November 19 letter urging President Obama to use existing executive authority to prohibit the importation of the Five-seveN as well as 5.7X28mm ammunition with armor-piercing capabilities.

The Myth of the "Black Market"

The cities of Washington, D.C. and Chicago have been under siege in recent months by the National Rifle Association (NRA), which is attempting to overturn gun laws in both jurisdictions.

The NRA’s battle with Chicago has been in the courts, where the gun lobby is seeking to have the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment ruling in the case of D.C. V. Heller incorporated at the state level. This would have the practical effort of repealing Chicago’s handgun ban. After the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the NRA’s lawsuit, it appears headed to the Supreme Court on appeal.

D.C. v. Heller, of course, already repealed the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, but the Supreme Court’s ruling did not go far enough for the NRA. They are now seeking to have the city’s new, constitutional gun laws repealed through an amendment that was initially attached to the “D.C. House Voting Rights Act” by Senator John Ensign (R-NV). That bill has yet to be considered by the House of Representatives, and the amendment’s next likely target is the D.C. appropriations bill, which Congress will likely take up this summer.

Time and time again, the NRA has blamed violence in the two cities on their tough laws, despite evidence that shows that criminals are totally unable to acquire firearms inside Chicago and Washington. So why is it so easy for criminals and gun traffickers to get firearms outside the borders of cities? A fascinating new essay by David Kairys, a professor of Law at Temple University, provides some answers.

The essay, entitled “Why are Handguns So Accessible on Urban Streets?” is a chapter in the new book Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black and Male. Kairys argues that we need to avoid a “pervasive acceptance and strange sense that the extraordinary level of death and killing is a normal or inevitable aspect of life in urban America,” and that only after understanding why guns are so readily available in cities can we begin to correct the problem.

Kairys explains that “the market makes new handguns so easily available—often for less than one hundred dollars new, right out of the box—that it makes no sense to steal one.” In fact, “anyone who does not have a record can go to a licensed gun store in most states, legally buy as many handguns as he or she wants, and walk out the door with them.” Kairys also points out that there are no “meaningful limits on the resale of handguns,” because private individuals, unlike federally licensed gun dealers, are not required to run Brady background checks on purchasers.

In Kairys’ words: “The bottom line is this. Under federal law and the law of most states, any person so inclined can buy huge quantities of cheap, easily concealed handguns and sell them to others indiscriminately, often without violating any law and usually without having to worry about getting arrested, prosecuted or convicted. Nor are the identities of owners of handguns, or the persons to whom they transfer ownership, registered or maintained by government, unless state law so provides—and most do not.” Capitalizing on this weak regulation, gun manufacturers produce “more guns than could be sold to law-abiding people,” knowing full well their product will be distributed to criminals and other prohibited purchasers downstream.

So what can we do to address this problem? Kairys advocates for registering handguns and licensing handgun owners; adopting strong, clear and specific “straw purchase” laws that make all of the parties to a straw purpose criminally and civilly responsible; limiting multiple purchases of handguns in a given period; and providing large urban areas with the authority to regulate handguns within their borders. All of these measures would help to reduce the flow of handguns to criminals on America’s streets.

But most importantly, we must learn to overcome our own misconceptions of the problem. As Kairys writes, “the common image of an underground, illegal market is largely fictional.” The ability of dangerous people to easily obtain guns is the result of our weak gun laws, which do little to regulate the firearms industry. The good news? Significant progress can be made in reducing gun violence as soon as our elected officials are made to realize that “the loss of life, the economic and social costs, and the undermining of the safety and the quality of life in America are unacceptable.”

Deranged Shooters, Legal Handguns

A horrific tragedy occurred last month when a 24 year-old man opened fire with a handgun outside a popular under-21 nightclub in Portland, Oregon. On January 24, Erik S. Ayala drove downtown to The Zone, got out of his car, and began shooting into the crowd gathered outside. He fired 8-10 times before fatally shooting himself. Ayala had taken a tranquilizer prior to the shooting, but otherwise had no alcohol or drugs in his system.

The shooting took the lives of two bright young women: Marta “Tika” Paz de Noboa, 17, a Peruvian exchange student, and Ashley Wilks, a 16-year old high school sophomore. Seven other individuals were injured, including the manager of a nearby restaurant and other foreign exchange students.

Like the shooters in the tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, Erik Ayala had an established and well-known history of mental illness and violent tendencies. In high school, Ayala was identified as a “student of concern.” School officials received an anonymous tip in September 2000 that Ayala had made threats against others and talked about bringing a gun to school. In December of that year, he was hospitalized for attempting suicide by overdosing on over-the-counter pills.

