Printed in the USA.
The Gottlieb-Tartaro Report
Issue 047
November, 1998
GUN OWNERS WIN IN WISCONSIN, ILLINOIS, KENTUCKY,
LOSE IN NEW YORK AND CALIFORNIA, WIN AND LOSE IN FLORIDA
Gun owners who expected big gains are definitely disappointed with the November 3 election results. Overall, the gun rights movement didn’t take a big hit, but didn’t make any gains, either.
Unfortunately, the fortunes of gun rights are heavily tied to the Republican Party’s successes or failures, and in the election the Republican Party, all on its own, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. With a friendly public that just wanted to talk about issues, Republicans tried to nationalize the election by tying it to Clinton’s personal woes -- and failed.
In fact, many Democrats running for Congress ran negative ads on issues like gun control that Republicans failed to rebut. The result was that gun owners got beat up in the public debate and no one defended them. Our guess is that with the millions of dollars spent on anti-gun ads by Democratic candidates, gun ownership has taken a short term hit in public opinion polls.
There were several key ballot measures dealing with guns, gun rights and hunting, as well as candidates to elect.
Perhaps the gun rights movement’s biggest victory came in Wisconsin, not for a candidate, but for a state constitutional amendment approved by voters by a margin of 71% to 29%. In a state where schools and businesses and some towns close down for deer hunting, voters approved an amendment to the Wisconsin constitution guaranteeing the individual right to keep and bear arms. Wisconsin was one of only 7 states with no state constitutional protection for gun ownership. One down, six to go.
JAMES FENDRY, a spokesman for the Wisconsin pro-gun movement, said the amendment "now opens the way to urging the state to authorize carrying concealed weapons."
The anti-gun movement organized to fight it under the banner of a group called, "Stop the Amendment Arming Criminals and Kids." The group’s name is proof positive how the anti-gun movement distorts the whole gun rights debate. The voters weren’t fooled.
On the flip side, in Florida voters approved by a nearly 3 to 1 margin a constitution revision that gives counties a say over gun sales. Counties in Florida now have the power to regulate the sale of any handgun, rifle or shotgun sold on property open to the public. The measure passed by such a large margin in large part because gun activists in Florida and the NRA did not work to build the coalition needed, as was done in the defeat of Initiative 676 in Washington State’s 1997 election.
But all wasn’t negative for gun owners in Florida. An anti-gun governor bit the dust and Jeb Bush gets to sit in the big chair. JEB BUSH is a lot more pro-gun than his father, former President GEORGE BUSH, who let us all down.
Illinois and Kentucky were real bright spots in the battle to protect the right to keep and bear arms. Rabid anti-gun Sen. CAROL MOSELEY-BRAUN was soundly defeated by PETER FITZGERALD, a solid pro-gun individual. An open U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky went from anti-gun hands to pro-gun hands in the election of Rep. JIM BUNNING, who had a great pro-gun voting record in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But gun owners took a hit in New York. Pro-gun U.S. Senator ALFONSE D’AMATO lost to the notorious gun banner CHARLES SCHUMER, who as a congressman never met an anti-gun bill that he didn’t want to go to bed with. The only good thing we can say about SCHUMER’s election is that in politics every action has a reaction, and nobody can keep gun owners active and fighting for their rights better than CHARLES SCHUMER.
Perhaps the worst place for gun owners in this election was California. Anti-gun Sen. BARBARA BOXER got re-elected in part by attacking her Republican opponent, MATT FONG, as being in favor of assault weapons. FONG, who is not really pro-gun, never responded to the attack. While gun owners couldn’t get excited about FONG, they wanted badly to replace BOXER with anyone.
Add to all this another complication, the California governor’s race. Republican Attorney General DAN LUNGREN, who was rated "F" by the NRA, and then endorsed by them, lost to the anti-gun Lieutenant Governor GRAY DAVIS, who was rated "F-" by the NRA. The problem is that when you don’t have a horse to ride, you can’t win the race. GRAY DAVIS will sign every anti-gun bill that the California legislature sends to his desk -- and they will be sending many.
