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Quick Shots 1998
January 2000
The nation's death rate from the
misuse of firearms fell 21 percent between 1993 and 1997, according
to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report also showed the injury rate from firearm misuse plunging
41 percent during the same period.
"Our study pretty much showed there's been a substantial drop
in both fatal and nonfatal firearms injuries ...
to see both of them coming down together really indicates
we're making good progress. It's very exciting," said J. Lee
Annest, chief statistician for the CDC's National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control, according to The Washington Times.
The study in the CDC's "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly
Report" estimated deaths from firearm-related injuries in 1997
at 32,436, down 18 percent from a record 39,595 deaths in 1993. The
rate of gun deaths fell from 15.4 per 100,000 population six years
ago to 12.1 per 100, 000 in 1997.
The report, which Annest authored, showed that the number of
nonfatal firearm injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms
dropped from 104,390 in 1993 to 64,207 in 1997. He noted that the
rate of such incidents fell from 40.5 per 100,000 people to 24 per
100,000 between 1993 and 1997.
In Veghel, Netherlands, a teenage student carrying a handgun opened
fire at a high school on December 7,1999, wounding a teacher and
four fellow students in the first school shooting in Dutch history,
reported the International Herald Tribune.
In a drama unprecedented in Holland, "known for its strict gun
control laws," according to the Tribune, the 17year-old suspect
fired more than 10 times before surrendering to the police outside
the school in Veghel, 60 miles south of Amsterdam.
Two students were in critical condition. The teacher and another
student were in stable condition. A fourth student was grazed.
Dutch police officers investigating the incident said they were
surprised by the explanation they heard from a brother of one of the
five victims, who said a long family feud between Turkish families
had inspired the rampage.
Authorities were questioning both the 17-year-old suspect and his
father, who reportedly drove his son to the school, waited outside
in the family's Mercedes sedan while the shooting took place, and
then drove his son to the local police station where he surrendered
peacefully. The police did not say whether the father could face
charges as an accessory.
In Maryland, the City of Takoma Park and Citizens Against Handguns
have agreed not to challenge Circuit Court Judge Vincent E. Ferretti,
Jr.'s ruling that they could not use elections to ask voters whether
handguns should be banned in Takoma Park or whether state law should
be changed to allow them to do so.
Judge Ferretti issued the restraining order -which kept Takoma Park
residents from voting on a city ban last November 2 -because
Maryland law prohibits municipal and county governments from
regulating guns and from using elections to conduct opinion polls.
The city and the anti-gun group have signed a court agreement not to
put the question on the ballot in the future, but city attorney
Susan Silber said the City Council is still looking for a way to use
local government authority to restrict guns in Takoma Park and for
changes they may be able to advocate and win in state law.
In New York, according to a Reuters report, a Manhattan judge has
granted a prosecutor's request to dismiss charges against a Fifth
Avenue art gallery owner who displayed live bullets in a candy bowl
as part of a sculpture exhibition.
Mary Boone was arrested last September 30, after the police said
they recovered 234 rounds of live 9mm ammunition from a glass vase
at Boone's gallery. They also found four double-barreled shotguns,
two of which were operable. Boone was charged with the disposal of
live ammunition and possession of an exposed rifle, which she said
were all part of a show by the sculptor Tom Sachs.
The gallery's spokesman, Ron Warren, said the bullets were a
commentary on popular culture. He said that having the ammunition in
a candy bowl was like saying "bullets are as casual as a piece
of candy."
Boone could have faced up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine if
she had been convicted. On December 6, though, a judge granted the
Manhattan district attorney's request to dismiss the charges.
"It's a win for the First Amendment, " Boone said after
the ruling.
In back-to-back victories for the firearms industry last month,
judges in two states dismissed lawsuits against gun manufacturers
and dealers.
A state judge in Florida tossed out a suit by Miami-Dade County on
December 13, three days after a Connecticut state judge dismissed a
similar lawsuit brought by the mayor and city of Bridgeport.
The two lawsuits mirror other suits filed by municipalities that
allege that guns have created a public nuisance, threatening
residents' health and safety, and that gun manufacturers, like
polluters, should have to pay for the cleanup.
