Editorial: Background checks make sense

Any method of buying a gun should carry the same scrutiny of the purchaser’s fitness to own a weapon. If a purchaser faces a background check when buying a gun from a firearms dealer, and — in Oregon at least — when they buy a gun at a gun show, it stands to reason that a person who buys a gun privately should undergo that same scrutiny.

Because, really, a sale is a sale is a sale. Why treat them differently?

In fact, the private gun sale market may be the last refuge of would-be gun owners who know they are ineligible, because of their criminal or mental health history, to buy a gun in Oregon by the other two means. We should not maintain this hands-off marketplace for them.

A bill in the Oregon Legislature would require background checks for private sales. It has passed the Senate and is expected to pass the House, gain the governor’s signature and become law.

It exempts sales between family and allows inheriting firearms. If you’re just loaning your gun to a buddy for hunting season or at the shooting range, that’s OK too. But if you’re selling to a stranger, the law would require you to get that person’s background checked out, or face a misdemeanor charge.

Sure, this new law would create some more paperwork, some more cost, and some more hassle to transact a private gun sale, but it is the logical extension of the background-check safety mechanism already applied to all other gun sales in Oregon.

Seven other states and Washington D.C. already require this step, so it’s hardly novel.

Oregon legislators have tried this twice before, without success, but election upsets – in part funded by gun control backers — installed two new gun control advocates in the Senate, shifting the balance to a pro-gun-control majority.

It’s a given that requiring these background checks won’t stop every malcontent bent on getting a weapon. People will still find a way to violate this law. Opponents cite that as a reason not to have it. But every single law on the books is violated, should we pitch them all?

And these same background checks that opponents say don’t work actually do. Every so often in Wasco County, a log entry comes through on the police report that someone tried to buy a gun at a local gun shop and they didn’t pass the background check.

They leave without a gun, and law enforcement gets a heads-up.

And, every so often, a background check will stop a private gun sale. That’s what background checks are designed to do.

To the argument that background checks are inadequate or sometimes wrong, that’s fodder for another bill. Maybe not enough records, especially mental health records, are entered into the crime database to provide key information on a would-be buyer. But an imperfect background check is better than none at all.

And finally, it is specious to say background checks on private gun sales violate Second Amendment rights. If you are legally able to buy a weapon, you can.

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This editorial was written by a Chronicle staffer and does not necessarily represent the opinions of the newspaper.