Guns and domestic abuse

The Texas church shooter never should have been able to buy a firearm

America’s extraordinary gun violence is enabled by a lack of both laws and responsibility. In a small but significant way, bipartisan legislation proposed by Sens. Jeff Flake, RAriz., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., seeks to address both failings.

A record of domestic violence is a frequent denominator in cases of gun violence. About 50 U.S. women are shot dead each month by an intimate partner. More than 4 million say they have been threatened with a gun byan intimate partner.

Theman who killed 26 and injured 20 last weekend at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, had been convicted after being courtmartialed by the Air Force in 2012 for assaulting his wife and stepson. A spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said a “domestic situation” was also at the root of the church massacre.

The Air Force conviction should have prevented the killer from purchasing several guns he acquired, including a semi-automatic rifle used in the church massacre, from licensed dealers. Yet the Air Force acknowledged that it had failed to enterthe man’s name into a federal database used for instant background checks of firearm purchase rs.

The military has often failed to report criminal records as required. Many states, whose participation in the background-check system is voluntary, also fail to report key records of drug abuse, mental health or felony convictions that would prohibita firearm purchase.

Background checks are still the best way to keep guns away from dangerous people, which is why safety advocates must continue to push to close the private gun sale loophole and to improve sloppy reporting to the background-check databases.

The bill from Messrs. Flake and Heinrich is a good step. It would require the military to identify cases of domestic violence and promptly submit conviction information to the criminal background database. To make sure the system is working, and supervised, the bill also would require annual reports to Congress.

The Pentagon’s failure may be a remnant of an era when domestic violence wasn’t taken seriously. And it could be more evidence that nonchalance about guns makes gun violence more likely. Times, and attitudes, have changed.