In their separate decisions, the judges in Florida and Connecticut
reached the same conclusion: The governments lack standing to sue.
"The plaintiffs have no statutory or common-law basis to recoup
their expenditures," ruled the judge in Bridgeport.
"Public nuisance does not apply to the design, manufacture and
distribution of a lawful product," said the Florida judge.
GO BACK TO TOP
February
2000
When anti-gun Rep. Charles E.
Schumer of New York was running for the U. S. Senate from New York
in 1998, reported THE NEW YORK TIMES, "he was probably aware
when he spoke with securities industry lobbyists about deregulation
that the industry had donated $1.28 million to his campaigns over
the previous five years - even if not all of those donations were
motivated by concern about -the issue.
"Mr. Schumer was on the House Banking Committee and is now on
the Senate Banking Committee. He has long been regarded as the
securities industry's strongest ally in Congress. Of course, most
brokerage and financial services companies are based in New York
City, parts of which Mr. Schumer represented in the House. He
received more money from the securities industry in 1997 and 1998
than anyone else now in the Senate, almost certainly because he was
running for the Senate."
Late last year, the Illinois State Senate refused to reenact a law
that would make illegal possession of handguns a felony.
Gov. George Ryan predicted he had the votes necessary for passage of
the legislation, which the Illinois Supreme Court struck down early
last December on technical grounds. The state law that made unlawful
gun possession a felony had been on the books since 1994.
Ryan had called a special legislative session to consider
reenactment of the measure. This session involved only the Senate
since the House already had passed the bill in an earlier special
session.
However, in the Senate on December 29, 1999, the bill fell five
votes short of the 36 required for ratification, despite intense
gubernatorial lobbying.
Leading the fight against the bill was the Majority Whip, State Sen.
Ed Petka, a former prosecutor who has sponsored measures that impose
stiff penalties for the use of guns in the commission of crimes but
who said "I think that transporting a firearm for whatever
reason should not be a felony."
Both sides in the debate said the issue would be on the agenda again
this year. Petka told POINT BLANK the Ryan proposal would be
"more difficult" to defeat this year.
In California, there is a conflict brewing within the camp of the
gun grabbers, according to THE WASHINGTON POST.
Last year, the gun grabbers, with the all-out support of Gov. Gray
Davis, enacted a barrage of laws designed to reduce the
proliferation of firearms. It included a tough ban on so-called
"assault weapons," a limit on handgun purchases in the
state to one a month, a prohibition on the manufacture or sale of
certain inexpensive handguns, and a requirement that all guns made
or sold in California have safety locks.
Now legislator& say they want to impose more extensive
registration and new licensing requirements on prospective gun
owners, force gun owners to take more safety tests, pay higher fees
and renew a gun license every year or few years.
"But," reported the POST, "Davis sounds worried that
the legislature is going too far, too fast...He ... apparently fears
that approving another wave of gun laws could galvanize conservative
voters at a time when the looming presidential race in make-or-break
California looks quite competitive."
The Clinton-Gore Administration said late last year that it was
tripling the budget for the development of a unified national data
base of shell casings and bullets to be known as the National
Integrated Ballistics Information Network.
An Administration official said the new system, to be run by BATF,
"will work toward creating a virtual fingerprint for newly
manufactured handguns by using a computer analysis of the unique
markings a gun leaves on shell casings when it is fired,"
reported THE NEW YORK TIMES.
Paul Jannuzzo, General Counsel of Glock, Inc., said that, "as
long as this is aimed at crime control, not gun control, we will
support it."
A former prosecutor, he said that providing BATF gun fingerprints
"will speed up the gun tracing process incredibly."
He added that giving the government the information also could help
the firearms industry in a complex set of lawsuits filed against it
by 28 cities and counties as welI as by the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development, and in parallel negotiations between
lawyers for the cities and the gun companies.
The cities have demanded that the firearm -manufacturers develop a
serial number that would be harder to obliterate.
"If you have a system with gun fingerprints, it is better than
serial numbers that can be tampered with," Jannuzzo said.
"it may also do away with another demand by the people who want
to put us out of business, registration of all gun owners, because
you already have the gun registered. "
The new system relies on the computer analysis of marks made on
shell casings, including those caused by firing pins and those
pressed on the breach face of the casing during an explosion, as
well as another unique signature left when the casing is ejected.
