The American Gun
by J.J. Maloney
A deputy sheriff in Orange County, Calif., was recently shot to death with an assault
rifle. He was hit 31 times and one arm was almost severed. He was wearing a bullet-proof
vest, but the high-powered bullets – from an AK47-type weapon – tore through the
vest as though it were tissue paper.
It is now illegal to sell assault rifles to the general public – but the law
prohibiting such sales did not require those already owning assault rifles to turn them
in.
The National Rifle Association (NRA), and other pro-gun groups, violently object to any
law that would require current owners of assault rifles to give up those weapons. The NRA
states that less than one percent of violent crime is committed by people using assault
rifles.
An assault rifle is a high-capacity, military-style weapon, that has no real purpose in
life other than to kill human beings. While the NRA might argue that owners of
.223-caliber AR15-type weapons, for example, can shoot prairie dogs with them, in reality,
a bolt action rifle of the same caliber is more accurate. The same for larger caliber
assault rifles. You might hunt a grizzly bear or a moose with an assault rifle, but it
wouldn’t be very sporting. Any sportsman worth the name would use a larger caliber,
bolt action rifle, more suitable for big-game hunting -- such as a .338 Winchester magnum,
or a .340-Weatherby magnum, which are not only more accurate, but much more powerful
– and will kill the animal quicker and more humanely.
Assault rifles spray a lot of bullets, very quickly, and this appeals to the little boy
in a lot of gun owners. It also appeals to the militia types, who fantasize about the day
they will take on the government . . . or the Russians . . . or the Chinese, or . . .
I left out a category: assault rifles appeal most of all to criminals, and to those
mentally deranged persons who want to wipe out a lot of people very quickly. It is the
weapon of choice for the tormented man about to ''go postal.''
The man who killed the Orange County deputy told a convenience store clerk not to
worry, that he wasn’t there to rob the store, he was there to shoot ''pigs''
-- any policeman who came along. And he made sure he was better armed than any policeman
who came along.
Why does the NRA care whether assault rifles are completely banned, with current owners
being required to sell them to the government at fair market value?
Fear. An almost unreasoning fear that if they give an inch, the anti-gun forces will
take a mile. First the assault rifles, they reason, then the handguns, then the rifles and
shotguns – until, eventually, lawful people who once protected themselves with
firearms are left to fight drug-crazed rapists and murders with only their bare hands
– and, worse yet, the criminals, not choosing to obey the law, will still have guns,
while the law-abiding will not. That’s the argument.
Just as there is unreasoning fear on the side of the pro-gun forces, so is there
unreasoning fear on the part of anti-gun people. There are many anti-gun people who would
do precisely what the NRA fears – try to outlaw all guns. Sarah Brady, for instance,
would like to see every handgun in the U.S. melted down – her husband, James Brady,
after all, was shot in the brain by John Hinckley, while Hinckley was trying to
assassinate then-President Ronald Reagan. It’s a fact, a lot of people would like to
outlaw private ownership of handguns.
I’m not one of them. But it is time to take a look at what is going on in the U.S.
today, look at where we are in the gun debate, and then consider some possible solutions
to a sticky problem.
When 13 students were murdered at Columbine High School in Colorado – in addition
to the two culprits who committed suicide – there was a national gnashing of teeth
and loud wailings of remorse.
This convulsive reaction is strange, considering the fact that every day of the year 13
children are shot to death in the U.S. Every day, the equivalent of a Columbine High
School tragedy strikes this country, and there is no similar outcry of remorse, or
accompanying widespread calls to regulate guns.
Why? All but one of the victims at Columbine High School were white. Not only were they
white, but they came from middle to upper middle class suburban families. On a day-to-day
basis, black inner-city children are more likely to be killed with guns than white
children. Ergo, apathy.
A few statistics from an April, 1996, federal study of firearms deaths and injuries:
*Almost 90 percent of firearms victims were male, 59 percent were black and 49
percent were from 15 to 24 years old.