In addition, thanks to the anti-gunners being in control, redistricting could cost us 6 pro-gun seats in Congress in the 2000 election from this key state.
In Massachusetts, Attorney General SCOTT HARSHBARGER, who pushed for a new gun control law and is as rabidly anti-gun as you can get, lost to acting Governor PAUL CELLUCCI. CELLUCCI, who is not exactly pro-gun, is not tied to the national anti-gun movement as HARSHBARGER is.
Three other states had measures on their ballots involving hunting, which affects firearms owners. In Ohio, gun owners defeated a ban on dove hunting by a 60% to 40% margin. In Minnesota, gun owners passed a hunting heritage measure 75% to 25%. And in Alaska, a wolf-trapping ban failed. The anti-hunting movement was Zero for 3.
In Washington State, where last year gun owners scored the biggest ballot measure victory in America’s history, things didn’t go as well this year. Two pro-gun seats in Congress were lost and Republicans lost control of the State Senate and probably the State House of Representatives. At press time, some of the House races are too close to call. This will result in a change in pro-gun leadership in the state Senate to anti-gun leadership, allowing anti-gun bills to now reach the floor. With anti-gun Governor GARY LOCKE, who is a friend of the anti-gun movement, gun owners now face a new threat. The anti-gunners’ wish list includes killing state pre-emption, trigger locks, mandatory training, one-gun-a-month schemes, controlling private sales, restricting gun shows, weakening the state’s self-defense law, and repealing concealed carry.
Gun owners need to start focusing on election 2000 - NOW!
NICS TO GO ONLINE ON SCHEDULE
The National Instant Check System (NICS) mandated by the Brady Law will start as planned, says Deputy Assistant FBI Director DAVID LOESCH. LOESCH made the statement at a recent regular weekly Justice Department news briefing, where he joined Attorney General JANET RENO, who stated, "Although it’s not been easy, we are on schedule."
The project has faced numerous difficulties. For one, the Justice Department has distributed $200 million in the last few years to states to correct, complete and computerize their criminal history and other records required for NICS background checks.
The job is not yet finished, for even though every state has some computerized records, not all the records needed for NICS are complete or on computers. However, even at startup it will be a formidable screening tool and is expected to improve rapidly. For example, today the FBI’s Interstate Identification Index of state and federal criminal histories has 29 million records, where four years ago it only had 21 million.The system is intended to identify persons disqualified from owning a firearm. Federal law bans gun purchases by people convicted or under indictment on felony charges, fugitives, the mentally ill, those with dishonorable military discharges, those who have renounced U.S. citizenship, illegal aliens, illegal drug users and those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors or under domestic violence restraining orders. State laws add other categories.
LOESCH said the system will start up on November 30, just before the peak sales season when many people buy guns as Christmas gifts or for hunting season. December is the busiest month for gun sales, and many hunting seasons coincide with Christmas buying.
"We’ll definitely be prepared," LOESCH said. "It’s difficult, obviously, to bring up a system in the biggest month of the year. We know that we’ll be ready and running at that time, and be able to handle it."
The FBI has hired and nearly finished training 513 people in West Virginia to handle its part of the work, set up two telephone centers through a contractor (Teletech), and sent teams to brief the nation’s 106,000 gun dealers and pawnshop owners.
Details of NICS were explained, some for the first time. All firearm purchases will be covered by the new computerized instant check system, including not only handguns but also long guns, rifles and shotguns. LOESCH estimated that 12.4 million firearms of all kinds are sold each year in the United States. NICS will also cover another 2.5 million annual transactions when an owner retrieves a firearm from a pawn shop.
Using the FBI system, a gun dealer will telephone one of two toll-free numbers and supply the buyer’s name, sex, race, date or birth and state of residence.