GO BACK TO TOP
May 2000
In Washington, D. C., Congressman
Bill McCollum of Florida, a CCRKBA Gun Rights Defender of the Year
Awardee, spoke out forcefully in support of his bill, H.R. 4051, to
establish a grant program that provides incentives for states to
enact mandatory minimum sentences for certain firearm offenses.
The measure, titled “Project
Exile: The Safe Streets and Neighborhoods Act of 2000,” would
provide $100 million in grants over five years to states imposing a
mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence, without parole, for
anyone who uses or carries a firearm during a violent or serious
drug-trafficking crime.
McCollum, Chairman of the
Judiciary Committee’s Crime Subcommittee, said the bill combined
the proven approaches of enforcing gun laws already on the books and
ensuring mandatory minimum sentences for criminals who break them.
The model for the bill is Project
Exile, a gun crime mandatory sentencing program in Richmond,
Virginia that supporters say is responsible, since its inception in
1997, for significantly reducing violent crime in a city that had
one of the highest crime rates in the country.
Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, who
last July signed into law a statewide “Virginia Exile” program,
told a hearing of the Subcommittee on April 6 that H.R. 4051, in
enacted into law, would show “how valuable Exile can be in
assisting them in the link between guns, drugs and violent crime.”
Currently six states, including
Virginia, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, South Caroline and Colorado,
would qualify for the funding.
McCollum is a candidate this year
for the U. S. Senate.
Gun grabber Rosie O’Donnell of TV talk show notoriety was billed
as a featured speaker for the May 14 anti-gun “Million Mom March”
in Washington, D. C.
Promoters of the March urged
America’s mothers to “gas up the minivans and carpool it” to
the Nation’s Capital to shame Congress into enacting gun control
laws.
Opposing this group is the Second
Amendment Sisters (http://www.sas-aim.org),
a grass roots self-defense advocacy organization that held an Armed
Informed Mothers March as a counter to the Million Mom March.
U.S. Rep. Joseph M. Hoeffel III of Pennsylvania introduced H. R.
4137, a bill to make federal law apply to antique firearms in the
same way as it applies to other firearms. It was referred to the
House Judiciary Committee. Cosponsors include Reps. Robert A. Borski
of Pennsylvania, Robert A. Brady of Pennsylvania, Julia M. Carson of
Indiana, Eliot Engel of New York, Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania,
William O. Lipinski of Illinois, Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts,
Juanita Millender-McDonald of California, Jerrold Nadler of New
York, Janice D. Schakowsky of Illinois, and Henry A. Waxman of
California.
U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra of California introduced H.R. 4150, the
proposed “Bullet Tracing Act to Reduce Gun Violence,” which
would require ballistics testing of firearms manufactured in or
imported into the United States that are “most commonly used in
crime,” and to provide for the compilation, use, and availability
of ballistics information for the purpose of “curbing the use of
firearms in crime.”
Referred to the House Judiciary
Committee, H.R. 4150 would require BATF to compile and cause to be
published in the Federal Register, on an annual basis, a list of the
50 firearms, by manufacturer and model name, most frequently used by
criminals in the United States.
It would provide that a licensed
firearm manufacturer or importer shall not transfer to any person a
firearm of a make or model that is on the most recently issued list
before test firing the firearm, preparing ballistics records of the
fired bullet and cartridge casings from the test fire, and making
the records available to BATF for entry in a computerized database.
Early in 1999, U.S. Sen. Craig
Thomas of Wyoming requested the General Accounting Office (GAO) to
conduct an audit to examine whether the National Instant Check
System (NICS) is designed efficiently and managed effectively by the
FBI. The completed study indicates there are a number of significant
problems with NICS, preventing it from operating as Congress
intended.
Among them are that 1.2 million,
or 28 percent, of all federal firearm checks were not instant; 1,505
individuals were denied the opportunity to purchase firearms as a
result of FBI examiner error or misidentification; as of December
31, 1999, BATF reported that 3,353 prohibited individuals had
obtained firearms, but only had active criminal investigations on
110, or only 3.3 percent of these individuals; NICS failed to meet
its operating accountability standards two-thirds of the time
between November 30, 1998 and November 30, 1999; and, although NICS
has been operational for 15 months, it has yet to be authorized as
secure in accordance with the FBI’s own routine requirements for
computer security.
