A bill requiring private buyers and sellers who attend Virginia gun shows conduct background checks passed out of the Senate committee and is headed for a vote of the full Senate. This is the non-existant "gun show loophole" that gun grabbers keep harping about.

So, what does it mean? Gun dealers, regardless of location, must always conduct background checks. But private citizens who are not in the firearm business are free to sell their guns to anyone who is a Virginia resident and who is not precluded from buying a gun. If this bill passes, selling your gun to another private person at a gun show without conducting a background check (as if you were a dealer) is a felony.

Now, most sales at gun shows are already done by dealers who are required to do a background check. But there is a small percentage of people who, rather than run a classified ad in their local trading post, take their gun to a gun show to sell it to a dealer or another private citizen.

The bill still has to pass the full Senate and then the House, but it's 8-7 passage out of committee is very disheartening.