Get a grip on guns already

We interrupt your holiday bliss with a reminder that New York’s restrictions on gun permits, and those of all states with the good sense to arm only those ready for the life-and-death responsibility, could shatter as shockingly as a bulletstricken windowpane.

The bill the House of Representatives passed earlier this month to allow concealed-carry gun permits issued in any state to work in any other state — effectively issuing licenses on demand for anyone who’s not barred by federal law from buying firearms — next heads for the Senate.

There, passage seems unlikely but not impossible even after two of the deadliest mass shootings this nation has ever seen — because the bill cynically also includes measures to strengthen the background check system that failed to devastatingly deadly consequence in the case of Devin P. Kelley, who slaughtered 26 last month in a Texas church.

The Air Force had inexcusably failed to report Kelley’s domestic violence conviction record to a national database that should have prevented him from buying or possessing firearms. And that failure turned out to be far from isolated.

No question, the armed forces and other government agencies need to take dead seriously their responsibilities to update the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. No question too that the price Republican leaders in Congress are demanding for the “NICS Fix” is unconscionably high.

So it comes as welcome news that Mayor de Blasio’s top lawyer, Zachary Carter, is joining his counterparts in San Francisco and Philadelphia to sue the Department of Defense and armed forces agencies to correct their chronic failures, well documented by the Pentagon’s inspector general, to follow existing federal law requiring them to report relevant criminal convictions.

Aka: Do their jobs.