Hindsight from The New Gun Week
March 20, 2000
The Architecture of Public Policy
by Joseph P. Tartaro,
Executive Editor
There is an art and science to the development of public policy in the US, and the Clinton Administration has been a stellar practitioner of this architectural discipline.
The development of a public policy initiative requires the diligent exercise of many disciplines, just as much as does the design, engineering and construction of a major building.
A current example of the architecture of public policy is easily found in the White House planning for more restrictions on the private ownership of firearms. That the Clinton policy on guns is based on the fallacy that restricting law-abiding people will somehow reduce the use of guns by law breakers is beside the point.
The Clinton-Gore Administration is determined to pursue its gun agenda and, like those developers who are forced to have architects and engineers conduct environmental impact studies before a new building project is completed, they are quick to create the studies necessary to overcome objections. But unlike the private sector, the Administration has at its disposal a variety of government agencies that can be directed to produce the studies that support their views.
The HUD Report
A major component of the Clinton-Gore gun control initiative is the release of a report that claims that people who live in public housing are at greater risk from guns than the general population. The report was released with the usual media trappings, just as architects provide beautiful renderings or three-dimensional models of their proposed new buildings in the company of civic leaders who support their project.
And just as the developers and architects don't show you the down side of their project, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) study media event concealed information that would undercut the Administration's findings.
Typical of the media coverage on the HUD study was this report from Associated Press.
"Paralyzed by a cousin's accidental gunshot, 19-year-old Namel Norris spreads a simple message to America's youth from his wheelchair: 'Guns are nothing to play with. Don't even pick them up.'
"The aspiring music producer from New York City joined Andrew Cuomo, the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and others on Feb. 16 in rallying support for an agency campaign for stricter gun control measures.
"Also on Feb. 16, President Clinton released a HUD report that showed public-housing residents are more than twice as likely to be victimized by handgun violence as other Americans.
"Cuomo, Norris and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), whose husband was killed and her son injured in a 1993 shooting on New York's Long Island Rail Road, reinforced the message that gun violence remains out of control even while crime overall is on the decline."
"Crime is dropping in public housing, the HUD report found, but the nation's 2.6 million residents of public housing are at disproportionate risk of gun violence," the AP story continued.
"Four out of 1,000 Americans are victimized annually by gun violence, compared with 10 out of 1,000 for public housing residents.
"The study, culled from crime data provided by the National Crime Victimization Survey, the Census Bureau and HUD, did offer some promising news.
"The crime rate declined in two-thirds of public housing authorities studied between 1994 and 1997. Also, in 60% of the housing authorities, the crime rate fell more quickly than in surrounding cities."
Associated Press noted that National Rifle Association officials also bemoaned the level of gun violence in public housing. "But Wayne LaPierre, the group's executive vice president, blamed the Clinton Administration for failing to enforce existing gun laws," AP continued.
" 'For gun criminals and drug dealers, housing projects have become casinos,' " LaPierre said. " 'By not picking up drug dealers with guns, the Administration is sentencing those people to a death sentence.' "
Then came the link to the gun control structure the White House is trying to build. Cuomo said he and other gun control advocates want to see manufacturers equip guns with safety devices that would prevent incidents such as the Jan. 16 incident in which a bullet smashed into Norris' collarbone.
AP reported that Clinton has asked Congress for $280 million for more 1,000 federal, state and local prosecutors and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents assigned solely to enforcing current gun laws.
Lawsuit Link
In December, federal and local officials, but particularly Clinton and his cabinet member, Cuomo, were threatening to bring a national lawsuit from public housing authorities against the gun industry if manufacturers fail to enter negotiations designed to increase firearm safety.
Actually, there is a much more to the HUD report and the Administration's masterplan for gun control than the wire services, newspapers and broadcast news included in their reports.
The March 6 issue of The Weekly Standard noted that Clinton and Cuomo had threatened the HUD-sponsored suit as a means of bullying gun manufacturers into settling the 30 suits brought against them by municipalities across the country. The purpose of the city suits and the threatened HUD suit is not to extort money from the gun industry, but to extort regulations from the gun industry which the anti-gunners have not been able to win in Congress and most state legislatures.
Then The Weekly Standard went on to report what others had not: the HUD report also showed that crime in public housing is not significantly different from crime in surrounding inner city private housing.
Inside the HUD report, entitled "In the Crossfire: The Impact of Gun Violence on Public Housing Communities," The Weekly Standard found the statement that "the rate of violent victimization for persons receiving housing assistance is not significantly different from those persons residing in rental housing with similar income backgrounds."
The Weekly Standard suggested that the HUD report had another purpose than as an "impact statement" for legislation. The conservative magazine suggested that it was material intended to be included in legal briefs against the gun manufacturers, in suits filed by either the cities or HUD units.
This is all part of the architecture of public policy. The President is like the developer with a vision. His cabinet makes up the engineering staff that provides the "expertise" to help sell a project to investors-in this case the public. And behind the scenes are the draftsmen and others who will flesh out all the details in the blueprints, like so many rivets and other components that nobody will see until they look for them.
Master Practitioners
The Clinton Administration have proven themselves master practitioners of the art and science of public policy architecture. More than almost every other administrations, they have displayed an uncanny ability to plan a project, sell it to the media and the public through studies such as those conjured up by HUD or the Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control.
When they get into a fight with Congress-as they have with their other gun schemes-they accuse their opponents of ignoring the evidence and of being against "gun safety" or "child safety."
And Cuomo, who has ambitions for higher public office, is not missing an opportunity to press all the approved buttons for public policy architecture. At his press conference to announce the HUD study and promote the Clinton gun control agenda, he said:
"The lives of children in our struggling inner cities are just as precious as the lives of children in our prosperous suburbs. This report tells us that HUD needs to do more to reduce gun violence that kills, maims and terrorizes far too many innocent victims in public housing," Cuomo said.
And, guess what: Clinton and Cuomo have a solution ready to sell.
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.netAlso, check out the New Gun Week at http://www.GunWeek.com