Sen. Thomas cautioned that “the
new NICS report should weigh heavily in the President’s current
push for additional laws to affect gun purchases and address
violence.” He stated further “if during our oversight of current
gun control laws it’s found that criminals still get guns and a
high number of legal gun purchases are denied, you have to question
the effectiveness of additional layers of gun regulation. We have
got to get serious about targeting and prosecuting the criminals and
addressing the drug trade that often precipitates violence.”
GO BACK TO TOP
June 2000
On April 26, seven firearm
manufacturers and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF)
filed a lawsuit in federal court against HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo,
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Connecticut Attorney
General Richard Blumenthal and government officials from 14
municipalities. The suit arises from the defendants’ stated intent
to give preferential consideration when awarding contracts to
purchase firearms for law enforcement agencies to those companies
that agree to anti-gun terms of a “code of conduct” established
by the government officials.
NSSF, Beretta U.S.A. Corp.,
Browning Arms, Inc., Colt’s Manufacturing Company, Inc., Glock,
Inc., SIG Arms, Inc., Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc., and Taurus
International Manufacturing, Inc. allege that Cuomo and the others
are involved in an illegal conspiracy in restraint of trade and are
in violation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The plaintiffs are asking the
court to permanently enjoin the defendants from any action to
establish regulations on the design, manufacture, advertising and
distribution of handguns beyond what has been established by
Congress.
HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo’s chief bodyguard several times while
on duty has forgotten his .38-caliber revolver, leaving it where
others could easily find it, HUD employees reportedly say.
In the most recent incident,
reports George Archibald in THE WASHINGTON TIMES, “Clarence Day, a
68-year-old retired Metropolitan Police officer and close confidant
of Mr. Cuomo, left the loaded pistol in the cafeteria of the
Department of Housing and Urban Development and tried to retaliate
against security officials who made a formal incident report, the
employees said.
“They said Mr. Day forgot his
gun, which he carries in a small handbag, on at least two other
occasions when he was traveling with the HUD secretary. The bag was
found by federal motor pool employees and returned to him without an
official incident report, the employees said.
“The incident and existence of a
formal report have embarrassed Mr. Cuomo, who has made a big issue
of gun safety and recently joined President Clinton in efforts to
restrict availability of firearms to the general public.
“On February 9, the gun was
found that day by another cafeteria patron and turned over to HUD’s
security office. The gun was found in a black canvas bag with the
official U.S. government eagle surrounded by the words, ‘U.S.
Department of State Diplomatic Service,’ the report said…
“Mr. Cuomo and his assistant
secretary for administrative services, Joseph Smith, personally
interviewed three security and building services employees in an
effort to pressure them to change it, an official said…
“Mr. Day ‘exploded’ after
the gun incident report was placed in official files as an ‘adversarial
report,’ one agency employee said. ‘He went ballistic. He
threatened retaliation.’”
In late April, “thanks to technology and detective work,”
reports THE NEW YORK TIMES, “an antique rifle fired at Custer’s
last stand shattered the record for a historical American firearm.
“The brass and wood Winchester
Model 66, one of only 15 guns forensically proved to have actually
been at General George A. Custer’s crushing defeat on June 25,
1876, sold to an anonymous buyer for $684,500 at James D. Julia,
Inc. in Fairfield, Maine. The price was more than double the
previous record and 100 times what similar Winchesters usually
garner.
Police in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania were on the lookout for two
men who got more than they bargained for when they tried to break
into two separate homes, reported WBRE-TV.
Charles Hill, 80, described the
rude awakening he received. “I saw them banging against the door
and I stepped over and hollered, ‘what do you think you are doing
out there – you know I have a gun in here.’”
When he heard the two men trying
to break in he grabbed his .22-caliber rifle and defended his home .
After they fled in a small
dark-colored car Hill didn’t stop. He said, “when they went up
the hill over there, I fired,” hoping to put telltale bullet holes
in the pair’s getaway car. But he was unsuccessful.
A short time later, state police
believe the same two men sized up another home about 10 miles away
near Cogan Station.