If no record is found in a computer check, approval for the sale will be given to the dealer within three minutes, LOESCH said.
If a record is found in a computer check, the call will be transferred automatically from the contractor telephone centers to FBI examiners who will check the record. They will advise the dealer to deny the sale or delay it for further checking.
The FBI and local law officers will have up to three days to check further, to determine such things as whether an arrest led to a conviction or an acquittal if the record does not show the disposition of the case.
If a check finds the prospective gun buyer is a fugitive, the FBI will deny the dealer permission for the sale and will contact local police and the police agency that issued the warrant.
Under the new system, 27 states have decided to do some or all of the checks themselves. The FBI will do the checks for the rest.
States that will check all firearm sales and all handgun and long gun purchase permits are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
States that will check handgun purchase permits while the FBI will do long gun purchase checks are Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska and North Carolina.
States that will check handgun purchases while the FBI checks long gun purchases are Indiana, Maryland, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin.
LOESCH said the FBI realizes there will be complaints when the system starts up.
"We need to work together to minimize the complaints," said Attorney General RENO, "to make it as easy as possible for law-abiding people to have weapons."
The FBI originally planned to charge a $10 user fee for each check, but Congress rejected the idea. The states can collect fees, and most will, LOESCH said. Other officials said some of the 27 states doing their own checks are considering turning them over to the FBI to avoid imposing charges in their jurisdictions.
RENO and LOESCH said state checks are preferable to federal checks, because many mental health records and some drug abuse records are available only to state officials and cannot be shared with other states.
If the FBI worried about the capability of the new system? LOESCH said, "Of course, we’re worried about it. Sure. You know, I mean we’d be crazy if we weren’t, I think."
LOESCH estimated that 85 percent of the checks will be done instantly, with the purchase either approved or denied.
NICS replaces the prior system that allowed local sheriffs to voluntarily conduct background checks on handgun buyers during a five-day period.
The CLINTON administration has told the media that from February 1994 through December 31, 1997, the voluntary checks had blocked an estimated 242,000 handgun sales. Further claims were made that during the most recent year, 61.7 percent of those disapprovals came because the buyer was a convicted felon. Scholars and law enforcement officials have disputed that figure, with some estimates of the effectiveness of the checks to be minimal.
APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS WEST HOLLYWOOD GUN BAN
California’s 2nd District Court of Appeals recently upheld the city of West Hollywood’s ban on so-called Saturday Night Specials.
In 1996, West Hollywood became the first city in the state to enact a ban on the affordable self-defense handguns. California Attorney General DAN LUNGREN challenged the city’s ban, arguing that the law violates California’s firearms preemption statute which allows only the state to regulate firearm sales, not local government.
Gun owners then filed a lawsuit against the city of West Hollywood, and a superior court judge ruled that the gun ban did not conflict with state law.
The plaintiffs appealed the case and the three-judge appeals court panel then ruled unanimously that the gun ban did not conflict with state law.The appeals court ruling came immediately on the heels of governor PETE WILSON’s veto of legislation which sought to ban the affordable handguns statewide.
No decision has been announced on whether the plaintiffs will appeal the ruling to the California Supreme Court.
MASSACHUSETTS GUN CONTROL LAW FACES COURT CHALLENGE
The Gun Owners’ Action League of Northboro has joined with other plaintiffs to file a lawsuit against Massachusetts’ new gun-control law, saying that it is too vague.
MICHAEL YACINO, executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action League said, "The law is too vague to understand, too obscure to enforce, and too unintelligible to obey."
The plaintiffs are seeking to have the law declared invalid.
Both acting Governor PAUL CELLUCCI and Attorney General SCOTT HARSHBARGER, opponents battling as the Republican and Democratic nominees for governor, were among the defendants. Republican CELLUCCI won the governorship.
Both said they supported the law, which prohibits possessing or selling "large-capacity" weapons, those able to carry more than 10 rounds made after September 1994.
ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST THUMPS EDDIE EAGLE GUN TRAINING PROGRAM
In another Massachusetts story, animal rights extremist Mary de La Valette wrote an opinion piece in the Salem News against the Eddie Eagle youth gun training program. She said the popular program was "teaching kids to celebrate violence." The Eddie Eagle program is sponsored by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
De La Valette’s acid comments came in response to the recent proclamation of "Eddie Eagle Gun Safety Week" for the first week in October in the state of Massachusetts. De La Valette said the program is a thinly veiled marketing ploy by the gun lobby to put weapons in the hands of children.
"The facts are that kids don’t need to learn ‘gun safety,’" wrote de La Valette. "They need to stay away from guns -- all guns."
Part of the Eddie Eagle program is a Youth Waterfowl Hunting Day, where kids as young as age 12 can shoot up to five birds with no parental permission or license required. "This scenario cannot fail to invoke the Jonesboro, Ark., boys, who, coming from the great Southern tradition of teaching children to hunt, were at ages 11 and 13 out in the woods with their rifles," de La Valette wrote.
"Yale University’s studies show that killing animals paves the way to killing people," she wrote. "Notwithstanding, our federal and state wildlife agencies, in collaboration with the NRA and other organizations .. are shamelessly teaching kids to celebrate violence. With private and public grants, they are using our public schools, our public government and our public money to teach children that killing can be fun. It’s time to end this charade."
If DE LA VALETTE is so worried about celebrating violence, she perhaps needs to be reminded of her fellow animal rights extremists Rodney Coronado, who got 47 months in federal prison for torching university research laboratories, and JOSHUA ELLERMAN, recently sentenced to 7 years for pipe bombing a mink feed co-op in Salt Lake City.
CORONADO wrote an article from jail for the Earth First! Journal that urges animal rights advocates to destroy all animal enterprises from research laboratories to McDonald’s hamburger restaurants.
Canadian animal rights activist and convicted felon DAVID BARBARASH advised his fellow activists from prison, "Be tribal. Go for the jugular."
That is a true celebration of violence.
DE LA VALETTE should be ashamed of herself for writing such hypocritical accusations about others when her own movement just took credit for torching the Vail ski lodge in Colorado "to save the last lynx habitat" in a place where no lynx has been seen for at least 25 years.
SMART HANDGUNS - A GROWING DEBATE
The gun control crowd’s favorite theme is handguns used by the wrong person to shoot innocent victims. Gun manufacturers, always alert to defend their product, are touting numerous safety measures such as safe storage devices, trigger locks -- and the so-called "smart gun," a high-tech product that will only fire in the proper hands. Of all the approaches to safety, the smart gun is the most controversial.
Some say smart guns will be the salvation of the slumping gun market. Others say it’s a gimmick that won’t work, either at the cash register or in the owner’s hands. Skeptics point out that gun buyers are a conservative lot who don’t trust the "bells and whistles" technology-will-solve-everything ploy that sells computers so well. Critics worry about smart guns turning out to be stupid guns: will they fire even in the wrong hands, or will they fail to fire in the right hands?
There is no controversy about the sagging gun market. Gun sales in the U.S., and handgun sales in particular, have been slipping steadily for twenty years. In 1977, firearms production stood at 5 million. In 1996 it was down to 3.8 million. During the same period, handgun production declined from 1.9 million to 1.5 million. Improving those numbers is a real concern for all gun manufacturers.
Colt’s Manufacturing Co. is producing a smart handgun, but says it’s at least a year away. Their computerized version will use a tiny radio transmitter on a special wristband to be worn by the owner. Without the wristband, a squeeze on the trigger will not activate the hammer and the gun will not fire.
But other gun manufacturers such as Sturm, Ruger & Co. are skeptical about the technology behind smart guns, feeling it is not yet reliable.
Some gun manufacturers are pursuing other smart gun technologies, such as one that depends on recognizing a gun owner’s fingerprints. Another recognizes the owner’s hand size. But Colt’s is the only one anywhere near production.
