Advocates for tighter regulation, especially Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have been pointing out that in most states, those who purchase weapons at a gun show are not required to submit to background checks—and in places where such checks are required, they are not rigorously enforced. That loophole is absurd: why is a gun sale at a show any different from a sale in a conventional gun shop? And yet gun rights advocates have continued to resist calls to create or enforce background checks at gun shows.

Here in New York, however, this loophole has been closed, thanks to timely work by State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The attorney general has come to an agreement with the vast majority of gun show operators in the state to enforce a state law that requires background checks at shows.

New York has seized the lead on gun regulation in Newtown’s aftermath, even as neighboring states continue to fight all the old battles while accomplishing very little.

It should be noted, however, that the gun show operators did not come to the table with Mr. Schneiderman of their own accord and out of a sense of public responsibility. They did so because the attorney general exposed them as part of the problem.

Well before the Newtown massacre, Mr. Schneiderman authorized an undercover operation at the state’s gun shows to determine if the sellers at gun shows complied with required background checks—New York is one of only a handful of states with such a requirement. The sellers did not. In fact, they casually sold guns—including assault weapons—to undercover agents who said that they had outstanding orders of protection against them.

The attorney general pressed criminal charges against the offenders, leading to a series of convictions. But rather than pursuing civil cases against the sellers as well, the attorney general’s office extracted this new, broad agreement to ensure that more than 80 percent of the state’s gun show operators will enforce the required background check.

In addition to the checks, 23 gun show operators agreed to implement a better system to track the sales of weapons at their shows and promised to monitor parking lots to make sure that rogue sellers are not conducting business in violation of regulations.

The agreement in New York has broader implications for the national debate on gun control. As the attorney general said, “Once we demonstrate how easy this is and how it keeps people safe, it weakens the arguments on the federal level that guaranteeing background checks are overly burdensome or face meaningful opposition.”

Many advocates of gun ownership have argued that local governments should enforce the laws that are already on the books before writing new ones. They have a point, as this case clearly demonstrates.

It also demonstrates that enforcing the law requires, sadly, extraordinary government action, like the use of undercover agents. Kudos to the attorney general for his leadership.

Straight talkin' James Gorman told The Financial Times that pay cuts would continue: “What the Street has historically done is when revenues went up, they kept the comp-to-revenue ratio flat. They rank comp by ratio. When revenues went down, they increased the comp-to-revenue ratio because they said, ‘We might lose all our people. We have to increase it.’” The Morgan Stnaley CEO added: “That’s a classic Wall Street case of ‘Heads I win; tails you lose.’ The current Wall Street management is a little tougher-minded about that and shareholders are certainly tougher-minded.”

Royal Bank of Scotland suspended a trader for trying to rig the Singapore dollar interest rate swap, according to Bloomberg. The trader, Chong Wen Kuang, was named in the lawsuit of Tan Chi Min, who is suing RBS for wrongful dismissal after being fired for trying to manipulate interbank lending rates.

The Department of Justice and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are among authorities investigating Credit Suisse over mortgage-backed securities, according to Reuters.

Mr. Schneiderman is said to have so-called tolling agreements with 12 banks, allowing the prosecutor to continue his investigation into mortgage-securitization practices at the firms beyond the statue of limitations.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said his country will be out of cash by the end of November if it doesn't receive the next bailout installment from its European neighbors.

Spanish finance minister Luis de Guindos told an audience of academics that “Spain doesn’t need a bailout at all” ... and the academics laughed.

Dave & Buster's pulled its initial public offering yesterday, citing market volatility.

Junk bond issuers looking to pay interest rates with bonds instead of cash set off alarm bells, according to the Journal.

U.S. and European officials may step up sanctions against Iran after the nation's currency, the rial, fell 40 percent against the dollar over the last two weeks.

Put a $65 million bounty out for the man who can win the heart of your lesbian daughter, and all sorts of undesirables come calling. Sacha Baron Cohen, for instance ...

From engineering financial instruments to building the world's biggest Ferris wheel, climb aboard with Matt Chaban for former Bear Stearns Asset Management CEO Richard Marin's wild ride.

Former Wells Fargo Chairman Dick Kovacevich will not abide arguments that the U.S. government bailed out his bank, especially not in his country club's men's dining room.

Large firms such as BlackRock are best positioned to take advantage of JOBS Act provisions that would lift the ban on advertising by private investment firms, Bloomberg reports. One reason: bigger money managers already have marketers on staff to work on products such as mutual funds.

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze is pressing ahead with plans to take the firm private, Reuters says.

The developing world needs Wall Street, but Chelsea Clinton doesn't, the former first daughter told Bloomberg. “It was incredibly, fiercely meritocratic, and I loved that,” said Ms. Clinton, who worked at Avenue Capital from 2006 to 2009 before leaving to pursue degrees in public health. “That wasn’t the metric I wanted to judge my life by in a professional sense.”

