I know, with all the hubbub about health care reform, job creation, the economy, etc. a lot of issues get short shrift these days. Well this is one that shouldn't: the ability for a criminal or mentally disturbed individual buy a gun without even a minimal background check if they purchase it at a gun show.

Did you know that there's a good chance that the guns your police department confiscates from criminals are being sold by the police and finding there way back on the street? Cross my heart, it's all perfectly true.

In fact, the mentally disturbed man, anti-government terrorist and conspiracy theorist who attacked the Pentagon on March 4th of this year wounding two guards before being killed by return fire, John Patrick Bedell used a weapon he purchased at a gun show in Las Vegas to commit his heinous crime, a gun the Memphis police had sold to a local gun dealer.

The gun Bedell used was one that the Memphis police force had confiscated from criminals and had then resold to a gun dealer in Tennessee. That dealer then resold it again until it found its way to a gun show in Las Vegas where a man who had a history of "severe psychiatric problems" purchased it as easily as you or I could buy a candy bar at a convenience store.

Law enforcement officials say Bedell, a man with a history of severe psychiatric problems, had been sent a letter by California authorities Jan. 10 telling him he was prohibited from buying a gun because of his mental history. [...]

Nineteen days later, the officials say, Bedell bought the Ruger at a gun show in Las Vegas. Such a sale by a private individual does not require the kind of background check that would have stopped Bedell's purchase.

Mike Campbell, an ATF spokesman in Washington, would not confirm the details. He would only say Bedell "appears to have purchased the gun from a private seller."

So a man who believed that a criminal organization controls the federal government and staged the 9/11 attacks, a man the California authorities rightly denied the right to purchase firearms because of his mental illness, walked right into a gun show, bought a gun without any background check from a "private individual" and then drove cross country with the intent to murder people who work at the Pentagon. A man who said this in a podcast he made and promulgated over the internet:

The blatant violations of the Constitution’s limitations on the economic role of the government accomplished through many subtle usurpations over many decades are perhaps even more pernicious than and are certainly a key motivation for the violent seizure of the United States government.

This was the same gun originally sold by the Memphis police. So how did a gun sold to a Memphis gun dealer end up in Vegas for Bedell to buy unhindered by even the minimal protections afforded by the Brady law? Well it wasn't all that hard:

The gun already had changed hands among gun dealers in Georgia and Pennsylvania by the time Bedell bought it. Officer Karen Rudolph, a Memphis police spokeswoman, said her department traded the weapon to a dealer in 2008 for a different gun that was better for police work.

In fact, the ATF has reported that 30% of all guns involved in "federal illegal gun trafficking investigations are connected to gun shows. Last October, Michael Bloomberg, the Republican Mayor of New York, announced the results of an undercover multi-state investigation into how easy it is for criminals to obtain guns without a background check. Here's what that investigation discovered:

The City of New York investigated 7 gun shows in 3 states involving buys from 47 gun sellers using hidden cameras.

The investigation videos showed that 35 out of 47 sellers approached by undercover investigators at these gun shows sold guns illegally. [...]

Even though they are not required to perform background checks, private dealers cannot sell to someone who they have reason to believe is prohibited from buying guns.

Investigators attempted to purchase guns after telling private sellers that they probably could not pass a background check.

19 of 30 private sellers – 63% – broke the law by completing a sale to a buyer who they thought could not pass a background check.

In other words, the gun traveled a not uncommon route from gun dealer to gun dealer until someone who was prohibited by law from owing a gun purchased it for resale at the Vegas gun show. I don't know if that seller had reason to believe that Bedell was a man who had no business purchasing a firearm, but what we do know is that a high percentage of these "private sellers" at gun shows just don't give a damn about enforcing the law which prohibits criminals and .

And why should they. In many states gun shows are essentially unregulated, with minimal if any police presence. No one is looking over their shoulder. No one is policing these gun shows to ensure that they don't sell guns to people they suspect are unqualified purchasers. In any event, people can easily lie, and and the such gun show "private" firearms dealers (for that is what they are) are not required to run a background check.