As a result, Ayala was diagnosed with “numerous mental disorders,” including schizophrenia, and received intensive counseling from a team composed of school officials, psychologists, police, county mental health experts, and Oregon Youth Authority officials (which was formed in response to the 1998 Thurston High School shooting in Springfield, Oregon). This treatment was administered during a month-long stay at a Portland mental health facility and continued when Ayala returned to school.

Once Ayala graduated high school in 2002, his treatment ended (in part because he was unable to obtain health care insurance). He worked as a data entry operator for the Oregon Department of Health and Human Services until July 2007, and then part-timed with a temp agency. At the time of the shootings, police say that Ayala was unemployed and battling depression.

Ayala purchased the weapon used in the shooting, an Italian-manufactured EAA Witness 9mm pistol, for about $350 from 99 Pawn & Guns in Milwaukie, Oregon. He visited the pawn shop on January 6 to browse and returned the next day to purchase the handgun, but was told he did not have appropriate identification. Two days later, he returned with an alien resident card and proof of three months residency in the United States in the form of utility bills. Ayala then passed the required instant background check and left the store with his gun later that day.

Despite his history of mental illness and threatening behavior, Ayala appears never to have been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution or declared “mentally defective” by a court of law. He was therefore not prohibited under federal law from purchasing firearms.

That’s not to say that Ayala’s handgun purchase couldn’t have been prevented, however. States such as New York and New Jersey require would-be purchasers to obtain a license/permit before they are allowed to buy handguns. The permitting process involves an actual background investigation where law enforcement officials interview significant figures in the applicant’s life (such as a spouse or relatives) about issues ranging from substance abuse to the applicant’s mental health. Under this process, Ayala would certainly have been denied a permit once authorities spoke with members of his family or local officials.

Commenting on the Portland shooting, Dr. Joseph D. Bloom, professor emeritus at the Oregon Health & Science University Department of Psychiatry, said, "It's all becoming very familiar. A person with recent losses and some history of past difficulties who is depressed and becomes suicidal, and then deliberately purchases a gun with a clear plan in mind to end his life and take out his anger on society by a random shooting event and ends it by taking his own life."

Such tragedies don’t have to be familiar, however, and won’t be for long if our elected officials take the necessary steps to assure that gun purchasers are not a threat to themselves or others.

The Same Old Story

In the aftermath of the shooting at Northern Illinois University in February of this year, Americans struggled to understand how Steven Kazmierczak could have perpetrated such a terrible tragedy. National media outlets quoted close friends of Kazmierczak who described him as “probably the nicest, most caring person ever.” His professors said he was “a nice kid” and “extremely respectful.” NIU Police Chief Donald Grady said that law enforcement had "no indications at all this would be the type of person that would engage in such activity … There were no red flags.”

They were wrong.

A recent article in Esquire, published more than five months after the shooting, paints a far different picture. Unlike the sweet, award-winning graduate student that we heard about in February, Esquire writer David Vann tells the story of a troubled, volatile individual who was clearly a threat to himself and those around him.

The warning signs in Kazmierczak’s behavior date back to his childhood. In high school, he idolized serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, and was fascinated by Hitler and his crimes against humanity. Along with this obsession with violence, Kazmierczak developed severe mental health problems as a teenager. By the time he graduated from high school, Kazmierczak had attempted suicide three times, taken eight different medications for mental illness, and been institutionalized on five different occasions—including a stay at the Mary Hill Residence, a psychiatric hospital, where he spent nine months in in-patient care.

After leaving Mary Hill, Kazmierczak decided to join the Army. When it was found he had lied on an enlistment form, Kazmierczak was sent to the William Beaumont Army Medical Hospital’s psych ward. The Army then determined he was a potential danger to himself and others, and Kazmierczak was given an “uncharacterized” discharge and kicked out of the service.

After 22 troubled years, Kazmierczak arrived at Northern Illinois University, where he tried his best to conceal his past from his new peers, friends and mentors. However, his disturbing behavior continued. At NIU, Kazmierczak engaged in long, detailed conversations about school shootings with a friend on campus. When Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 fellow students at Virginia Tech, Kazmierczak was excited. He studied everything about Cho—his writings, his planning, his timing, and how he obtained his guns.

Not long thereafter, Kazmierczak began stockpiling his own weapons. In December 2006, he applied for a Firearms Owner Identification (FOID) The FOID application contained only one question that pertained to mental health. Kazmierczak was asked if he had been institutionalized in the past five years. He hadn’t been—and no further explanation was needed.

