In triplicate please

Anyone who wants to buy a gun from a licensed dealer is required to fill out a Firearms Transaction Record. It asks questions to determine if the customer is legally prohibited from getting a gun—because he or she is a felon or a fugitive from justice, received a dishonorable military discharge, has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” and the like.

The application notes that “any false oral or written statement … is a crime punishable as a felony under federal law.”

That’s fair warning to anyone tempted to lie. But a surprising number of people do so anyway. A new report from the federal Government Accountability Office says that last year, 112,000 people tried to buy guns from licensed dealers but were caught giving false information on the form.

It’s reassuring that so many felons and other ineligible people were blocked. What’s not reassuring is how few of them were prosecuted. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives referred just 12,700 cases to field offices for investigation. Of those, the Justice Department prosecuted exactly 12—one of every 9,333 alleged liars.

The message to criminals is clear: What have you got to lose?

Americans have plenty of disagreements over whether new laws are needed to prevent gun crimes. There should be no disagreement about enforcing the ones we already have.