*While black males comprised the majority of intentional gunshot wound victims, most of
the victims of unintentional firearm injuries and suicide attempts were white, according
to data collected for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
*During 1993, about 1,400 police officers were injured in firearm assaults, while 67
were killed by a firearm while responding to a crime, according to data collected by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
*Of all deaths involving firearms, in 82 percent of the cases the firearm was a
handgun.
In addition to those disturbing statistics, more than 6,000 school students were
expelled from U.S. schools in 1998 for bringing guns to school.
Republicans (to whom the NRA gives the overwhelming bulk of its political
contributions) claim that the real problem is the fact that only eight of those students
were prosecuted for a gun violation in federal court.
There is some logic to that argument. Were juveniles more harshly punished for
possessing a firearm on or near a school, it seems reasonable that fewer kids would carry
guns.
On the other hand, I wonder if simply throwing 6,000 teenagers a year into the federal
prison system is the best and only solution to the problem.
Although the United States has always had a gun culture, prior to the 1960s, kids
having guns was not a major problem. It happened from time to time, but it was rare enough
to raise eyebrows.
By 1998, not only were 6,000 students expelled for bringing guns to school, but many
schools in urban areas had installed metal detectors that all students must pass through
when entering and leaving school. Other schools have full-time armed security officers on
duty.
We find that school massacres are becoming common – and oddly enough, they are not
occurring in the crime-ridden large cities, but in suburbia.
May 20, 1999: Conyers, Ga. – A 15-year-old boy wounds six students at Heritage
High School. The boy, armed with a .22-caliber rifle and .22-caliber pistol aimed below
the waist so as not to kill his victims.
April 22, 1999: Scotlandville, La. – A 14-year-old boy shot a 14-year-old girl
in the cheek with a .22-caliber pistol. The boy said he did not mean to shoot the girl
– he was aiming at a different student.
April 20, 1999 — Two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.,
shoot 12 students and a teacher to death, then wound 23 other students before committing
suicide.
May 21, 1998 — After shooting his parents to death, a 15-year-old boy kills
two students, and wounds 20 others at a high school in Springfield, Ore.
April 24, 1998 — A science teacher is shot to death in front of students at
eighth-grade dance at a banquet hall in Edinboro, Pa. A14-year-old student awaits trial.
The motive is unclear.
March 24, 1998 — Jonesboro, Ark. -- Four girls and a teacher are killed, and
10 students wounded, when two boys, 11 and 13, open fire from woods bordering a school.
Dec. 1, 1997 — West Paducah, Ky. -- Three students are killed and five wounded
at Heath High School. A 14-year-old boy pleaded guilty and is serving life in prison. When
asked why he did it, he said he didn't know.
Oct. 1, 1997 — A 16-year-old boy in Pearl, Miss., killed his mother, then
went to school and killed two students and wounded seven others. He has been sentenced to
prison for life.
Following each of these shootings, there has been national outrage, with various state
legislators submitting bills to toughen the laws on juveniles – to provide for life
sentences without parole for children as young as 10, and to permit the death penalty for
14 year olds. This is not a new ''get tough'' measure, but a return to an earlier
time, when the United States sanctioned the execution of children.
In the years since the seemingly benign 1950s only one thing has changed to cause
us to view children as such a threat that we must revert to an antiquated treatment of
them – guns. As more and more children obtains guns, and begin to engage in murders
and drive-by shootings, we increasingly view them as monsters who must be put down, like a
rabid dog.
The NRA – and similar organizations – hotly deny that guns, per se, are the
problem. They say it is a people problem – that the wrong people get their hands on
guns. Duh! They talk about the need to rigorously enforce existing gun laws against
convicted felons and former mental patients (and the White House, hastening to agree,
immediately proposed tightening up background checks for gun show sales and pawn shop
redemptions).
In response, the U.S. Senate voted to require background checks at gun shows and for
anyone redeeming a gun from a pawn shop, and a lifetime ban on gun ownership for any
juvenile convicted of a felony. The House rapidly backed away from the proposed
legislation. In short, the NRA has been hammering the Republicans and conservative
Democrats. These politicians, fearing an organized effort against them in the next
election, have killed the proposed legislation – causing the President to acknowledge
that the NRA had beaten him.