Having obtained his card, Kazmierczak purchased five handguns and two shotguns over the next 13 months from federally licensed firearm dealers. Then, on February 14, 2008, he entered NIU’s Cole Hall and killed six people (including himself) and wounded 18 others. Not long before the shooting, he told a former girlfriend, “If anything happens, don’t tell anyone about me” and “You can write a book about me some day.”

The truth is that Kazmierczak exhibited as many red flags as Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter. Six months earlier, the Virginia Tech Review Panel had published a report detailing Cho’s disturbing and lifelong struggles with mental illness. The report also included a list of recommendations on how to prevent such a tragedy from happening again—including measures to improve screening of gun purchasers.

Regrettably, the U.S. Congress and state legislatures have taken little action in the wake of the panel’s report to deny deranged shooters access to firepower.

Today, gun laws in Virginia and Illinois remain fundamentally unchanged. The current FOID card application in Illinois is nearly identical to the one that Kazmierczak sailed through in December 2006. And while Virginia clarified the process by which mental health records are transmitted to their State Police, loopholes remain open that allow prohibited purchasers and others to buy guns without undergoing a background check.

At the federal level, the picture is no more impressive. Last year, Congress passed the “NICS Improvement Act of 2007,” which was signed into law by President Bush. The bill was intended to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) by creating financial incentives for states to submit more disqualifying records to the federal database, including mental health records. Before it was passed, however, the National Rifle Association was permitted to make a number of detrimental additions. Contrary to its original purpose, the legislation will now require states who accept grant funding to create programs to restore firearm purchasing privileges to those previously restricted because of mental health disability. Moreover the bill has yet to be appropriated and no grant money has been disbursed. The bottom line, however, is that the U.S. Congress has not passed meaningful gun control legislation since 1997.

If the cases of Seung-Hui Cho and Steven Kazmierczak have taught us anything, it’s that red flags and warning signs do appear consistently among shooters before they engage in acts of mass destruction. What is needed is a screening process that effectively identifies these warning signs before individuals purchase handguns, assault weapons, and other firearms. A handful of states have effective laws that go beyond a simple computerized background check and thoroughly screen gun purchasers. New Jersey is a good example—the state conducts an actual background investigation on an applicant before licensing them to purchase a handgun. Moreover, the recent decision by the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller expressly stated that background checks and licensing and registration laws were constitutional.

The question is, how much more bloodshed will it take until we implement such best practices on a national level to prevent terrible tragedies like the ones at Northern Illinois and Virginia Tech?

Warning Signs Again Go Unheeded

The lax nature of our federal and state firearms laws were again highlighted in a recent tragic shooting at a Wendy’s restaurant in West Palm Beach, Florida. On March 3, 60 year-old Alburn Blake opened fire in the restaurant with a 9mm handgun, killing an off-duty paramedic and wounding four others before taking his own life.

In January of this year, Blake purchased the Glock 17 used in the shootings through a private sale from an unidentified individual. Neither federal nor Florida state regulations require background checks for “private sales” of firearms. A 1986 law passed by the U.S. Congress at the behest of the National Rifle Association created this loophole for those not “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms (a vague standard at best, with no numerical guidelines in terms of the number of firearms one might sell). These private sellers are not even legally required to check someone’s ID to confirm their identity and state of residence.

From what we know, it appears Blake would have passed a computerized background check had he bought his gun through a federally licensed dealer. He had no criminal convictions on his record, and had not been previously adjudicated as “mentally defective.” However, Blake’s former girlfriend Mary Gianninco accused him of domestic abuse in 2006 and called him a “demented” individual who often “resorted to violence at home.”

Certain states, such as New York and New Jersey, require residents to obtain a permit before purchasing a handgun. This permitting process involves a careful screening of applicants, requiring character references, fingerprinting and an extensive background check that goes beyond running someone through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) database. An applicant's mental health history is examined, and local law enforcement officers can request consent to examine medical health records and speak to doctors. These states have also taken action to close the private sales loophole which allows individuals to circumvent the background check process.

Given Gianninco’s statements about Blake, and reports from his neighbors that indicated he fought with her frequently outside his home at night, it is doubtful Blake would have been able to legally buy a handgun in Florida if the state had: a) put in place an enhanced background check system to require individuals to apply for a permit to purchase a handgun, and; b) closed the private sales loophole. Unfortunately, gun laws in the “Gunshine State” continue to remain weak and ineffective.

This case again demonstrates our lack of national resolve to craft substantive and effective gun control legislation to save lives and protect public safety. Victims and survivors of gun violence deserve more than heartfelt grief and the hollow words of politicians. They are entitled to a real response—a move towards an enhanced national background check system applicable to all gun sales aimed at denying firearms to those with proclivities towards violence and instability.