The Opinion of the RGJ Editorial Board

The RGJ Editorial Board supports voting yes on state ballot Question 1 to expand gun background checks in Nevada. All 10 members – two from the Reno Gazette-Journal and eight community members from across the political spectrum – unanimously agree with the initiative.

Reasons to vote yes:

• No one wants guns in the hands of people who should not have them. This initiative closes one way that such people currently use to acquire guns: by getting them through a private seller not required to conduct a background check.

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• Exemptions have been included so that people can trade guns while hunting, at shooting ranges, during shooting competitions or as part of an organized public performance – all without need of a background check. Other exemptions allow someone under threat of violence to borrow a gun for defense, and they allow family members to give or sell guns to each other. The family members who can transfer guns to each other without jumping through hoops are parents, children, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

• The cost of having to run a background check outside of a licensed dealer involves going to a gun shop or dealer and paying $25. This is not a huge burden – almost all Nevadans live within 10 miles of a licensed dealer – and the process does not stop any law-abiding citizen from buying or selling guns.

• Opponents often say criminals do not obey laws and they will ignore this one, too. Sometimes, yes. But supporters can point to hundreds of examples where laws just like this one have indeed stopped sales to people who should not have guns. In Nevada in the past three years, background checks blocked more than 5,300 gun sales, including to more than 1,200 felons. Background checks do stop gun sales to people who should not have guns.

• In an interview with the RGJ Editorial Board, opponents said this law would turn law-abiding Nevadans into criminals for innocently giving or lending guns, such as a soldier storing his private gun collection with a friend in anticipation of an upcoming deployment. But they gave no examples where anyone has been arrested, fined or imprisoned for doing anything similar in states that have passed similar background check measures. This is not to say that such a case could not happen – if a district attorney does not want to get re-elected – but the chances seem exceedingly minuscule in comparison to the known benefits of closing one avenue for bad actors to get guns easily.

• Opponents also say that a woman who gets a threatening phone call and goes to a neighbor to borrow a gun to protect herself may worry that the situation is not enough of an “imminent” danger to qualify for the exemption. Again, there is virtually no chance that a prosecutor will go after a woman who fears for her life. Public outcry would put an immediate stop to it, especially in Nevada.

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• Consider one Reno case. In 2012 on U.S. 395, Jeffrey Rodriguez shot and killed his wife, Korinda Rodriguez, and shot at two vehicles of people who stopped to help. He was a felon who was not allowed to possess a gun, but he bought the two he used from neighbors who did not know he was a felon. Under this initiative, the neighbors would have been required to conduct the transaction at a licensed dealer to see if he was allowed to have a gun. Rodriguez explained to the police about buying from his neighbors: “Nevada gun laws are pretty lenient.” A similar case happened earlier this year when Travis Spitler shot and killed his ex-girlfriend Christina Franklin in North Las Vegas. He also shot and injured their two children before killing himself. He bought the gun from a stranger, who told police he intentionally did not conduct the transaction where a background check could be run, as is allowed under current law. Such examples are not uncommon in Nevada, which ranks as the fifth most dangerous state in the country for women, based largely on its gun homicide rate.

Reasons to vote no:

• You see this initiative as a slippery slope that will lead to more gun restrictions down the road.

• You want an initiative that will decrease mass shootings that are not domestic violence related or that will decrease terrorist attacks. This initiative will lead to little if any reduction in those tragedies.

Watch the RGJ Editorial Board’s interviews with Nevadans for Background Checks and with representatives of the National Rifle Association at RGJ.com/opinion. In the video roundup article, you can also link to the full text of the ballot initiative, which includes the official arguments for and against.