The Scourge of Online Gun Sales

Bloomberg It’s not difficult to grasp how a man with a history of gun arrests and mental instability obtained the necessary firepower to commit a massacre at the Washington Navy Yard earlier this week. Buying a gun, or even an arsenal, is exceptionally easy in the U.S. Even so, there are some people who both fail to meet the minimal requirements for purchasing a gun from a licensed dealer and whose relevant personal details are known to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Since 1998, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System has stopped more than 2 million attempted gun purchases by felons, domestic abusers, drug addicts, the mentally ill and other prohibited persons. Those blocked from making legal purchases from gun dealers, however, have an alternative marketplace -- online. As a report released this week makes painfully clear, that marketplace is growing in both size and danger. Mayors Against Illegal Guns, cofounded by New York City Mayor and Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg, found 83,000 ads for guns on Armslist.com, a site devoted to firearm sales. The number of criminals seeking guns on the site -- federal law requires no background checks or questions of any kind for in-state, nondealer transactions -- would be astounding if it weren’t so predictable. So when Radcliffe Haughton was prohibited from buying firearms, he naturally turned to Armslist, where he found a willing seller while avoiding a background check or any other kind of scrutiny. Haughton bought a .40-caliber semi-automatic Glock handgun. The next day, he drove to his estranged wife’s workplace and murdered her along with two co-workers. Four others were injured before Haughton turned the gun on himself. This is the “gun-show loophole” in action. Armslist is precisely the kind of lawless marketplace that the National Rifle Association champions and that the U.S. Senate this year mobilized to protect by scuttling background-check legislation. With the growth of online markets, there’s never a need to wait for a gun show; tens of thousands of guns are on sale every hour of every day.