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Saturday, March 31, 2001

Coloradoans voted overwhelmingly – 75,939 to 30,674 – in favor of an amendment to state law last November that would toughen background checks at gun shows.

Purchases from federally licensed gun dealers at the shows have required background checks in the past, but now even purchases of a pistol, a rifle or a shotgun from an unlicensed gun dealer at one of the shows will require a background check.

The amendment was pushed to a statewide vote by SAFE Colorado, a group formed after the 1999 Columbine shooting in which two students shot and killed 12 other students and a teacher and then took their own lives.

One of the guns used in the shooting was bought for the shooters at a gun show by a woman who later said at a legislative hearing she intentionally avoided dealers who required background checks.

Susan Kitchen, the agent in charge of the background check program at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, said Friday she would have to see how the new law shakes out.

"The gun dealer community is taking a wait-and-see attitude," she said.

Some gun dealers have objected to the additional paperwork, and others are not happy about the $10 cap on fees the federal license holders can charge for background check requests. The unlicensed dealer's checks must go through a federal licensee.

Colorado uses not only the National Instant Check System (NICS) created by the Brady Bill, but also its own state database, which sometimes uncovers criminal records not reported in the federal system.

Kitchen said background checks do prevent guns getting into the wrong hands in some cases, but she added that a person intent on getting a gun can still get around the law.

"It has certainly prevented some impulse crime," she said.

The first test of the new law will come today at a gun show in Colorado Springs, one of 15 major gun shows conducted in the state each year. Only antique guns are exempted from the new state law.

The law requires that each gun show have a federal license holder who will submit background checks to the CBI for unlicensed dealers. Some licensed dealers, however, are not pleased about helping their competitors make sales.

"Here's a law I had nothing to do with passing," gun store owner Dave Anvers told the Denver Post. "I'm not going to put paying customers out to satisfy the wishes of the CBI."

Anvers, the owner of Dave's Guns in Denver, said the $10 fee that license dealers can charge unlicensed dealers for requesting the checks will not cover his costs.

Since the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan and the wounding of his press secretary, James Brady, the public has been engaged in a vivid debate over gun control. More than seven years after the event Congress passed the Brady bill, which provides federal background checks on all handgun purchases though licensed dealers. Some 24 states use the federal system exclusively for background checks, which take just a matter of minutes. Colorado is one of 15 states that do all checks through a state-based system, which might have more records on potential buyers than NICS provides.

Eleven states perform their own checks for handgun purchases, but rely on the NICS for purchase of rifles, or so-called long guns.

There are 12 states which require a permit to purchase a handgun, and four require them for long guns as well.

Eighteen states have waiting periods for permits to acquire a handgun. They range from six months in New York, to two days for Wisconsin and Nebraska, to just "due speed and diligence" in Michigan, according to Center to Prevent Handgun Violence.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

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