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American Gun Control
An LA Times Debate - OPINION
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American Gun Control
An LA Times Debate - OPINION
EDITOR'S NOTE: Americans struggle to find a balance between the rights of gun ownership and gun regiatration laws that are too loose, allowing criminals and the mentally disturbed to obtain weapons. The following is a series of articles, a debate on the subject, that first appeared over several days in the LA Times.
The Debaters: |
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Paul Helmke, a former three-term mayor of Fort. Wayne, Ind., and past president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, is president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. |
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Richard Feldman is the author of "Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist." Previously, he was executive director of the firearm industry's trade association and a regional political director for the National Rifle Assn. |
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Does America need more gun control?
Do the recent mass shootings in New York state and Pittsburgh suggest a need for more stringent firearms laws?
April 8, 2009
Today's topic: Richard Poplawski, the alleged gunman in the April 4 Pittsburgh shootings, reportedly obtained his weapons legally. Jiverly Wong, who killed 13 people in New York state on April 4, also bought his guns legally, having passed background checks. Does this suggest the gun control measures in place across the country are inadequate, or that they aren't being carried out properly?
We haven't even tried real gun control
Point: Paul Helmke
The most recent epidemic of mass shootings (as well as the roughly 30,000 gun deaths and 70,000 gun injuries we suffer each year) shows quite clearly that we do not have the "laws on the books" needed to prevent this level of violence. In fact, at the national level, we really have only a handful of weak, loophole-ridden laws designed to make it harder for dangerous people to get guns.
There are no U.S. laws against buying the high-powered assault rifle owned by the alleged Pittsburgh gunman, or other military-style assault weapons being used more often against police and others across the country -- or even the .50-caliber sniper rifles able to shoot down a helicopter.
There are no U.S. laws against buying or selling guns online, both of which the alleged Pittsburgh gunman reportedly did. His discharge from the military reportedly for assaulting an officer and the allegations of abuse leveled against him by his girlfriend were apparently not severe enough to get his name added to the federal "prohibited purchaser" list.
The Binghamton, N.Y., killer's former colleagues feared that he might someday show up mad and shoot a number of them, but there is no U.S. law requiring that someone be asked to vouch for a gun purchaser. According to reports, this killer acted strangely during many visits to his local gun store, where he became well known, but this didn't disqualify him from being a gun purchaser.
The suspected Pittsburgh killer expressed his fear of the government and of losing his "rights" to own guns such as his AK-47. The Binghamton killer supposedly said he wanted to kill the president. Neither had any problem complying with our negligible federal laws dealing with access to guns.
There are really only three laws at the national level making it harder for dangerous people to get firearms. There are restrictions on access to machine guns and other fully automatic weapons that date back to the end of the Prohibition era; categories of "prohibited purchasers," such as felons and the dangerously mentally ill, as established in the Gun Control Act of 1968, passed after Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated; and the Brady Law -- named after Ronald Reagan's former press secretary, James Brady, who was seriously injured during the 1981 assassination attempt on the president -- which requires federally licensed gun dealers to check the records of "prohibited purchasers" supplied voluntarily by the states.
That's it -- just three federal laws. A few states (among them California) have more laws, but these are often frustrated when people go to another state with fewer restrictions, such as Nevada. In most parts of the country, an individual can avoid a background check by buying from a "private seller" (often at a gun show), can buy an unlimited number of guns and can buy guns without either a license or a permit.
Gun control in American hasn't failed -- we haven't even tried it yet.
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This is a crime problem, not a gun problem
Counterpoint: Richard Feldman
Well, Paul, there you go again, confusing "gun control" with "crime control" and "deranged individuals control." Someone forgot to tell these shooters that murder is a crime, so they better pay attention to the rules. We cannot outlaw mental stability collapse, but the bumper sticker sure would be cute.
Every behavioral criminologist I've ever heard from says that people who "go postal" are extremely hard to have their behavior predicted in advance, generally have no criminal history and rarely have any history of mental illness that could have kept them from buying a firearm. It's fairly easy to look back on a tragedy and see what could have or should have been done differently; that must be why we call it 20/20 hindsight.
