Virginia Tech murders could spur new gun laws

Lenett plans to reintroduce assault weapons ban next year

The April 16 massacre, which left 33 people dead on the Blacksburg, Va., campus, raises issues that Lenett said bear consideration as Maryland looks at its own gun laws.

‘‘If anything good comes out of such a horrible tragedy, we hope it is a renewed emphasis on the dangerous problem of gun violence,” said Lenett (D-Dist. 19) of Silver Spring.

Gun control advocates and proponents alike said that no amount of legislation could have prevented the killings. Initial reports indicate that the gunman appeared to meet all of Virginia’s legal requirements when he bought the handguns used in the shootings.

However, the gunman reportedly lied on an application to buy one of the guns, failing to note that in 2005 he had been ordered by a judge to get therapy after a roommate reported that the man had discussed killing himself.

Maryland requires handgun purchasers to complete an application attesting that they have not been found to be mentally defective by a judge or been committed to a mental institution.

Gun rights advocates worry that the murders will lead to a renewed assault on Second Amendment rights.

‘‘Proponents of gun control, sad to say, always dance in the blood of victims,” said James M. Purtilo, publisher of the gun rights publication, Tripwire. ‘‘This event will be no different.”

The Virginia Tech shootings make the case for fewer gun restrictions, Purtilo said.

Purtilo and others criticized Virginia laws for making Virginia Tech a ‘‘gun-free zone.”

‘‘Only one person died because this nut had a gun,” Purtilo said. ‘‘The rest died because no one else had a gun.”

Instead of restricting guns, authorities should have been looking at the red flags sent up about the shooter’s mental state, he said.

‘‘It seems disingenuous to ignore all those things and then to say the appropriate remedy is to ban more guns,” Purtilo said.

While most mentally ill people are not dangerous, mental health advocates are focused on getting early treatment for people with signs of mental illness, said Lynn H. Albizo, executive director of NAMI Maryland.

‘‘Most tragedies with mental illness end up being suicides,” Albizo said. ‘‘If a person is dangerous and then they have access to a weapon, that heightens the ability to make them more dangerous.”

Albizo was hesitant to use the Virginia Tech slayings as a springboard to advocate for mental health legislation. ‘‘I don’t want to exploit a situation for a political cause,” she said.

In doing background checks on gun buyers, Maryland State Police search 14 databases, said police spokesman Greg Shipley. But medical information is confidential and usually not available, he said.

Tips that a would-be purchaser has mental health problems often have to come from concerned friends or family, Shipley said. If police are alerted, they hold the application.

A recent audit by legislative analysts found that the state police’s checks ‘‘were not adequate to ensure background checks were performed for all gun sales....”

Analysts said the audits did not include a comparison of each dealer’s gun sales with approved handgun applications and therefore failed to ensure that all buyers had gone through background checks.

But the analysts’ criticism was based on department policy rather than what police did, Shipley said.

Police check most dealers’ gun sales records every year and check all at least every three years, he said. State police policy has been revised to require that all dealers’ records be checked every three years.

Lenett said the Virginia Tech shootings raise questions about the need for legislation restricting guns with high-capacity magazines. Virginia puts no limits on the size of a gun’s magazine, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Maryland restricts the size to 20 rounds.

News reports said the guns used in the shootings had their serial numbers filed off.

‘‘That points to a need for effective ballistics fingerprint database so guns can be traced,” Lenett said.

The state should also consider whether to restrict gun ownership to those who are institutionalized without a court order, he said.

The ‘‘most obvious” and easiest first step for lawmakers to take to stem gun violence is to pass an assault weapons ban, said Sen. Brian E. Frosh, chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee.

His committee’s 6-5 vote against the ban this year, the result of members’ deeply felt views on gun control, does not bode well for the prospects of handgun restrictions, said Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda.

‘‘If we can’t pass a ban on assault weapons, I’m not sure we can make more difficult the requirements for owning handguns,” he said.

Staff Writer Margie Hyslop contributed to this report.