After senior Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people and himself with a Glock
9 mm semi-automatic pistol at Virginia Tech University, I decided to
find out what it takes to acquire such a weapon in the Old Dominion
State. My wife and I do have more than a passing interest in this question
because our two children and four grandchildren live in Virginia.
I found that any Virginia resident may purchase a firearm, including an assault
weapon, if he has two forms of identification and if the gun seller’s inquiry
with police shows that the buyer did not commit a federal or state crime.
Virginia residents are not subjected to a waiting period when they buy a gun.
If the buyer does not have a gun permit, he may acquire only one handgun per
month. Once he has purchased a license, however, he may buy as many guns as he
pleases.
Residents of other states may buy a gun after a ten-day waiting period or after
they are cleared by Virginia state police. Foreign nationals are required to
present three identifying documents. Cho showed the gun dealer his driver’s
license, a check book, and his green card.
Assault guns, such as AK-47s and Uzis may be bought as easily as hunting rifles.
Virginia does not restrict “the sale or possession of rapid-fire ammunition
magazines that can fire up to 100 bullets without reloading.”
Convicted felons are not allowed to possess firearms. Minors over age 12 may
purchase rifles and shotguns. Family members, however, may give or sell them
handguns.
If the gun dealer at Roanoke’s Firearms and Pawn shop had refused to sell
the Korean student the Glock 9, Cho could have bought it at any one of Virginia’s
second-hand gun shows--without a waiting period or background check. He could
have paid with cash to avoid having himself or his weapon tracked.
After the receipt for the handgun purchase was found on Cho, officers of the
federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) visited the Roanoke store
but found that the dealer’s transaction was perfectly
legal. A reporter for the Independent Media Institute observed that among the
2,500 firearms the Roanoke gun store sells annually, Cho could have chosen a
variety of more dreadful weapons, such as a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle,
a Steyr tactical rifle (for $2,075), or a packet of .45 dum-dum rounds (for $15.75).
Most states do not require gun owners to be licensed or guns to be registered,
nor do they require background checks for guns purchased at gun shows. One wonders
what happened to the Congressional law of 1994 that imposed a 10-year prohibition
on manufacturing, selling, or possessing of any of 19 models of semiautomatic
guns. The law outlawed ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds, and
it also toughened federal licensing requirements for gun dealers.
A Virginia firearms instructor explained to the Media Institute’s reporter: “I
think guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” A study by Harvard
Medical School, quoted by the Media Institute, found that “Americans feel
less safe rather than more safe [sic], as more people in their community begin
to carry guns. By margins of at least nine to one, Americans believe that ‘regular’ citizens
should be allowed to bring their guns into restaurants, college campuses, sports
stadiums, bars, hospitals, or government buildings.”
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After the massacre at Virginia Tech, White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino stressed
the administration’s focus on “enforcing all the gun laws that we
have on the books and making sure that they are prosecuted to the fullest extent
of the law.” The President rightly took massive action to avenge the murder
of 3,000 people in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Yet, he has no
corrective measures to propose in reaction to the annual killing of 30,000 people
from handgun violence.