Part of the reason is a $500,000 research grant from the federal National Institute of Justice. Colt’s spent millions more on the research, said MARC FONTAINE, Colt’s chief operating officer. Research costs will be passed on to the purchaser, of course. The recognition technology will add from $300 to $400 to the price of each gun. For example, a Colt .45-caliber Combat Commander is currently priced at $813, and the recognition technology could top it out at $1,213.
Despite the cost, Colt’s enthuses about smart guns.
"Everybody is going to want smart guns," said BUCK HENDRICKSON, a Colt’s vice president. "Then the little kids can’t shoot each other and nobody can take a police officer’s gun away from him and shoot him, and states like New Jersey and New York and Maryland and Delaware and maybe even Virginia are going to have legislatures saying, ‘The only kind of gun you can buy here is a smart gun.’"
Investment analysts don’t buy the high-tech rationale. DAVID GUTHRIE of Morgan Keegan & Co., a Memphis investment firm, says "People that buy guns don’t like things that are far out. You might sell a smart gun to someone who wants a gun for self defense, but unless there is some type of forced legislation that gives you no choice, people are not going to gravitate to a product like this." Morgan Keegan & Co. has underwritten stock offerings for Sturm, Ruger, the nation’s only publicly held firearms manufacturer.
The obvious worry that arises from the smart gun debate is whether gun manufacturers who offer a particular safety gadget will covertly or openly lobby for gun control laws that require their gadget. The manufacturer’s incentive to limit the rights of gun owners is high in today’s slack market when the expected reward is more sales.
The words of Colt’s HENDRICKSON about legislatures banning all but smart guns are a warning light flashing across the Second Amendment.
SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY’S SMART GUNS?
The "smart gun" debate has generated yet another example of the old political tactic of making yourself look moderate while pushing extreme legislation.
Handgun Control, Inc., the loudest ban-them-all anti-gun lobby in Washington, has come forward in support of smart guns, calling everybody who opposes them "extremists."
HCI Communications Director NAOMI PAISS recently said, "The only people who oppose or question the usefulness of developing smart guns are the extremists at both ends of the gun-control debate. Gun manufacturers who are not investing in smart-gun technology are obviously quite afraid that their wares will instantly become the Ford Pintos of the 90s.
"On the other side, there are the extremists -- I don’t think it is unfair to describe them that way -- who oppose making safer guns because they really believe that no gun should be sold or privately owned in this country. They are both wrong."
Only the politically brain dead would fall for that line. HCI wants all guns banned. Their track record clearly shows that. With Colt’s manufacturing already letting the cat out of the bag by predicting that all guns will be banned except smart guns, you can see why HCI supports them: HCI can ban everything except smart guns because they’re the only safe ones, then later find that smart guns are not so smart and ban them too.
But what a wonderful public relations trick. HCI can say, "Look how moderate we are! We support guns! We’re not the extremists! You guys are the extremists! We only want to ban dumb guns! Of course, that’s all of them right now, and smart guns are years away, but don’t think such negative thoughts."
Watch for the media to swallow that line without so much as a question mark. HCI has nothing to fear politically from smart guns. Only from politically smart gun owners.
NRA CHIEF LOBBYIST REPLACED
TANYA K. METAKSA recently announced that she is stepping down as NRA’s head lobbyist. The move had been expected by insiders who have watched internal politics create disarray within the National Rifle Association along with accusations that Ms. METAKSA had become too abrasive with members of Congress to remain effective.
Whatever the truth may be, NRA moved Ms. METAKSA to the position of "Senior Advisor to the Executive Vice President." WAYNE LaPIERRE, NRA executive vice president and CEO issued a statement of appreciation for Ms. METAKSA’s many years of service.
JAMES JAY BAKER was appointed to replace Ms. METAKSA as executive director of the National Rifle Association - Institute for Legislative Action effective immediately. It was a return to an old job for BAKER, who held the position from 1991 to 1994.
