The New York Times: Background Checks An “Unfair Barrier”

On Sunday the New York Times editorialized against criminal background checks as “An Unfair Barrier To Employment,” arguing that they might unfairly cause applicants “to be denied jobs, even for arrests or minor convictions that occurred in the distant past” and endorsing state legislation already passed or pending curtailing the use of such checks “that would give ex-offenders a fairer shot at getting a job”— for example, by requiring “employers to show that the disqualifying offenses are directly related to the position in question.”

“These measures are propelled in part,” the editorial concludes, “by concerns about the civic damage that results from shutting otherwise qualified people out of the job market, banishing them to the margins of society — and, in some cases, driving them back to jail.”

I have searched, so far in vain, for any New York Times editorial endorsing similar restrictions, for similar reasons, on the unfairness of using background checks to prevent qualified applicants from buying a gun because of infractions that are old or are not related in any way to gun violence.

If there were such an editorial, it could have concluded by noting that measures curtailing the use of such an “unfair barrier” to former offenders purchasing a gun for home or self-defense “are propelled in part by concerns about the civic damage that results from shutting otherwise qualified people out of the ability to protect themselves and their families, leaving them disarmed and defenseless in a world where real, dangerous criminals are well armed — and, in some cases, driving them to offend again by obtaining guns illegally.”