Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine showed both political courage and common sense when he closed a loophole in state law that allowed the Virginia Tech killer to pass a gun-buyer’s background check despite having a documented record of mental health problems.
Kaine signed an executive order Monday requiring that anyone ordered by a court to get mental health treatment be added to the state police database of people barred from buying guns. The order eliminated a previous distinction between inpatient and outpatient mental health care for treatment ordered by a court. The new rules don’t apply to people who seek care of their own will.
Had Kaine’s executive order been in place when Seung-Hui Cho bought the handguns he later used to kill 32 people at Blacksburg, an instant check of the state database would have revealed he was forbidden from buying the weapons.
Cho was judged mentally ill and a danger to himself by a court in 2005 – long before he bought the guns in two separate purchases – and ordered to attend outpatient counseling. But the licensed gun dealers who legally sold Cho the handguns didn’t know about that court ruling – because under Virginia’s old rules, the fact that Cho was not committed to a mental hospital meant his name was never entered into the database used by licensed gun dealers to do background checks before any sale.
Under the new rules issued by Kaine, court-ordered treatment, whether in-patient or out-patient, will be added to Virginia’s state police database. Once part of Virginia’s system, it will then become part of the federal database that gun dealers nationwide use. Thus, a future Cho will not be able buy firearms from a licensed gun dealer in another state.
Kaine’s order closing the mental health loophole doesn’t prevent a future mentally ill killer from buying guns through means that require no background check in Virginia, including buy-and-trade publications, transactions among gun collectors or hobbyists, and gun shows.
Colorado voters closed the gun-show loophole in the wake of the 1999 Columbine slayings. Virginia doesn’t have an initiative process, so any similar law requiring background checks of buyers at gun shows in the Old Dominion would have to come through the legislature.
For now, Kaine’s executive order closing the mental-health loophole is a prompt and measured response to Cho’s deranged rampage at Virginia Tech.