The children of billionaire Charlie Munger—Warren Buffett's business partner—are dogging California Governor Jerry Brown's re-election campaign.

Politicians are stretching the truth to paint their opponents with the Wall Street brush.

About 2,400 "jobless millionaires" are collecting unemployment checks, according to The New York Post.

Thinning hair = weak; bald pate = powerful, according to a Wharton prof.

Charlotte, N.C., would show the financial industry more love, said Mr. Bove.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a civil lawsuit against JPMorgan yesterday, charging the firm with widespread fraud committed by the mortgage securitization unit of Bear Stearns, which JPMorgan acquired in 2008. Not everyone was impressed.

JPMorgan spokesman Joe Evangelisti said the bank was "disappointed" that Mr. Schneiderman filed his lawsuit without giving the firm a chance to rebut claims, in a statement emailed to press outlets. The complaint contains no new revelations and is marred by a sloppy error, wrote Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weill.

Perhaps the strongest reaction came from Rochdale Securities analyst Richard Bove, who said New York's role as a financial capital is "an anachronism," according to Net Net, in a note distributed today.

"I am constantly struck by the fact that Michigan does not sue the auto industry; Texas is not suing the oil industry; California is not suing the entertainment industry; and Florida is not suing the tourism industry," Bove wrote. "They do not sue farmers in Iowa. New York never stops suing the financial industry. Why? What do these other states understand that New York does not?"

"The financial industry that is left remains committed to New York because it has sunk cost there and because of proximity among firms," he said. "However, if financial companies are going to continually be sued for billions and even tens of billions of dollars, the legal costs of remaining in New York exceeds the sunk cost in buildings and equipment."

If you can't make it here ...

Somewhere, an algorithm read the coverage of yesterday's Senate Banking Committee hearing on high-frequency trading, and figured it will take years for the government to hammer out reforms to fix market structure issues.

Stephen Morse, the Barclays executive who ignored employees' warnings that the bank was manipulating its Libor submissions, has been sitting out the ensuing scandal from his post as head of compliance at TD Bank.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said it may suspend JPMorgan's energy trading business for failing to comply with requests for information about the firm's trading profits, Bloomberg reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is scrutinizing whether private equity firms are taking more profits than they should, or taking profits too soon. The agency received increased authority over private money managers under Dodd-Frank.

The federal government's mortgage task force, co-headed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, is getting ready to do ... something?

More than 100 lawmakers have lobbied federal authorities on the implementation of Dodd-Frank, according to The New York Times.

Madoff trustee Irving Picard put checks in the mail yesterday—$2.5 billion in payments to thousands of investors duped by the Ponzi schemer.

Does anyone want to bail out Greece (again)?

Youth unemployment is also on the rise in prosperous northern Europe.

A Brazilian official said that the Federal Reserve's new bond-buying program would set off currency wars—Business Insider explains.

Nomura is eliminating four of 12 investment banking jobs in Dubai, according to Bloomberg, on the heels of the decision to dump a London-based prop trading team.

Britain is considering whether it really wants to be known as the "divorce capital of the world." That means, the Ministry of Justice is reviewing court standards that favor the less-wealthy spouse in split-ups.

Are you reading this from Jeffrey Gundlach's Porsche Carrera 4S? Would you like to make a deal?

Andrew Ross Sorkin says the Facebook executive most responsible for the company's failed initial public offering has largely escaped blame.

A former partner at Dewey & LaBoeuf is suing Citigroup, charging that the lender helped hide the law firm's financial problems.

An Argentinean judge issues an arrest warrant for Credit Suisse exec David Mulford, who's wanted for failing to testify in a probe of the country's 2001 debt default.

Multinationals such as American Express and Spanish bank BBVA are dabbling in venture capital, according to The Times.

Jim Cramer gets better ratings when Mad Money re-airs at 3 a.m. The Post figures drunken traders may be the target audience.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, speaking at a closed session of the E.U. parliament, suggested that central bank may start buying government debt maturing inside of three years.

Spain's bank bailout fund will inject $5.7 billion in Bankia.

The French government stepped in to bail out Paris-based Credit Immobilier de France over the weekend; now it says the deal can work without costing the taxpayer.

U.S. firms are planning for a Grexit, according to The Times: "Bank of America Merrill Lynch has looked into filling trucks with cash and sending them over the Greek border so clients can continue to pay local employees and suppliers in the event money is unavailable."

The new plan, which will become mandatory April 1, is part of the Attorney General’s strategy to digitize his office’s real estate oversight capabilities while also helping the flow of transactions, it announced.

