As law enforcement continues to gather details on how Stephen Paddock obtained the rifles he used in Sunday’s mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, elected officials are using the incident to again call for stricter gun laws.
Nevada is no stranger to gun law reform efforts and the political battles that ensue.
Last year, voters in the state narrowly passed Question 1, an initiative that required most private buyers and sellers of guns to conduct a background check through a licensed dealer. Millions of dollars from national groups supporting and opposing the law poured into the state.
The initiative, which passed by 50.4 percent to 49.5 percent, mandated that private-party gun sales — with a few exceptions, such as transfers between family members — be subject to a federal background check through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is administered by the FBI.
That’s where language in the law ran into a roadblock.
In December, the FBI sent a letter to the Nevada Department of Public Safety, noting it would not conduct these checks. In its letter, officials from the agency said that “the recent passage of the Nevada legislation regarding background checks for private sales cannot dictate how federal resources are applied.”
The letter prompted the Department of Public Safety to seek guidance from Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt.
Two weeks after the initial letter from the FBI, Laxalt, a Republican who opposed Question 1, released an opinion saying that “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.”
At the time, Laxalt’s office also sent out a statement, stressing that “without this central feature (the FBI background check)” the initiative “cannot commence.”
To date, the initiative remains in limbo and has not gone into effect.
Under state law, the language of ballot initiatives approved by the electorate cannot be changed by the Legislature for three years.
The troubled course of Nevada’s attempt to expand background checks offers a window into the intricacies of enacting firearms control, an emotional issue being raised anew following what appears to be the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
“It is certainly possible to work these things out,” said Robert Spitzer, a political scientist at SUNY Cortland in New York who has written five books about gun control. “And that happens all the time, certainly with respect to federal government-state government relations -- when the parties are willing to do it.”
About a dozen states have passed tighter gun laws since the Sandy Hook schoolhouse massacre in 2012. Roughly twice that number have loosened regulations, Spitzer said.
Nevada, a “purple state” between left and right, may offer room for agreement on measures such as background checks, which enjoy support from most people including gun owners, said Spitzer.
“Could they have worked this out? Of course they could have,” Spitzer said. “But the key state leaders have shown little interest in doing that. So guess what? The law is going nowhere.”
Gun-control advocates want the state to find a way to entice federal cooperation, rather than take the FBI decision as a final defeat.
“That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a solution,” said Avery Gardiner, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. She called the situation “frustrating but not particularly surprising that the NRA is opposed to increasing background checks,” adding that gun makers support the advocacy group and stand to make more money with fewer restrictions.
First Published: October 4, 2017, 4:34 a.m.