The truth is, the proposed laws were only a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. None of the
proposed changes would have prevented the Columbine massacre – or any of the
massacres at U.S. schools in recent years. Those kids got their guns by using a straw
party to purchase them, or by stealing the guns of relatives.
In fact, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) recently disclosed that of
200,000 guns used in crimes, that they have been able to trace in the last year (they are
unable to trace many guns), 55 percent of them were purchased through straw parties on
behalf of the criminal. A large number of these guns came from a small number
(approximately one-percent) of gun stores licensed by the ATF. Of course, the NRA had
successfully lobbied to prevent the ATF from inspecting gun stores more than once a year.
This is the result.
It had long been presumed that most guns used by criminals were stolen. The answer is
so much simpler: when obtaining a gun from a licensed dealer, who is required by law to
check a purchaser’s background for criminal convictions, the criminal simply sends
his girlfriend, wife, or non-felon friend to a gun store to buy the gun he wants. Sure, if
he’s caught with the gun he’s in trouble, but that doesn’t solve the
immediate problem – that he is armed.
Although gun sales by licensed dealers are controlled, through federal legislation,
there is no federal legislation regulating the re-sale of guns by individuals. This is the
Great Gun Loophole that the NRA doesn’t want to talk about. What good does it do to
require background checks for guns bought from licensed dealers, if the individual buying
that gun is then free to sell it to anyone who wants to buy it, with no background check
required of that second individual?
A few states, such as Missouri, do have statutes regulating such sales. Missouri
Revised Statute 571.080 makes it a Class A misdemeanor for any person to ''buy, lease,
borrow, exchange or otherwise receive any concealable firearm unless he first obtains and
delivers to the person delivering the firearm a valid permit.'' Subsection 2 of the
same statute makes it a Class A misdemeanor for anyone to ''sell, lease, loan,
exchange, give away or otherwise delivers any concealable firearm'' unless he first
demands and receives a permit from the purchaser.
This Missouri statute is rarely, if ever, enforced. Any local prosecutor who enforces
such a law risks the wrath of pro-gun groups.
Where the federal government fails to enact a uniform law, we are left at the mercy of
50 separate state legislatures to fix the problem. And, even when a state legislature does
enact a law, we are then at the mercy of local prosecuting attorneys (114 in Missouri) to
enforce that law.
Gun murders in Richmond, Va., reportedly fell by 41 percent after federal prosecutors
there initiated an effort to put any felon caught carrying a gun in prison for five years,
enlisted the aid of local police in referring cases to the federal court, and waged a
publicity campaign to inform the public of the program.
Conversely, for many years in Kansas City, Missouri, it was standard policy to charge
anyone caught carrying a handgun with a municipal ordinance violation, and the routine
fine was $50. Sure, if police caught a known ex-con with a pistol, they’d charge him
with a felony.
The problem begins with so-called ''honest citizens'' who are caught carrying
pistols. Restaurant and bar owners, for example, taking home the night’s receipts, or
taking those receipts to the bank night depository, often carry pistols for protection.
Otherwise honest people in rough neighborhoods, where gunfire is a nightly serenade, often
feel compelled to carry pistols for protection.
When the police catch one of these ''honest people'' with a gun, they tend to
be lenient – hence the $50 fines. Once the policy is set, it becomes routine, and a
failure to adequately check the backgrounds of arrestees – or deficiencies in the
state computer system housing criminal records – results in countless convicted
felons slipping through the cracks.
In state after state there are ballot efforts to permit ordinary citizens to carry
concealed weapons. These laws have already been enacted in a number of states, such as
Florida. When such a measure was on the ballot in Missouri, earlier this year, the NRA
spent millions of dollars in support of the measure (it failed, when the state’s
urban areas voted heavily against it, while rural areas supported it).
The Missouri battle over guns became a microcosm of the national debate – showing
how poorly thought-out gun laws can lead to an effort to enact even worse gun laws.
