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Gun stores — usually busy at Christmas and always during tumultuous times — are squeezing in a different category of customer this year: Folks on either end of a private deal.
For the first Yuletide ever, a new law makes it illegal for Virginians to sell their personally owned firearms without buyers clearing the kind of background checks that can only be handled by federally licensed dealers.
Gifts — the genuine kind with zero money, goods or services swapped — are exempt.
Otherwise, both parties must enlist a dealer for a criminal history check run through the Virginia State Police, with the state capping the dealer’s service fee at $15.
There’s no shortage of grumbling in the new line at Bob’s Gun Shop in Norfolk, but “people are complying because that’s what law-abiding people do,” said owner Robert Marcus. “But they don’t see it addressing any crime issues.”
Mandatory universal background checks, bitterly fought about for years in the commonwealth, were part of a handful of new firearms restrictions that kicked in July 1, aimed at reducing gun violence.
Before that, background checks were only required with direct purchases from professional dealers. Private sellers, including regulars hawking at gun shows, weren’t obligated to verify that the people buying their guns were legally allowed to have them.
Now — while some exceptions exist — skipping the background check is a Class 1 misdemeanor for sellers and buyers, fetching a fine as high as $2,500 and even a year in jail.
Groups like the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence approve, calling the expanded checks “critical.”
According to the Giffords Law Center, 90% of the American public supports them.
“Universal background checks are essential to close deadly loopholes in our laws that allow millions of guns to end up in the hands of individuals at an elevated risk of committing violence each year,” says a statement on the group’s web site.
The opposite side disagrees, saying the underground market — not the average gun owner — is the source of most firearms used in crimes.
“This is all to solve a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Philip Van Cleave, president of Virginia Citizens Defense League.
Van Cleave said the requirement is not just “inconvenient,” but has “goofed up a lot of sales” because the VSP’s backgrounding process — known as a VCheck — can get clogged.
“I know people who’ve driven an hour or two to get to a dealer and then found the system is delayed,” he said. “They’re told to come back tomorrow or the next day, and everyone can’t always do that.”
Some dealers will hold guns on behalf of sellers until checks can go through, but if buyers don’t qualify in the end, a dealer isn’t allowed to return the gun without a background check on the seller.
“They have to do that to give back your own gun,” Van Cleave said. “It’s ridiculous.”
What if the owner can’t pass the check?
That hasn’t come up at Marcus’ shop, but if it does “it would mean the owner shouldn’t have a gun, right? I guess we’d have to turn it over to the police.”
As for the VSP system itself, Marcus said, it usually functions just fine.
“I mean, we are dealing with computers, of course, but the vast majority of the time it’s excellent,” he said.
Virginia’s on-the-spot program, the first of its kind in the nation, has been at work since 1989, using the state’s centralized records database that was a forerunner in the nation. Today, prospective buyers are run through national and state repositories of criminal and wanted files, protective and mental competency orders and more.
State police have three business days to give buyers the thumbs up or down, but the average check takes less than five minutes, according to VSP. In most cases, police aren’t allowed to retain the information collected for more than 30 days.
Marcus said the new rule that’s sweeping in private transactions is bringing more people into his shop, which could translate into future customers but not necessarily. Dealers are not required to participate.
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“For the work involved, it’s burdensome for us,” he said. “It turns us into paper-pushers instead of people who can actually sell. But I’d rather they experience our service than someone else’s.”
Marcus said 2020 has already been a blockbuster: “In 75 years, this is our best year ever.”
VSP stats reflect the boom: 716,563 background checks conducted through November, compared to 410,701 for the same time frame in 2019.
State police can’t say how many of this year’s checks were linked to private sales — they aren’t tallying those separately — but it’s likely just a fraction.
Pandemic, civil unrest and an exceptionally contentious election fueled record sales in general.
By August alone, according to an estimate by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, nearly 5 million Americans had purchased a firearm for the first time.
Joanne Kimberlin, 757-446-2338, joanne.kimberlin@pilotonline.com