According to police, they broke in
and fought 75-year-old John Umstead. He managed to fight off the
attackers but not before suffering a blow to the head and a kick to
the ribs.
Hill said, “the cop asked me if
the gun was loaded, and I said you’re happy tootin’ it’s
loaded.” He locks his doors, but added, “if they get inside and
if I have a gun I won’t aim to kill, but I will aim to cripple.”
Hill said he had no regrets about
grabbing his rifle even before dialing 911. “I would do the same
thing again…I wouldn’t hesitate.”
GO BACK TO TOP
July 2000
Background checks blocked 204,000
of the more than 8.6 million prospective firearm sales last year,
according to a U.S. Justice Department report that shows state and
local police rejected a higher percentage of would-be gun buyers
than the FBI.
The 1999 figures brought the
number of purchases rejected since the Brady Act instituted
background checks in February, 1994 to 536,000 out of nearly 22.3
million applications, the department’s Bureau of Justice
Statistics reported last month. That confirmed earlier estimates of
more than 500,000 rejections, according to the Associated Press.
The FBI performed 4.5 million of
the 8.6 million background checks last year, compared with 4.1
million by state and local agencies. The rejection rate among state
and local agencies was three percent, compared with 1.8 percent for
the FBI.
The report attributed this
difference to state agencies’ access to more detailed criminal
history records than the FBI, including fugitive status, court
restraining orders, mental illness and domestic violence misdemeanor
convictions as well as felony convictions.
The overall national rejection
rate has remained 2.4 percent since 1994, despite the November 30,
1998 switch to computerized instant checks and the addition then of
checks on long gun purchasers. Only handgun buyers were checked
before that.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected the Justice Department’s
understanding of a law that imposes a mandatory 30-year sentence for
using a machine gun in connection with a crime of violence. The
department argued that the law simply provides an enhanced sentence,
which is to be imposed by the trial judge.
However, in an opinion by Justice
Stephen G. Breyer, the court found that in this 1988 law, Congress
intended to make the use of a machine gun not just a sentencing
factor, but a “separate substantive crime,” to be charged
separately and proven to a jury. The decision overturned a ruling by
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans.
The decision in the case, Castillo
v. United States, No. 99-658, vacated 30-year sentences given to
four members of the Branch Davidians, who were convicted of
voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of four federal agents in the
1993 raid on the group’s compound near Waco, Texas.
In Kentucky, police and sheriff’s departments early last month
were preparing thousands of firearms for an auction ordered by the
state Assembly, with the proceeds to be used for buying bulletproof
vests for law enforcement officers.
Under a state law taking effect on
the 15th of this month, the police agencies will have 90
days to turn over firearms they have seized or confiscated once they
no longer need the weapons as evidence. That, reports USA TODAY,
includes stolen firearms if the rightful owners cannot be found.
The guns then will be auctioned by
a state agency to Kentucky’s 1,800 licensed gun dealers. The money
raised will be used to buy the bulletproof vests.
Kentucky held a similar auction
last year, selling 202 guns seized by the state police and raising
$34,000. Louisville alone would turn over 1,500 guns. Lexington
would have 1,200, and Jefferson County, which surrounds Louisville,
would have 500.
In a recent Handgun Control, Inc. fundraising letter, HCI Chair
Sarah Brady states the group seeks to “eliminate the gun show
loophole,” secure passage of “a permanent waiting period” for
firearm purchases, and enact requirements to “license new gun
owners” and “register guns the way cars are registered.”
Brady states “our goal is to
hold all gun manufacturers liable for the damage that results from
negligent design and marketing of their deadly products…
“What’s more, we’re equally
determined to take the next step towards a safer gun by demanding
the careful regulation of guns by the Consumer Product Safety
Commission.”
GO BACK TO TOP
August 2000
In Washington, D. C., CCRKBA
announced its support of H.R. 4790, by Rep. Saxby Chambliss of
Georgia, to recognize the hunting heritage and to provide
opportunities for continued hunting on public lands.
Referred to the Committee on
Resources, co-sponsors include Reps. Randy Cunningham of California,
Mark Green of Wisconsin, James V. Hansen of Utah, Collin Peterson of
Minnesota, Charles “Chip” Pickering, Jr. of Mississippi, John R.
