Governor-elect Steve Sisolak wants to enforce Nevada's background check law
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — The massacre in Thousand Oaks, California is renewing the debate on gun control along with a background check law passed by Nevada voters in 2016 that is still not being enforced.
It’s easy to get a gun in Nevada.
In this state, you don’t need a background check to buy a gun from a private seller.
Nevada voters and Nevada’s governor-elect Steve Sisolak want that practice to end.
“We're going to try to get background checks implemented as quickly as we possibly can ‘cause that's important to me. It's important to the citizens,” said Steve Sisolak.
Nevada voters passed a law in 2016 that would expand background checks, but two years later, the law has yet to be implemented.
“I think there's a way we can get to yes on the background checks and start working with the federal government,” said Sisolak.
The law was blocked by Governor Brian Sandoval and Attorney General Adam Laxalt.
In October 2017, Laxalt told News 3 he couldn’t enforce the law because it required the FBI to do the background checks.
“The FBI sent multiple letters to the state saying they were not willing to perform the background checks,” said Adam Laxalt.
Don Turner is the president of the Nevada Firearms Coalition.
He said the law was flawed from the start.
“It wasn't that it couldn't be enforced. It was that it couldn't be implemented. It was a technicality,” said Turner.
“If it's a private seller, for instance, I sell you a gun and I don't tell anyone. How do they know? You know? There's no records. There's no way to track it,” he explained.
Nevada Attorney General-elect Aaron Ford sent News 3 the following statement:
As I traveled the state during my campaign, I heard from Nevada families in every county who are sick and tired of the gun violence epidemic and the lack of enforcement of the voter-approved background check initiative. I will work with governor-elect Sisolak, the state legislature, law enforcement and the federal government to see that the will of the voters is done and we implement the background check initiative to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