In Missouri, off-duty police officers and retired police officers, were not permitted
to carry concealed weapons (that law was recently changed). The pro-gun lobby argued that
these off-duty and retired police officers had no more need for, or right to, concealed
weapons than does the average citizen. The result was that large numbers of police, and
police fraternal organizations, began to lobby on behalf of the concealed weapons measure.
In fact, it is unwise not to permit off-duty and retired police officers to carry
concealed weapons. First, these police officers are in the position of arresting and
testifying against criminals as a function of their jobs. Most of these criminals get out
of prison and return to their home community. So, we have police officers living in a
community where, at any moment, they might run into some ex-con they'd arrested or
testified against. That’s one reason off-duty and retired police officers – in
good standing – should be allowed to carry concealed weapons.
The second, more compelling reason, is that off-duty and retired police officers should
be allowed to carry concealed weapons so that the rest of us don’t have to. Our
society, as now constituted, has a large number of armed criminals at large. The number of
police officers on-duty is far below the total number authorized. In the evening, for
example, only 20 percent of the police force might be on duty (remembering that it takes
five police officers to fill each position, considering three shifts to the day, weekends,
vacations, etc.)
We expect the police – on-duty or not – to respond to crisis. An off-duty
officer who failed to go to the assistance of someone being robbed or raped, would be
harshly criticized. That being so, we need to recognize that a policeman is never really
off-duty, and authorize them to be armed.
The new Missouri statute authorizes police officers, including former police officers,
and judges, to go about armed. Hastily written in response to the failure on the general
concealed-carry law, this bill went overboard and allows even former officers who were
fired for cause to carry a gun. The provision for ex-officers should have been restricted
to those who retired in good standing – since the rationale is not only that these
officers be empowered to be armed to protect themselves, but to protect the public as
well.
The second mantra of the NRA in Missouri was that the proposed concealed-carry law
would only allow ''honest, law-abiding citizens'' to carry concealed weapons.
''Honest and law-abiding'' by whose definition? Federal law, and many state
laws, make it a crime for any convicted felon to own or possess a firearm. The NRA
presumes that anyone not convicted in a court of a felony is an ''honest and
law-abiding citizen.'' I submit that a ''felon'' – whether convicted or
not – fails the test of being an ''honest, law-abiding citizen'' for purposes
of owning a gun. The avowed purpose of gun laws – in the context of the current
debate – is to keep guns out of the hands of persons who have demonstrated, at any
time in their lives, a failure of character. Federal law also bars gun ownership to
persons with a history of mental disease, and the Missouri law would have barred ownership
to known alcoholics. Spousal abusers, once there has been an order of protection issued
against them predicated on physical violence, are also, by federal law, barred from owning
a firearm.
So, the measure of responsible gun ownership – as espoused by the NRA and by
Congress and various state legislatures – is to ensure that guns are owned only by
those persons who have consistently obeyed laws proscribing felonies. It is widely known
that by the time a person is sentenced for a felony, they have, in most instances,
committed many prior crimes for which they were never arrested and/or convicted. Many
''druggies'' have never been convicted of a felony, yet there is no question that
a person who unlawfully uses controlled substances has committed felonies involving the
possession of drugs.
Various studies estimate that as many as 30% of adults have used illegal drugs. Most of
them have never been arrested for the felonies they have committed.
The great failing of current gun laws (if we accept the current rationale for who is
entitled to own a gun), then, is that guns are only denied to convicted felons –
while millions of drug users, alcoholics, and spousal abusers (those who haven’t yet
been reported to the police) are fully qualified, under existing and proposed laws, to go
out and buy any gun they want.