Thune of South Dakota, and Don Young of Alaska.
In California, the State Supreme Court on June 29 overturned a 1998
ruling by the California Third Appellate Court of Appeal that had
struck down certain provisions of the State’s Roberti-Roos Assault
Weapons Control Act.
According to the 1998 ruling, a
provision of the 1989 law that allowed the State’s Attorney
General, with a judge’s consent, to add guns to the list of banned
firearms was unconstitutional because it violated the separation of
powers between the State Legislature and the Judiciary. The 1998
Appellate Court ruling suggested that the law unconstitutionally “violates
equal protection” because the banned firearms are
indistinguishable from other guns not affected by the law.
The June 29 ruling, however, held
that the law did not improperly delegate legislative authority to
the courts, did not violate equal protection guarantees when it left
unaffected guns that are virtually identical to banned firearms, and
did not violate due process protections despite leaving unclear
which guns were banned.
Following the June 29 ruling,
attorneys questioning the law’s constitutionality indicated that
other lawsuits challenging the ban are being considered and that an
appeal of the ruling in question may be filed with the U.S. Supreme
Court.
In New York State, State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno agreed
with the Pataki Gubernatorial Administration and the State Assembly
to pass a modified version of Gov. Pataki’s gun control package on
a 39-20 vote. The package includes a ban on so-called “assault
weapons,” a requirement for retail firearm dealers to sell locking
devices with all new guns, a “ballistic fingerprinting” plan
that critics claim amounts to “backdoor registration,” NICS
checks on all sales at gun shows, and a new age requirement of 21
for eligibility to receive a handgun license, which is required for
simple possession under New York State law.
Later, New York State Attorney
General Eliot L. Spitzer sued the gun industry, making the Empire
State the first state to sue the firearms industry, claiming
manufacturers and wholesalers created “a condition of danger.”
The state is seeking changes in
the way manufacturers market and distribute guns, but its lawsuit
does not ask for monetary damages.
Among the manufacturers named in
the lawsuit are Glock, Beretta U.S.A., Colt’s Manufacturing,
Taurus, Ruger & Co., and Intratec.
In New York City, anti-gun Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced that his
city would become the 32nd municipality to file a
reckless lawsuit against members of the firearms industry. The suit
cites “deceptive marketing,” “irresponsible supervision of
sales,” and “design flaws” as the causes of gun deaths and
injuries. The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, a legal ally of
Handgun Control, Inc., signed onto Giuliani’s suit as co-counsel.
In reaction, U.S. Rep. Bob Barr of
Georgia, a CCRKBA Legislator of the Year Awardee who is author of a
bill, H.R. 1032, to eliminate these ridiculous lawsuits, stated in a
letter to Giuliani that “your claim that manufacturers should
somehow be held legally responsible because different states
regulate their products in different ways is absurd. As a former
United States Attorney, you are undoubtedly aware that making
manufacturers of legal, proper functioning products liable for the
unforeseen actions of criminals is an action completely unsupported
by any significant law or precedent. These lawsuits against gun
manufacturers represent a direct attack on the successful free
market system that your city embodies…Please show some respect for
the free enterprise system and the Constitution by dropping this
lawsuit.”
In Brasilia, Brazil, the national government June 20 decreed an
immediate ban on the sale of firearms.
The ban will remain in effect
until the end of this year, Justice Minister Jose Gregori announced
at a news conference. By then, the government hopes to have won
congressional approval of a more restrictive bill that would
virtually ban the possession of firearms by any Brazilian citizen
who is not a member of the armed forces, a police officer or an
employee of a private security company.
Freedom-loving Brazilian patriots
inform POINT BLANK that they, in the meantime, may attempt to
develop a gun lobby in Brazil drawn primarily from the millions of
Brazilians who now own guns in an attempt to thwart the government’s
politically correct gun-grabbing agenda.
Handgun Control, Inc. recently awarded President Bill Clinton, the
gun-grabber-in-chief, its “James and Sarah Brady Lifetime
Achievement Award.”
According to a survey conducted by America On Line after the Million
Mom March, which actually had far less than a million marchers, only
27.6 percent of the nearly 20,000 respondents indicated support for
positions taken by the March and its organizers.
