Even though he was declared mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself, Seung-Hui Cho breezed through background gun checks in Virginia and was easily able to buy the two handguns and ammo used to gun down 32 Virginia Tech students and professors.

Could Cho just as easily have gotten the weapons had he been, say, a Franklin & Marshall College student bent on murder and had gone to a local gun store?

Probably not, says a spokesman for Pennsylvania State Police, which has conducted background checks on almost all handguns sales in the state since 1998.

Like Virginia, Pennsylvania bans gun purchases by those who have been adjudicated mentally incompetent or involuntarily committed to a mental institution.

When those mental-health determinations are made, records are required to be sent to Pennsylvania State Police for their computer-based instant check system when guns are sold or transferred.

But in Virginia, Cho's name never surfaced when he underwent that state's and federal background checks while buying two handguns a month apart.

How could that be?

Turns out that the judge who ordered psychiatric treatment for Cho in 2005 after he stalked two female students said he could do it as an outpatient.

Since he was not committed against his will, Virginia privacy laws did not require Cho's mental illness records to be added to the Virginia database or sent to the federal gun-check database.

However, a recent New York Times story made the case that Virginia — and other states — might be ignoring federal laws that require the refusal of guns sales to anyone "adjudicated as a mental defective."

Ironically, Virginia nixes more gun sales for mental health reasons than any other state.

Not surprisingly, public outrage and a new wave of gun-control sentiment have surfaced.

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine recently closed the loophole with an executive order. Now, anyone ordered by a court to seek mental-health treatment has to be entered in the state's gun database.

Though Pennsylvania's gun-check rules also are based on inpatient care and the state has strict privacy laws, State Police spokesman Jack Lewis maintains it's unlikely Cho would have slipped through the cracks here.

That's because in Pennsylvania mental-health cases, a physician or other professional — not a judge — would initially decide whether to commit the person or not.

Either the person would be involuntarily committed to a mental institution, at least temporarily, and a record sent to the gun database, or a professional would rule the person does not need commitment and is competent.

"The person would either have been committed or not," says Lewis. "It seems to have been a gray area in Virginia."

 A policy aide of Gov. Ed Rendell recently told the Associated Press it is unlikely the governor will require anyone who is ordered to seek psychiatric treatment to be flagged for a gun buy as his Virginia counterpart has done.

 Barring anyone who is required to see a psychiatrist would be unfair and overkill, Donna Cooper, Rendell's policy secretary, told the AP.

Saying laws alone can't stop crazed killers, Cooper referenced the Nickel Mines Amish school shootings. Mass-murder Charles C. Roberts IV, she said, never received psychiatric treatment.

Such restraint on who to put on ban lists for guns is praised by Michael Stollenwerk, a former Mountville resident and well-known guns-rights advocate.

"It's un-American to let the government go around making list after list of people — look at the non-fly list — this will lead to no good in the long run without a large measure of restraint," Stollenwerk said.

Unlike Virginia, Pennsylvania has not passed on 438,000 mental-health records it has amassed since 1998 to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the federal gun-check process.

Pennsylvania cites its mental-health privacy laws. So do 17 other states.

Congress passed a law in 1993 requiring states to supply such data, but a U.S. Supreme Court ruling four years later overturned the law.

Sharing of information remains voluntary. Thus, someone barred from buying a gun in Pennsylvania for mental incompetence could slip by in another state since neither that state or the federal background check would have the person's name on their lists.

However, Stollenwerk and Lewis have problems with the federal system since once someone makes the federal database, for whatever reason, they are never taken off, they say.

In Pennsylvania, a judge can order someone once committed or ruled mentally incompetent taken off the gun database.

"That is a concern in Pennsylvania," Lewis says.

In 2002, a Washington, D.C.-based group, Americans for Gun Safety, gave Pennsylvania's gun check system a failing grade for, among other things, having inadequate mental-health records in its computerized database.

But State Police attacked the report, noting it was based on federal statistics. In fact, all mental-health records back to the 1950s had been computerized and were in the background check system, State Police said at the time.

Predictably, the Virginia Tech slayings have spawned renewed we've-gotta-do-something talk about tougher gun laws.

Congress is renewing a twice-stalled bill that would override state privacy laws and require states to pass on mental-health records.

Mental-health advocacy groups are critical, saying it would unfairly stigmatize people treated for mental illness and discourage people from seeking the help they need.

Rendell may or may not see some of the chill thaw that greeted his proposal to limit handgun purchases to once a month.

That, in fact, is already the law in Virginia. Cho merely waited a month and several days between gun purchases — one on the Internet and one at a gun store.

Historically, Pennsylvania legislators have not been friendly to gun-control initiatives.

In some ways, Pennsylvania's gun-check system is not as tough as Virginia's. Virginia limits handgun purchases, passes on mental-health commitments for nationwide gun checks and requires more proof of identification than Pennsylvania.

But Pennsylvania's system was the first in the nation to require background checks for private transfers of handguns (except among family members), and to ban gun sales to habitual drunk drivers and those judged delinquent as a juvenile.

The state is one of only five that require background checks for guns sold at gun shows by nondealers. The state also prevents sales of guns to almost all those under a protection from abuse order.

"No matter how you slice it, Pennsylvania laws on gun transfers are already among the strictest in the nation," says Stollenwerk.

PENNSYLVANIA GUN SALES IN 2005
• Number of guns sold legally: 386,382

• Number of background checks: 497,294

• Number of people denied permission to buy guns: 7,906

• Number of criminals arrested while trying to buy guns: 91

• Number of gun sales in Lancaster County: 3,788 handguns; 8,719 long guns

• Number of people with licenses to carry firearms in Lancaster County: 3,989

• Number of gun dealers in Lancaster County: 61

-Pa. State Police 2005 Annual Firearms Report