The NRA (I repeatedly mention them because they are the dominant lobbying force on
behalf of gun owners) has repeatedly asserted that crime goes down when law abiding folks
are fully armed. The assertion has a simplistic logic; if honest citizens were armed, and
knew how to use their guns, and were prepared to use them when robbers or burglars enter
their stores and homes, it is logical that criminals would be deterred. The NRA, in
defense of its position, asserts that each year 2.5 million of the 45 million citizens who
currently own guns, use their lawfully owned firearms to repel criminals. The NRA bases
that claim on the work of writers such as Gary Kleck, Ph.D., a professor at the School of
Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University in Tallahassee and author of Point
Blank: Guns and Violence in America (1991). Kleck conducted a random telephone
sampling of 4,978 households in all the states except Alaska and Hawaii, and concluded
that Americans use firearms as often as 2.5 million times each year defending themselves
against criminals.
Let’s examine that claim. In 1994 the FBI issued a report containing the
following:
''During the 1987-1992 period, offenders fired their weapons in 17 percent of
all non-fatal handgun crimes, missing the victim four out of five times. In 3 percent of
the non-fatal crimes committed with handguns, about 21,000 annually, the victim was
wounded. In addition, an average 11,100 were killed each year.
''During the same period an estimated annual average of 62,000 violent crime
victims (approximately 1 percent of all violent crime victims) used a firearm in an effort
to defend themselves. In addition, an annual average of about 20,000 victims of theft,
household burglary or motor vehicle theft attempted to defend their property with guns.
''In most cases victims defending themselves with firearms were confronted by
unarmed offenders or those armed with weapons other than firearms. During the six-year
period, about one in three armed victims faced an armed offender.
''BJS (Bureau of Justice Statistics) estimated that more than 340,000 crimes
annually involved firearm thefts. During the period almost two-thirds of such losses
occurred during household burglaries and almost one- third in larcenies. The survey does
not report on thefts or burglaries from stores or other businesses.''
So, rather than 2.5-million, only 82,000 citizens use a gun to defend themselves
annually. Keep in mind the 17% of crimes where an armed criminal fired his gun –
quite often, I’m sure, in response to a victim pulling a gun, and we have to conclude
that many of the 21,000 non-fatally wounded victims were shot while either going for a
gun, or while shooting it out with a robber. I would suggest that many crime victims who
pull a gun during a robbery, merely spark a shootout that would not have taken place
otherwise.
The fact is, using a gun to protect yourself can be fatal. The best case I can think of
involves an FBI agent who was killed in Kansas City in March, 1992.
FBI agent Stanley Ronquest, 52, was talking to a woman he’d met at a bar in
downtown Kansas City. The woman then drove Ronquest to his hotel. As Ronquest talked to
the woman outside his hotel, Richard L. Primm, a convicted felon celebrating his 38th
birthday, and looking for money to celebrate with, pressed a stick into Ronquest’s
back, pretending it was a gun, and announced a holdup.
Ronquest went for his gun, and Primm wrestled the .38 revolver away from Ronquest and
shot him to death.
Primm and his half-brother later pleaded guilty to the killing.
Primm, an ex-convict, could not legally own a firearm, and he didn’t have one. He
had a stick. Ronquest, a 21-year veteran of the FBI, had a pistol. The ex-con simply took
the pistol away from the FBI agent and killed him.
In fact, many, many police officers have been shot to death or wounded with their own
service revolvers, after losing their guns in a scuffle during a traffic stop or other
arrest.
How cynical it was, then, for the NRA to spend millions of dollars in the state of
Missouri earlier this year, trying to legalize the carrying of concealed weapons – on
the ground that owning a gun, and having the right to carry it, would protect citizens
from criminals.
The misinformation surrounding the gun debate causes many people to believe that most
murders are committed by robbers, rapists and burglars. Far from it.
Most murders are committed by the people we live with, or associate with.
In order to understand the ''gun problem,'' we first have to define it. When we
say ''gun owner,'' that encompasses many classes of people, each of whom owns a
gun for different (in some cases overlapping) reasons.
The largest class by far would be those who use a gun for sporting purposes, which
includes hunting, target practice and gun competitions. This class would include millions
of farmers, who not only hunt, but use guns to protect their livestock from predators, and
finally, for self-defense, because rural law-enforcement is often 30 minutes to an hour
away. Many millions of citizens go hunting each year for deer, pheasant, turkey, etc. A
sizable percentage of the handguns in circulation are unsuited for either hunting or
competition, because they are inherently inaccurate (in many cases having only rudimentary
sights, because they are intended solely for short-range use against humans).