When asked what Congress should do
to curb gun violence, 21.1 percent answered “require registration
and safety training,” and 6.5 percent answered “ban all guns,”
two March positions.
On the other hand, 61.3 percent
answered “enforce existing regulations,” 9.5 percent answered
“gun safety training in schools,” and 1.6 percent were not sure.
GO BACK TO TOP
September 2000
“Accidental deaths caused
by doctors and hospitals in America reached 120,000 per year,”
stated Rep. James A. Traficant, Jr. of Ohio in a July 26 speech on
the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. “Meanwhile,” he
continued, “gun deaths have dropped 35 percent. In fact,
accidental gun deaths dropped to 1,500 last year.
“Think about it. We have got
hospitals slicing and dicing American people like Freddie Kruger,
and Congress is passing more gun laws. Beam me up. There is
something wrong in America when one is 80 times more likely to be
killed by a doctor than Smith & Wesson. Maybe we need a gun in
surgery.
“I yield back the fact that the
Second Amendment was not written to cover just duck hunters.”
Pro-gun Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan sent an August 2 letter to
anti-gun U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno asking her “why the
Department of Justice is not doing more to prosecute” individuals
who violate federal law prohibiting them from obtaining firearms.
In June, the Bureau of Justice
Statistics reported on Federal Firearm Offenders and on Background
Checks for Firearm Transfers. According to these reports, the
National Instant Check System (NICS) identifies and denies convicted
murderers, rapists and other violent criminals who attempt to
purchase firearms from Federal Firearm License (FFL) holders. Such
an attempt by such individuals itself is a violation of federal law,
18 U.S.C. 922(a)(6). Less than one percent of those so rejected,
however, are prosecuted at the federal level.
“I want to know why,” said
Dingell, “when the law clearly states it is a federal felony to
falsify information on a firearm transfer application, the Justice
Department has chosen not to prosecute these offenders. In 1999, 86
percent of the people rejected by the National Instant Criminal
Background Check System (NICS) had lied on their application and are
thereby punishable by law, yet less than one percent were
prosecuted. NICS is one of the most effective tools we have to crack
down on gun criminals and prevent crime, but it only works if we use
it.”
In the letter, Dingell responded
to Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement that “the
Brady Law has stopped 536,000 felons, fugitives, domestic abusers
and other persons not legally allowed to have a gun from getting a
gun,” by noting that stopping the sale of a gun to a prohibited
person is only one factor of an effective strategy to reduce violent
criminal behavior. Prosecuting those felons, fugitives and domestic
abusers who attempt, by falsifying their application to purchase a
firearm, is equally important.
“In a pleasantly meandering conversation over lunch in San
Francisco last summer,” reports nationally syndicated columnist
George F. Will, “Condoleezza Rice, then still provost of Stanford
but already unofficially what she now is officially, George W. Bush’s
senior policy adviser, was asked her thoughts about gun control. ‘I
am,’ she answered crisply, ‘a Second Amendment absolutist.’
Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama in the early 1960s, when racial
tensions rose, there were, she said, occasions when the black
community had to exercise its right to bear arms in self-defense,
becoming, if you will, a well-regulated militia.”
In defying the publicly expressed will of certain Members of
Congress, the Clinton-Gore Administration said it will continue
paying local governments to buy back guns from private owners
despite orders from budget appropriators in the House of
Representatives to end the program.
In June, Rep. James Walsh of New
York, Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee which oversees the
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), along with Rep.
Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, the Ranking Member, and Rep. Tom
DeLay of Texas, the House Majority Whip, wrote HUD Secretary Andrew
Cuomo that funding the gun surrender program, known as “Buyback
America,” was not authorized by law, a position supported by the
General Accounting Office, a nonpartisan congressional research
agency.
Walsh stated that HUD is
misspending federal funds by diverting $15 million earmarked for a
program designed to fight drugs in public housing to pay for “Buyback
America.”
Walsh said that, “drug
elimination funds are for eliminating drugs…Gun buyback programs,
whether you agree or disagree with them, do not qualify under that
funding scheme.” He noted also he felt that, “gun buybacks are
sort of silly” because criminals are not going to turn in their
firearms for the HUD-suggested price of fifty dollars.