It's not exactly a secret to anyone, buyers or sellers, that people who wish to purchase a weapon secretly because they know they would not pass a background check go to gun shows for that purpose. It's what John Patrick Bedell, a deeply disturbed, delusional and paranoid man, did when he attended the Las Vegas gun show because he knew no one would ask him any questions about whether he could lawfully purchase a gun, and even of they did and he answered truthfully he still stood a good chance that he could buy one.

Gun shows are businesses after all. They take full advantage of this loop hole in order to attract more sellers and buyers of firearms . Gun show operators typically charge rent to people who sell guns at their shows and fees charge to potential buyers who attend. Closing the gun show loophole would put a serious dent in their business. Even a greater law enforcement presence at gun shows to ensure that dealers and private sellers were obeying the laws that do apply would go a long way toward eliminating the illegal sale of firearms.

Yet, in many states, gun advocates are succeeding in getting legislation passed that removes restrictions on gun ownership and sales:

A nationwide review by The Associated Press in December found that over the previous two years, 24 states — mostly in the South and West, where gun-rights advocates are particularly strong — have passed 47 new laws loosening gun restrictions. Gun rights groups are making a greater effort to pass favorable legislation in state capitals.

These laws don't just affect the people that live in those states. Because of the ease of transport of weapons and the ability to buy guns anywhere in the United States they affect everyone. Which is why a California man with severe psychiatric problems who hated the government was able to travel to Nevada to buy the guns he needed for his homicidal terrorist attack on the Pentagon. A gun that the Memphis police sold to a gun dealer. A gun that wounded fellow police officers at the pentagon.

And people who support the Gun Show loophole call those of us who advocate for sensible regulation of gun purchases and greater enforcement of existing laws fanatics, moonbats, idiots, traitors, criminals and extremists?

Yet, isn't it simply common sense to put an end to this policy of "don't ask, don't tell" when it comes to preventing illegal gun sales?

We place restrictions on free speech with laws against slander, libel and inciting violence. We also limit free speech when we designate "free speech zones" outside of which you can be arrested.

Furthermore, conservatives had no problem with abandoning our fourth, fifth and sixth amendment rights for someone designated by the President as an Islamic terrorist or "enemy combatant" (naturally these rights continue to apply to right wing domestic terrorists like the Scott Roeder, the murderer of Dr. Tiller and Tim McVeigh, both of whom received ll of their constitutional rights to an attorney and to a trial by their peers). They were also more than willing to grant President Bush the right to spy on American citizens without warrants and let the FBI rifle through library files to see what books you or I may have read.

However, when it comes to their precious Second Amendment rights, any reasonable regulation on the ownership and possession of firearms is an infringement on their "freedoms" and evidence of tyranny, socialism and god knows what else. Is this a rational response?

Are rights like free speech and the right against unreasonable searches and seizures "limited rights" which can be regulated, but the right for anyone to own a gun be unlimited and not subject to any regulation no matter how sensible? The Constitution makes no distinction among these various rights. If some can be regulated in the interests of public safety, why can't the Second amendment as well? Even conservatives will agree that felons lose the right to own firearms. Yet then they turn around and defend a system that makes it easier for felons to obtain weapons. It's a patently insane position to defend, but they do.

Closing he gun show loophole and enforcing the current laws on guns sold at guns shows only makes sense. Our legislators should stop letting themselves be bullied by the NRA and do the right thing before another crazy person or criminal buys a gun at one of these shows and then uses it to kill or maim innocent people.

With any right comes responsibilities. Gun owners claim they are responsible citizens. Well members of the NRA, here's your chance to prove it.

Unless you approve of criminals and deranged individuals buying guns at unregulated gun shows so they can attack our military and our police officers, or unless you prefer allowing criminals to easily obtain weapons directly or indirectly through straw sales at gun shows, tell the leaders of the National Rifle Association to back off their baseless accusations and support closing the gun show loophole. Also tell them that you support greater enforcement of existing laws designed to make it harder for criminals and mentally disturbed people to buy guns.

Stop being misled by the fear mongers in the NRA and other conservative commentators and their outrageous claims that you will lose your freedoms if gun shows have to abide by the same laws as other gun dealers, and step up to make your families, your friends and neighbors and your fellow citizens safer. You know in your heart that it's the right thing to do so just do it.

In short: Just Say No to the Gun Show Loophole.