Eric Schneiderman.

“By allowing the distribution of offering plans in a digital format, we are increasing efficiencies in real estate transactions in a way that is beneficial for both developers and prospective purchasers,” said Mr. Schneiderman.

Before, offering plans were only available in hard copy format, which often proved to be cumbersome to those reviewing them.

“Offering plans can be three books, each two, three, four, five inches a book,” said Neil Garfinkel, residential counsel for The Real Estate Board of New York.

“The ability to access these digitally, I think, is good,” he added.

The new program, called Cooperative Police Statement 10 (CPS10), is part of the Attorney General’s efforts to set up an electronic filing system of offering materials “that will allow for the submission and review of documents filed with our office,” it said.

CPS10 was handled Chief Counsel Lewis Polishook and Deputy Bureau Chief Susan Scharbach , along with Real Estate Finance Bureau Chief Marissa Piesman and Executive Deputy Attorney General for Economic Justice Karla G. Sanchez.

Mr. Schneiderman’s position is admirable. If he believes the settlement is not in the best interests of New York consumers, he should continue to resist. That won’t be easy, because the attorney general’s fellow Democrats in Washington are putting pressure on his allies—just as bank officials are putting pressure on federal officials to finalize the settlement.

When politicians and special interests are eager to get a deal done quickly, consumers and taxpayers generally should be skeptical—especially on the eve of an election campaign.

Under the proposed settlement, which grew out of revelations that some banks submitted improper paperwork in foreclosure proceedings, some of the nation’s largest lenders would be asked to fund a $20 billion pool of money that would be made available to consumers who wish to modify their loans. In return, state attorneys general who are investigating these practices in their individual jurisdictions would agree not to pursue litigation.

Mr. Schneiderman and several other attorneys general are reluctant to surrender their ability to litigate—after all, litigation is what they do. As long as they are not looking to scapegoat the banks, they should continue to resist the Obama administration’s pressure to get a deal done in time for the 2012 presidential campaign.

Mr. Schneiderman is taking a principled stand. That’s rare enough these days, and something worthy of admiration.

Yes. It is hearing about his assignments from Tina Brown--the magazine editor of our lifetime, as he calls her--in this incredible NY1 profile that we have no idea how to embed.

"The first assignment I got was to do a piece about Kabbalah. I get an email from one of her editors  saying we want you to do a piece on Kabbalah corruption," Mr. Barrett remembered. "I come downstairs and I say to Fran, 'I think they're sending me to Kabul!''

"She wants me to do deal with what's in the front of her mind, not my own mind, so it's been a bit of an adjustment," he said of the transition from the Voice to Tina's Beast.

Or how about this one: "If I'm writing about Eric Schneiderman, am I ever going to get more hits than somebody writing about Lindsay Lohan? I don't think so."

"I don't know why I left the Voice, I'll probably never know why, but I've always wondered whether or not hits had something to do with it."

Here are some other things we learned:

• He hunts and pecks.
• He is intrigued by what he calls "fact patterns."
• He does not use cell phones.
• Or ATMs.
• Or movies.
• Or novels.
• Mario Cuomo offered to be his wife's divorce lawyer. (They are still together.)
• He got assaulted in Puerto Rico.

"The events unfolding in Pennsylvania reaffirm the need to fully assess the impact of fracking before it moves forward in New York," said Schneiderman spokesman Danny Kanner. "The federal government is compelled by both the law and common sense to address the potential dangers, and Attorney General Schneiderman is prepared to file a lawsuit if the federal government does not commit to such a study in the next 28 days."

That's down from the 30-day ultimatum Schneiderman gave on Monday, when he sent a letter threatening to sue the federal government if it failed to comply with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.

In December, then-Governor David Paterson was effectively overruled by the other members of the Delaware River Basin Commission, which decided to proceed with a regulatory program over his objections. The commission is comprised of governors from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and a representative from the Army Corps of Engineers. In a response to Schneiderman's threat, The Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York said it appeared to be based on "a fundamental misunderstanding," and that the DRBC was already working to preserve the basin's water quality.

Schneiderman's office responded by saying: "The Attorney General's demand letter is addressed to the federal Army Corps of Engineers' federal representative on the Commission, not to the Commission itself.  The AG has not stated that he intends to sue the DRBC if the federal government refuses to comply with NEPA, which it is required to do, but rather the appropriate involved federal agencies."

Schneiderman ran a decidedly progressive campaign for attorney general last year--positioning himself to the left of his Democratic colleagues in a crowded primary--and promised at the time that he would sue to stop hydrofracking, until it was proven to be safe, which helped him net the endorsement of the New York League of Conservation Voters, among other environmental groups. At the time, Schneiderman cited the BP oil spill as evidence that the issue needed a closer examination.