Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Sun Editorial:

Officials have duty to Nevadans to make background checks work

Christmas just kept coming last year for the NRA crowd in Nevada.

Three days after the holiday, Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt gave them another gift when he announced that the November ballot measure on universal background checks had hit a roadblock.

Cue the Charlie Brown music. Based on the chorus of smug comments about how opponents of the initiative had warned voters all along that it was flawed, the types who can’t drink enough NRA Kool-Aid had quite a celebration.

Here’s hoping they had plenty of fun, because now it’s time to get back to the important job of reducing gun violence in Nevada.

And that means state leaders should focus on carrying out the will of the voters and find ways to make the background check initiative work.

Based on some of the hyperbole surrounding Laxalt’s announcement, you might have thought the measure was dead. Laxalt even said it would be impossible to enforce.

Hardly. Since the announcement, options for implementing the checks have surfaced.

More on those later, but first some background.

The ballot question, which passed with 50.45 percent of the vote, required firearms sales and transfers between private individuals be subject to the same background checks as sales from licensed gun dealers. The language called for the checks to be run through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is administered by the FBI.

But on Dec. 14, the FBI informed the Nevada Department of Public Safety it would not conduct the checks. Laxalt, in his opinion on Dec. 28, said that because the ballot question specified the checks had to be done through NICB, “citizens may not be prosecuted for their inability to comply with the act unless and until the FBI changes its public position and agrees to conduct the background checks consistent with the act.”

That being the case, Laxalt said, implementation and enforcement of the ballot measure couldn’t commence.

So what now? Here are the options:

• The Department of Public Safety could take on the checks. By charging a $25 fee that is required for checks involving sales from licensed dealers, the checks could be conducted without extra costs for the state.

• The state and FBI could agree for the checks to be conducted through NICS via private dealers. Gov. Brian Sandoval could work with the FBI to establish such an agreement.

There may be other ways to bring the initiative to life, including legislative fixes that could be considered in the upcoming session.

But regardless, state leaders must work toward a solution. It’s the responsibility and obligation of elected officials, including Laxalt, to carry out the voters’ will.

The law is a common-sense way to help reduce gun violence and save lives. It closes a loophole that allows people who shouldn’t have guns — those convicted of domestic violence or with a history of mental illness, for instance — to purchase them from private individuals online, at gun shows and elsewhere.

Would it prevent every illicit gun sale? No, but it would throw up an obstacle. And based on the fact that 5,400 purchases were blocked between 2011 and 2014 under the background check requirement for licensed dealers, there’s no question it would prevent some sales.

Finally, the measure wouldn’t stop anyone who has a legal right to own a gun from getting one.

The bottom line is that implementing the law will make Nevada safer.

And that’s something truly worth celebrating.

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