THE BRADY BILL LOOPHOLE The Brady Bill recently was signed into law. It requires that before a person can purchase a handgun, he or she must wait for five days so a criminal check can be processed to verify that the potential buyer is not a criminal, a drug addict, or some other type of derelict. On the surface this bill is supposed to address the state of violence in America. But does it really? I maintain that it does not and here's why. The Brady Bill has a gigantic loophole in it. There is nothing in the law which states that once I purchase a handgun, I can't turn right around and sell it to someone else. Only a registered firearms dealer must fill out the paperwork for a handgun transfer and make the buyer wait five days, not a secondary seller. Imagine this scenario. I go in to buy a handgun. I fill out the necessary papers, and leave the gun store knowing that in five days I can return and pick up my weapon. I am not a convicted felon, not on drugs, have no criminal record, am not a fugitive from justice, and am not mentally incompetent. I return to the gun store and pick up my gun. I sign the final papers and pay for the gun and leave. Yes, my firearm is registered. It can be traced to me. A tell a friend that I now own a S&W 38 snub-nosed special. He is interested in seeing it so I show him the gun. He really likes it and offers me twice what I just paid for it. I say to myself, "self, sell the gun and make a profit." I sell him the gun. I even get a bill of sale to prove I sold it to him to protect myself. I pocket the money and run. I am within the law. I don't have to fill out any papers like the gun store owner does. I don't have to make my friend wait for five days. This is the Brady Bill Loophole. I am within the law and yet am contributing to the proliferation of firearms within the country. Now my friend takes the gun with him to a shooting range, and there he meets a person who appears to be interested in sport shooting and admires the piece. He offers to buy the gun from my friend for twice what my friend just paid me for it. My friend gladly sells the gun. He even gets a bill of sale. The guy tells him his name is Bubba Jones and he lives in Pittsburgh. The cash talks louder than anything. The gun is sold and disappears. Bubba takes the gun to Pittsburgh and sells it to someone who is connected with a gang. The price now is four times what I paid for it. Bubba even gets a bill of sale, but the fourth buyer does not use his real name or address. The cash speaks louder than the law. Bubba takes the money, and the fourth buyer the gun and disappears. This fourth person gives the gun to some thug on the street and eventually, though maybe not today or tomorrow, it is used in a crime. Bubba can't be traced, because the gun is not registered to him. It is registered to me. Even if the Feds come after me, I have a bill of sale proving that I sold it. I am within the law. I cannot be prosecuted. The loophole. Yes, what I have done is contribute to the proliferation of weapons into the streets of America. I didn't do it on purpose. I was practicing capitalism: making a profit on a sale. If this scenario seems farfetched, believe me its not. A friend told me that members of the NRA are swapping firearms right now in an overt attempt to make their guns untraceable. He maintained that when the hue and cry comes for the confiscation of all firearms, his will be untraceable. The Brady Bill doesn't address this in any way, shape, or form. Five days is nothing to wait. If a person could turn a $200 profit on just one gun, why, what's to stop him from going into the business full time selling guns second-hand? Guns don't kill people, people kill people. We seem to have forgotten this in all this hoopla about crime, gun control, and the issue of violence in our city streets. I am spiritually disturbed about what is happening to our nation. There is nothing more disheartening to hear about a 7 year old child dying as a result of a random shooting in our city streets. The Wild, Wild, West Days are alive and well. Hysterically, we have been a nation of violent people. Guns just make the violence more deadly. West Side Story, a famous stage play produced in the 1950's, was about gang violence. The story line was Romeo and Juliet. The tragedy was that in the play, the hero dies as a result of a knife wound suffered in a gang street fight. Knives were used then, but with Hollywood's portrayal of heroes in movies like Dirty Harry, Lethal Weapon, Deathwish versions 1-4, Scarface, Die Hard I, II, and soon, I believe, III, we accept a new type of Billy the Kid, Doc Holiday, and Jesse James. It's not the economy, stupid. It's not the guns, stupid. It's not the Brady Bill, stupid. It's not even health care, welfare, social security, foreign affairs, or any of the other fluff that surrounds our dilemma. It's that we don't respect human life. It's that we don't know anymore one of the most important of the ten commandments. It's, by the way, Thou Shalt Not Kill. For those of you interested in participating in the electronic information superhighway, give the EPIC BBS a call via your computer modem. The number is 927-8339. John Skehan is the Sysop (system operator). There is no charge. File area #8 on the BBS is a daily update from Washington D.C. on all of President Clinton's speeches, press conferences, position papers, and other documents all courtesy of the Clinton Information Campaign. Settings are 2400 Baud, 8,N,1. Log on and join in on the sharing of information, files, and just chit chat about computers, hardware, and software. John is getting ready to speed up operations to 14,400 Baud, so information will speed along six times faster. Forward!