WHAT’S THE REAL TAX BITE ON GUNS?
Gun owners usually know that all gun sales are subject to a 10 percent federal excise tax paid directly by the consumer. They also realize that state and local sales taxes are added to that, averaging about 6 percent. So, right off the top, gun purchasers pay 15 percent of the price of a legal gun to the government in taxes.
But other taxes imposed on the gun manufacturer account for 30 percent of the sale price. Add that to the consumer’s direct tax payment, and you find that taxes consume 46 percent of what the purchaser pays for a legal gun.
The Americans for Tax Reform Foundation is trying to do something about it. For more information, interested readers can contact the tax reform foundation’s PETER CLEARY at 202-785-0266, ext. 224 or fax him at 202-785-0261.
USING THE COURTS TO BAN GUNS
The city of New Orleans, Louisiana, has filed the first major product liability and negligence lawsuit by a local government against the firearms industry.
The suit seeks to prove that handgun makers are responsible for people shooting other people. Among the 10 defendant companies are Lorcin Engineering, Bryco Arms, Jennings, Inc., Phoenix Arms and Davis Industries, all makers of inexpensive self-defense handguns that the media call "Saturday Night Specials."
The rationale is that manufacturers failed to incorporate safety technology to prevent accidental shootings and they produce too many guns to be absorbed by legal purchase so that the market is saturated, thus providing a surplus that gets into the hands of crooks and juveniles.
Yes, the premise is ridiculous, but it is also exceedingly dangerous. Harassment by lawsuit is an old strategy designed to wear down opponents and run them out of money.
It’s all part of a "war" just launched by the National Center to Prevent Handgun violence and a consortium of high-powered law firms.
JOHN COALE, a Washington, D.C. attorney, said, "We’re going to do to guns what we did to tobacco. It’s going to be a very large war."
The lawyer consortium is called the Castano Group, for the lead plaintiff in one anti-tobacco case. It has filed class-action suits against cigarette makers on behalf of millions of allegedly addicted smokers.
Big cases have already been filed. A wrongful-death trial against Beretta USA stemming from the accidental shooting of 15-year-old KENZO DIX was still in progress in Oakland, California at press time. A new approach will be tried in a suit against gun manufacturers expected to go to trial early next year in New York, funded by a grant from financier George Soros, who gave the Drug Policy Foundation a $6 million donation in 1994.
Officials in Chicago and Philadelphia have considered liability and negligence lawsuits against gun makers in recent months, but no filings have resulted.
The filing of the suit by the city of New Orleans and the entry of the Castano Group, with its big money resources, marks the opening of a new chapter in the war against gun owners, one that will require keen vigilance by defenders of the Second Amendment.
The Gottlieb-Tartaro Report: An Insiders Guide for Gun Owners
$30 for a full year of 12 great issues
This publication is available to be ordered online! Find out how, and start your subscription today!
Printed in the USA.
The Gottlieb-Tartaro Report (ISSN 1079-6169) is published monthly by the:
Second Amendment Foundation
James Madison Building
12500 N.E. 10th Place
Bellevue, WA 98005
Phone (425) 454-7012. FAX (425) 451-3959Please call or write if you have a question regarding your subscription.
Subscriptions $30 per year anywhere in the USA, $35 elsewhere. Single issues $5.00.Send address changes to:
The Gottlieb-Tartaro Report
12500 N.E. 10th Place
Bellevue, WA 98005Publishers: Alan M. Gottlieb and Joseph P. Tartaro
Editor: Ron Arnold
Design: Northwoods Studio
Production: Janet Arnold
Subscriptions: Susan Elings
Published by: Second Amendment FoundationCopyright 1999-2002 by Alan M. Gottlieb and Joseph P. Tartaro.
Photocopying, reproduction or quotation strictly prohibited without written permission of the publishers.
Bulk rates on request. Postage paid at Bellevue, WA.