On Guns, Nevada’s Leaders Are Overruling Their Voters

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/opinion/nevada-gun-laws-vegas.html

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Residents of Nevada voted in November to require background checks for most private gun sales, closing a loophole in federal law. But nearly a year after the ballot measure passed, these checks aren’t being made because state officials have claimed, with little evidence, that there’s no way to carry out the policy.

Such background checks might not have prevented the massacre in Las Vegas on Sunday night; the gunman, Stephen Paddock, is not known to have a significant criminal record and appears to have bought at least some of his guns from dealers required to vet buyers.

But it has been shown that requiring checks on private sales of guns, such as at gun shows and over the internet, makes it harder for felons and other prohibited people, like those who have been committed to mental institutions and drug addicts, to buy firearms. It is a common-sense gun-safety policy that most Americans and most gun owners have long supported. Even as Congress, cowed by the National Rifle Association’s opposition, has refused to act to limit the danger of unexamined sales, 19 states, including Nevada, have tightened background checks on handgun sales and 13 states, including Nevada, have tightened them for handgun and long gun sales.

After Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, vetoed legislation to tighten background checks in Nevada in 2013, public interest groups like Everytown for Gun Safety took the matter directly to the state’s voters in November through a ballot initiative known as Question 1. The N.R.A. spent millions of dollars to defeat the proposal; its “no” campaign had the support of the state’s attorney general, Adam Laxalt, and many sheriffs. Yet, a narrow majority of people voted for Question 1, which had the support of police unions, health groups and others.

Under the plan, private sellers must use licensed gun dealers to screen potential buyers through the F.B.I.’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Mr. Laxalt issued an opinion in December declaring that the requirement was unenforceable. He based his decision on a letter sent by the F.B.I. that month saying that it would not process the background checks for private gun sales in Nevada because the state has a longstanding agreement with the federal government to do its own checks through its Department of Public Safety. (Nevada is one of 12 states with such an arrangement with the F.B.I.)

This rationale for thwarting the will of Nevada voters comes from a man who not only campaigned against the proposal but later praised the N.R.A. at the organization’s annual convention in April for fighting sensible gun-safety laws. The rationale is also specious. There are nine other states, whose example Nevada could follow, in which background checks are divided between a state agency and the F.B.I. For example, Florida’s Department of Law Enforcement conducts background checks for most gun sales by dealers in that state but pawnshops are allowed to use the F.B.I.

Here’s what ought to happen: Mr. Sandoval should direct state officials to negotiate a new agreement with the F.B.I. that allows private gun sales to be vetted through the federal agency while continuing to use the state system for sales by licensed dealers. The umbrella group behind the ballot proposal, Nevadans for Background Checks, has threatened to sue the state if the governor doesn’t start putting the ballot proposal into effect by Oct. 9.

It has become a maddening ritual to watch members of Congress offer thoughts and prayers after mass shootings without doing anything to prevent gun violence. When voters become so frustrated by federal and state lawmakers’ inaction that they take matters into their own hands, officials beholden to the gun lobby cannot be allowed to block them.