Bushmaster AR-15

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill that expands background checks for gun sales. Currently, background checks are only federally mandated when a firearm is purchased from a person or business that holds a federal firearm license (FFL). No such requirement is imposed on unlicensed sellers.

Under federal law, people must obtain an FFL if they sell firearms as part of “a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit.” Individuals who make “occasional sales,” on the other hand, do not need to obtain an FFL. This law was written more than 25 years ago, at a time when Congress could not have envisioned the vast and unregulated online market for guns that exists today.

According to a 2018 report by the gun safety organization Everytown, there were 1.2 million ads for firearms that did not require a background check from one website devoted to firearm sales, ArmsList.com. Sales through ArmsList were completed with less than three minutes of face-to-face interaction. The report estimates that approximately one in nine prospective online buyers would not have passed a federal background check. Unlicensed sales like these are not uncommon. According to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2017, one in five U.S. gun owners who acquired a firearm in the previous two years did so without a background check.

While states can choose to impose stricter laws, only slightly more than a third have done so. The House bill would address this problem by expanding federal background checks to unlicensed sales, including those conducted over the internet. To comply with the law, a private seller simply locates an FFL—any local gun store for instance—and requests a background check on the prospective buyer. This is the system employed by most states that require background checks for private sales and it has proved workable.

Whether the bill can survive the Republican-controlled Senate is unclear. One objection, which has already been voiced by members of the House who voted against the measure, is that expanding background checks will not prevent mass shootings. That may be true; studies suggest that 75 percent to 80 percent of mass shooters obtained their weapons legally after passing a background check.

But mass shootings are only one piece of gun violence. One of the more insidious—and less discussed—aspects of gun violence is the relationship between firearms and domestic violence. Women in the United States are 16 times more likely to be killed with a gun than women in other high-income countries. Fifty American women are shot to death by intimate partners every month.

Background checks, which look not only for convictions related to domestic violence but also restraining orders and orders of protection, play a critical role in preventing abusive situations from escalating to homicide. Currently, about one in seven unlawful gun buyers stopped by a federal background check is a domestic abuser. It stands to reason that more abusers would be stopped from purchasing firearms, and more lives would be saved, if background checks were not so easy to evade.

The House bill will not solve this country's epidemic of gun violence, but it is a critically important and long overdue correction to our current regulatory system. Universal background checks are overwhelming supported by Americans and they pose no threat to the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The Senate should vote yes.