Pro Life – Gun Control is Out of Control

Seung-Hui Cho, a senior student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, passed a background check before obtaining a gun despite having been declared mentally ill two years before, according to a U.S. News article on NBC News. On April 16^th, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

If background checks for the purchase of firearms were more rigorous and universal across the United States, would the victims of the atrocious Virginia Tech campus shooting still be alive today?

In 1998, the Federal Bureau of Investigations launched the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which was established by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993. This system allows and requires licensed firearm sellers to check a firearm buyer’s eligibility in a matter of seconds. The background check is run immediately through the FBI in order to search for any “red flags” such as a criminal record, or a history of mental illness in a potential firearm buyer.

So, how did Seung-Hui Cho pass a background check and obtain a firearm when he was already declared mentally ill? This issue addresses a “gaping hole” within our background check policy in the United States. The problem therein lies in the fact that “states are responsible for compiling mental health records from courts, hospitals, and other sources to submit to NICS, but they are not legally required to do so,” according to the same U.S. News article on NBC News. This means that anyone who passes a background check and purchases a firearm in the United States could potentially be the next “Seung-Hui Cho.”

Further, what is also worth examining is the fact that the sale of firearms between private parties, and/or the transfer of firearms between family members, does not require a background check, whatsoever. This is known as the “gun show loop hole.” Only California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island have state laws that mandate background checks for the purchase of firearms through private parties and family transfers, however; 33 states do not have a law that addresses this loophole, which essentially allows people with criminal backgrounds or records of mental illness to purchase firearms through alternative means.

It seems that allowing firearms to be in the wrong hands is all too easy in the United States. What is disturbing is that our gun control policy, in regards to background checks, makes the sale of firearms essentially ‘legal’ to buyers who might have mental illnesses. According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, 1 in 5 adults experience a mental illness, and 1 in every 25 adults live with a serious mental illness. This statistic does not seem to be improving either, and until we can address some of the core psychological health issues in society, our gun control policies must continually adapt to our changing social environment. Even if Seung-Hui Cho was denied a firearms sale by a “red flag” in his background check, he may have been able to acquire a firearm through some resourceful means, however; making background checks mandatory in any market throughout the United States, and requiring states to submit records of mental illness to the NICS, will “keep guns out of the hands of at least some people who are not supposed to have them,” which in turn can save thousands of lives a year, including the lives of the 33 people killed at the Virginia Tech shooting had our background check policy been more rigorous.