When we propose legislation, we have only foresight and cannot write perfect laws. One way or another, we'll err. The question we must ask as Americans is if we ought to err on the side of the individual or on the side of the government. I prefer to side with the individual over the groupthink of the government. If there is a will to harm or kill others, violent and crazy people will do so regardless of the law. When the government errs, you can end up with Pol Pots, Stalins and Hitlers. On the whole, I'd prefer our limited massacres to institutionalized mass killings, as despicable as they both are.
Paul, why confuse the facts here with your discussion of "high-powered assault rifles"? Richard Poplawski allegedly shot the Pittsburgh police officers with a shotgun. (By the way, is there such a thing as a "low-powered assault gun"?) As anyone familiar with firearms can tell you, a shotgun is a far more devastating weapon than any handgun that's been produced. Personally, any gun pointed at me is an assault gun, and any gun in my hands is a defensive device I can use to protect my family, my community and myself. It's not the gun, Paul; it's in whose hands the guns are.
Last I checked, it was still illegal to shoot police officers (or any one else) in Pennsylvania or New York. Why do you think Poplawski would somehow not have allegedly violated this particular law with a gallon or two of gasoline or maybe fertilizer and diesel fuel and committed are a far more horrific tragedy? I doubt that you favored banning any of these after the Oklahoma City bombing.
Everyday in this country, millions of your fellow citizens use firearms lawfully and safely, and thousands daily use them for protection. If guns didn't work effectively, the police wouldn't want to carry them around. Naturally, the proper use of a gun is hardly newsworthy, so the understandable impression among non-gun-owners is quite negative when tragedies such as these capture the headlines. The simple fact is, there is a small number of deranged people out there and law enforcement can't protect everyone (even themselves) all of the time. If we spent more time focusing on the problem and less time proclaiming the need to reenact the federal assault weapons bans (see Atty. Gen. Eric Holder's remarks several weeks ago), maybe we can do something to ameliorate the problem. I bet we can; how about you, Paul?
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Checking in on the NRA
How should the gun lobby respond to the recent mass shootings?
April 9, 2009
Today's topic: Gun-control advocates have been very vocal in the wake of the recent shootings in Pittsburgh and New York state, and in some cases have blamed the violence partly on the National Rifle Assn. The NRA, by contrast, has been largely silent. Where's the NRA?
The NRA is smart to lay low while gun-control groups seize the spotlight
Point: Richard Feldman
I certainly wasn't surprised that gun-control groups like yours, Paul, would use these mass murders as a high-visibility media hook to discuss banning guns and far more onerous restrictions for everyone, as you used to say, "if it only saves one life." But blaming the violence on the National Rifle Assn. is like blaming driving fatalities on the American Automobile Assn. Trust me, anyone who reads my book, "Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist," knows I am anything but an NRA apologist. You're playing the exact game that I accuse NRA of engaging in -- namely, "it's all about fundraising." You too would rather fight than win.
The NRA is playing very smart public relations right now. Why would any pro-gun organization want to weigh in and confuse their arguments about legitimate gun ownership rights following the demented, criminally insane and unlawful use perpetrated by the shooters in Pittsburgh and Binghamton, N.Y.? I can't fathom how it would be useful for any gun-rights organization to visibly engage in this moment of public grief and sorrow.
On the other hand, I do understand why this is the best opportunity for the Brady Campaign and other gun-control groups to try to capture the emotional disgust of this national tragedy and divert people's attention away from the very complicated issues of mental illness and criminal access to easily vilified inanimate objects -- guns. I'm sure these efforts will result in an excellent direct-mail fundraiser, and I'm equally certain your consultants are hard at work preparing the fundraising packages to drop in the mail because this issue won't stay hot for terribly long. Both ideological sides of this seemingly never-ending debate hope that the American people never focus on the real problem, allowing groups to continue to engage in pitched battles over slogans.