The second largest group would be those who own guns strictly for self-defense, and in
this group I include policemen, and other law enforcement personnel, who own guns in
connection with their employment. Many of the guns in this category are also ill-suited to
the purpose. Gun magazines routinely print articles on self-defense, pointing out that
small .25-caliber guns, for example, are apt to make a robber really mad if you shoot him
with such an ineffective bullet. Yet, the NRA froths at any suggested legislation that
would do away with tiny, easily concealed handguns that use .25-caliber, .22-caliber
short, or .32-auto ammunition. Not long ago a man in Florida, who’d been stalking a
woman, broke into her house (in the presence of her husband) and the woman went for her
gun. The intruder shot her four times with a .25-caliber pistol, but the woman was able to
get her gun – a .38 – and shot the intruder once, killing him. The woman
survived. The gun industry not only continues to manufacture .25-caliber pistols, but the
target audience for them is women.
The third group would be criminals and convicted felons, many of whom stole their guns
from the first two groups (not all ''convicted felons'' use their firearms to
commit crimes – many of them want a gun for self-defense, or to hunt).
The precise number of guns in the hands of criminals and convicted felons cannot be
known, but it is known that the federal National Crime Information Center computer system
contains information on 2 million stolen guns, of which 60 percent are handguns.
Not all of these stolen handguns are in the hands of criminals. Many burglars sell the
guns they steal, often to law-abiding citizens (the burglar can do so because there are no
licensing requirements on private sales). And the law-abiding citizen may well turn around
and sell the gun back to a criminal.
According to a 1995 FBI report:
''More than half of all the handguns manufactured domestically since the turn of
the century are 20 years old or less. From 1973 through 1993, more than 40 million
handguns were produced in the United States.''
Therein lies the secret of the gun problem – that more handguns were manufactured
(and sold) from 1973 to 1993 than were manufactured and sold from 1900 to 1973. In effect,
on a per-capita basis, there are nearly three times as many handguns laying around now as
there were in earlier parts of the century – and many of those handguns are possessed
by unstable and dangerous people.
Most firearms in circulation are rifles and shotguns, not handguns. While precise
estimates of the numbers and types of firearms in operating condition are not known, about
one-third of the 223 million firearms manufactured for domestic sale or imported into the
United States from 1899 through 1993 were handguns (77 million) and two-thirds were rifles
(79 million) or shotguns (66 million).''
From 1893 through 1973, only 37 million handguns were manufactured or imported for use
in the U.S., while 40 million were produced in the next 20 years.
The ''gun problem'' is not only a problem of guns, but of the rapid
proliferation of guns in a society far different than it was as recently as the 1950s.
Back then, the most common handgun was a six shot revolver loaded with a lead bullet. Now,
high-capacity semi-automatics are the norm (10 to 14 rounds is common), often loaded with
a variety of hollow-point, or even frangible bullets (bullets that shatter into many
pieces upon entering the body).
Deadly ''toys'' have also proliferated, with extremely high-capacity guns that
can rattle off 20 or 30 rounds very quickly. Such guns have no practical use other than to
spray a lot of bullets in a drive-by shooting. The same goes for assault rifles. At the
other extreme are extremely small handguns, some of which can literally be hidden in the
palm of a hand. Many of these guns have only rudimentary sights – meaning they are
not intended to be accurate and ruling out any possible hunting or competitive purpose.
They are man-killers, and only that.
While many might argue that such guns are necessary for self-defense, that is untrue.
One gun guru from St. Louis University wrote that if handguns are outlawed, more people
will turn to long guns – rifles and shotguns – and that long guns are inherently
far more deadly than handguns. His premise was that the death toll from guns would rise
with the abolition of handguns.
