By Brendan O’Reilly

Where is the Department of Homeland Security in the Virginia Tech response? I can’t believe no one else is asking this question.

Tom Ridge, the former chief of Homeland Security, is on the panel investigating if anything went wrong in the response to the shootings. But what about Michael Chertoff, the current department head? Why has Homeland Security not so much as even released a statement?

Had the gunman been brown, the department would be all over the Virginia Tech campus right now. Since he was Asian, Homeland Security ignored the shootings. Just because the attack was not an act of terrorism, does not mean Homeland Security was not responsible for taking preventative measures. The same measures that are taken to stop foreign terrorists can prevent domestic threats as well.

An April 21 New York Times article titled “U.S. Rules Made Killer Ineligible to Purchase Gun” revealed Cho Seung-Hui never should have been able to buy his 9mm and .22 caliber handguns that he used to kill 32 people and himself. After a Virginia court declared Cho a danger to himself in 2005, federal law prohibited him from buying firearms. Virginia did not inform the federal government of Cho’s ineligibility, therefore Cho passed his background check.

But Virginia did not do anything illegal, because there are no statutes that required the state to report Cho’s status as a mental defect to the F.B.I.

In all of Homeland Security’s considerations on how to protect America from terrorism, it never occurred to anyone in the department that laws should exist to ensure states adhere to federal laws concerning gun purchases.

According to its Web site, Homeland Security “is responsible for assessing the nation’s vulnerabilities. It takes the lead in evaluating vulnerabilities and coordinating with other federal, state, local, and private entities to ensure the most effective response.” A gap in the law that allows those who have been declared mentally ill to buy firearms is what I’d call a vulnerability. Less than half the states in America submit mental health records to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), according to a statement from the F.B.I. dated April 19. The statement also said, “Virginia is the leading state in reporting mental defective entries for the NICS index.”

So, Virginia, the 12th most populous state, reports the most mental defectives to the NICS, even though it omits people it should report. Either Virginia is chock full of crazies, or other states are also failing to meet reporting requirements.

In 2002, a bill called the “Our Lady of Peace Act” passed through the House of Representatives. The bill, introduced by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola), was designed to assure that states reported everyone to the NICS that should be reported. The bill never came to a vote in the Senate. Had the act become law, Cho may have not been able to purchase the guns he used to murder 32 people.

In 2003, McCarthy proposed the “NICS Improvement Act,” which served the same purpose as the Our Lady of Peace Act. She tried again in 2005. Both times the bills never came to a vote, and were swept from the books at the end of the Congressional session.

Introduced on Jan. 5, the NICS Improvement Act of 2007 is McCarthy’s fourth attempt to reform the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established the national background check system.

Now, prompted by the Virginia Tech massacre, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is urging the House to pass the NICS Improvement Act so it can be heard in the Senate. The act should be filed under “common sense legislation,” meaning there is little or no need for debate. It should be fast tracked to the floors of both chambers and on the president’s desk as soon as possible. While the bill is in limbo, people like Cho can be collecting handguns for their future rampages.

As the Virginia Tech shootings leave the headlines and Americans move onto the next story, Congress must not forget what happened on April 16.

———————————–Brendan O’Reilly is a junior print journalism student. You can e-mail him at [email protected]