One thing we must recognize is that widespread firearms ownership in this country is here to stay. There are four main reasons to own guns: for sport and target shooting, for hunting, for protection and for collecting. I have never met a gun owner who wanted violent predatory criminals or deranged individuals to have lawful, easy access to firearms. In other words, what are we fighting about? Americans are in very substantial agreement on the big issues.
Yesterday, Paul, you raised the gun-show issue. I agree with you on this, as do most gun owners, but the key is in orientation and semantics. When gun-control groups say they want to "close the gun-show loophole," gun-rights organizations hear "we want to ban gun shows and make civilian transfers very difficult." I propose that we support and Congress introduce and pass a bill; let's call it the Gun Show Preservation and Protection Act of 2009. The bill allows, no, encourages gun shows but sets up a system in which buyers from a civilian dealer (in other words, a gun-show dealer who isn't part of the Federal Firearms License network) go through the same FBI background check system that they would if they were buying from an FFL dealer. The law wouldn't prevent the purchase or sale of any guns to or from anyone who could buy that gun from a FFL dealer. Its overall impact would be minuscule, but it would prevent convicted felons and adjudicated mental cases from buying guns at gun shows; no seller wants to transfer their guns to them anyway.
What do you say, Paul? Would you be willing to give up the nice polemics in exchange for zeroing in on a narrow and politically agreeable solution?
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Surprise: We agree on something. But the NRA remains stubborn
Counterpoint: Paul Helmke
Richard, I'm not sure who or what you're talking about in the first half of your post. The Brady Campaign's proposals don't involve banning all guns or creating "onerous restrictions for everyone," and we certainly would rather "win" than "continue to fight." I hope all of us would be willing to put up with a little "red tape" if it would help stop all the yellow police tape we see at crime scenes from going up.
Your proposal to set up a system in which all buyers of guns go through the same FBI background check system is exactly what we've been proposing. This would finally close the gun-show loophole. If the gun owners in this country really do agree with us on this point, let's put the pressure on our policymakers to adopt this rule now.
As you suggest, there are a number of complicated causes that contribute to the gun violence in this country, and I'm committed to focusing on the "real problem" and finding solutions. Remember, the U.S. Supreme Court said last summer in its District of Columbia vs. Heller decision that the idea that any person can buy any gun, any time and anywhere was not consistent with the 2nd Amendment; at the same time, the majority found that near-total gun bans were unconstitutional. This means the extremes of the gun-control debate are now off the table, and we should have an easier time reaching an agreement. After all, the Supreme Court removed the possibility of the "slippery slope" that might lead to gun confiscation.
The problem is that the NRA hasn't been willing to work with us to find common ground. After I started as president of the Brady Campaign, I wrote your former boss, Wayne LaPierre, and suggested that we meet. I said this could be private or public, at his place or my place or a neutral site, with staff or without staff, off the record or on. He never responded. I repeated this offer to him and to some of the other NRA bosses and never received any responses.
My offer still stands. I really do believe we can protect the 2nd Amendment rights of legitimate gun owners and still find ways to make it harder for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons.
Maybe we can agree on which guns should be available to the general public and which ones should not (right now, the only real restrictions are on fully automatic weapons such as machine guns). Maybe we can agree on some limit to the number of guns that can be purchased at one time (there are no federal limits right now). Maybe we can agree on better ways to catch and discipline the corrupt gun dealers who help facilitate the trafficking to illegal users (close to 60% of the guns traced from crime scenes come from just 1% of the dealers).
It's tough, apparently, for the NRA leadership to interfere with the business model that pushes more guns into society, which generally leads to more violence, which then leads to more gun sales and then more violence. Gun manufacturers, dealers and the NRA leadership make money from these gun sales. The victims, law enforcement professionals and communities for whom we speak pay the price.
Richard, we both want to reduce gun violence. If our leaders just took the simple steps we've both discussed, we would see a change. I'd love to get to the stage where we could settle this issue and move on to something else. This is a solvable problem, but we're going to need you and other gun owners to help push for solutions too.
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.. more to come .. |
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