Since the overwhelming majority of all deaths from guns comes from handguns, his
premise seems shaky. But even if true, it then undermines the theory that handguns are
good for home defense. In a darkened house, with an intruder climbing the stairs toward
you, a shotgun is the most devastating weapon available. And they have shotguns (28 gauge)
that even granny can handle. The abolition of handguns is not my purpose in this article
– except to point out that many handguns are designed solely for easy concealment and
not only have no hunting or sporting purpose whatever, they do not live up to minimum
standards for self-defense.
Another disturbing trend since the 1950s has been the over-use of prisons (War on
Crime), with a tremendous increase in the number of repeat (recidivist) offenders –
translating into the number of ex-convicts in our society.
As late as 1972 there were only 250,000 convicts in the U.S. It was consistently
estimated that 35% of convicts would become recidivists – returning to prison two,
three or four times (or even more) before they finally ''burned out'' and went
straight.
Today, there are 1.4-million people in U.S. prisons (another 500,000 in jails), and the
recidivist rate has risen to more than 50%. There are a total of 5.5 million
''felons'' currently either in prison, on probation or on parole – and
because of our War on Crime, and War on Drugs, that number is rising steadily. The U.S.
Department of Justice estimates that, at the present rate of growth, five-percent of all
U.S. residents will have a felony conviction (more than 14 million persons). I would
suggest that we are already at, or past, that point.
Virtually everyone, including the NRA, agrees that keeping guns out of the hands of
convicted felons and other ''undesirables'' is necessary. If the NRA truly
believes that, then something has to give.
If we are going to have background checks to make sure felons do not buy guns, then we
must have background checks on all gun sales – not just on sales through licensed gun
dealers.
We need a federal statute requiring that before anyone can sell a gun, the purchaser
must provide a permit attesting that the person is not a convicted felon, former mental
patient, alcoholic, or spouse abuser. As with spousal abuse, a single conviction for
driving while intoxicated, or other drinking and driving charge (i.e., driving under the
influence) would provide a reliable index of who is no longer fit for gun ownership.
Approximately 1.4 million persons a year are convicted of a drinking and driving charge
each year.
The penalty for selling a gun without demanding and receiving such a permit, should be
two years imprisonment, which would also render the seller a ''felon,'' and
therefore unable to ever again own or sell a firearm. The purchaser of such a firearm,
without a valid permit – whether a convicted felon or not – would be subject to
the same penalty.
The problem with such a law is getting someone to enforce it. When the local banker or
Chamber of Commerce president is caught selling a gun without demanding a permit, the
official instinct is to not pursue the matter, to avoid destroying a pillar of the
community. Once an exception is made, of course, the assistant banker, and vice president
of the Chamber of Commerce, are next exempted, and you eventually end up where you are
right now.
The next law that is necessary to a sane gun policy, is a federal statute making it a
felony for any unlicensed person to carry a concealed firearm, with a flat penalty
of five years in prison (if you really want to get people’s attention), with no
possibility of probation or parole, for anyone who violates that law. The federal
government, which long ago assumed jurisdiction over firearms, is the logical source for
such a law if it is to be uniformly enforced.
For example, in the 1970s and early 1980s, many states enacted laws to provide enhanced
penalties for anyone using a gun in a crime. These laws are often referred to as
''unlawful use of a weapon'' laws. These laws were initially designed to
discourage people from carrying or using handguns. However, prosecutors – sensing a
new tool to enhance sentences for criminals – began to expand the definition of
''weapon'' to include knives, etc., until those laws are now meaningless as far as
guns are concerned. It has become common to charge people involved in drunk driving
accidents, where injuries or fatalities are involved, with unlawful use of a weapon –
i.e., their automobile. Such laws have also been applied to use of a rock, or any object
used during a fight.
By including all objects under the umbrella of ''weapon,'' the net result has
been to dilute the deterrent effect on using guns.
As the NRA points out, there are thousands of gun laws that are not enforced, and that
is the problem; who can possibly keep track of so many gun laws, when they vary
drastically from state to state?
A few well-chosen federal laws, strictly enforced, could go a long way toward solving
the so-called ''gun problem.''
June 21, 1999