President Clinton, on the other
hand, stated that, “despite HUD’s clear authority to carry out
this important program, the gun lobby and other opponents of
common-sense gun safety measures continue to challenge this
initiative.”
Walsh denied he has been pressured
by the gun lobby on the issue. He said the Clinton-Gore
Administration “has found the gun lobby to be an excellent
whipping boy, but I have not consistently supported or opposed the
gun lobby. This is just an appropriator’s responsibility to make
sure that funds are spent appropriately.”
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October 2000
Handgun Control, Inc.
thinks its work can make gun control “one of the top three or four
issues” on which people base their vote in the November 7
elections, HCI’s communications director, Naomi Paiss, stated
recently in an article appearing in PR Week.
She reportedly stated also that
HCI’s communications strategy could be “radically different”
starting on November 8. The publication reported that “a Gore
victory, particularly with significant changes in Congress, would
embolden HCI to push for closing the loophole on gun sales and
perhaps further-reaching proposals. A Bush victory would push HCI to
‘fight ferociously to keep what we’ve got.’”
In California, Assemblyman Jack Scott, conceding that Gov. Gray
Davis would not support his gun control proposal this year, has
abandoned for now a state bill to require a safety test and a
license for handgun owners.
The state Senate already had
approved the bill, but Davis announced he would do nothing to
advance the bill in the Assembly.
“Based on conversations with the
governor’s office, I reluctantly have become convinced that my
best chance for seeing this bill become law is to pursue it next
year,” said Scott.
Last year, a number of severely
restrictive firearm bills were enacted into law in California. Scott’s
new bill would have required every Californian who buys a handgun to
pass a four-to-eight-hour safety class.
In Maryland, U.S. Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. is criticizing Project
Disarm, a program run by U.S. Attorney Lynne Battaglia, as less
effective in fighting crime than Project Exile, aimed at making
streets safer by prosecuting, under tough federal provisions,
virtually all felons caught carrying guns. Battaglia reportedly
riled some BATF officials last summer when she said federal
prosecutors, rather than BATF agents, could better determine which
cases to prosecute under Disarm, which supposedly is more selective
than Exile about taking felons with firearms to federal court.
In Virginia, gun control advocates James and Sarah Brady formally
endorsed the campaign of anti-gun U.S. Sen. Chuck Robb for
reelection. Robb, according to the Washington Post, “has been a
consistent supporter of gun control measures, having voted for the
Brady Bill, which requires background checks on handgun buyers; for
an extension of that law to cover Internet sales of guns; and for
the assault weapon ban.”
Robb’s opponent, former Governor
George Allen, in 1997 vetoed a bill that would have outlawed guns in
Fairfax County’s recreation centers. In 1995, he signed a law that
allows qualified Virginians to obtain permits to carry concealed
weapons.
About nine out of 10 high school students support such gun control
measures as criminal background checks and mandatory trigger locks,
according to a survey released in late August.
The same number of students said
they favored requiring a safety course and a license to purchase a
handgun. Ninety-six percent supported registering firearms when
purchased so they could be traced, if “necessary,” said Dennis
Gilbert, a sociology professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, New
York, who designed the survey with his students.
The polling firm Zogby
International conducted the nationwide telephone survey during three
days in June by calling 1,005 high school sophomores, juniors and
seniors.
The Alliance for Justice, an
anti-gun coalition of advocacy groups, released the study as part of
an anti-gun campaign. The poll, financed by the College’s Arthur
Levitt Public Affairs Center, had an error margin of plus or minus
three percentage points.
In Japan, which U.S. gun grabbers cite as an example of a country
with gun control laws which ought to be replicated here, violent
crime, including violent crime committed with guns, is on the rise,
reports The Washington Post.
Guns, reports the newspaper’s
Doug Struck from Tokyo, “play a major role in Japan’s rising
rate of violent crime.
“Although Japan has some of the
developed world’s most stringent gun restrictions, the number of
serious crimes committed with handguns here last year was the
highest since the National Police Agency began keeping statistics
more than a decade ago. And the rate of gun crimes in the first six
months of 2000 promises to exceed that record.
“‘I think the public believes
it is safe in Japan,’ said Koichi Sunada, head of a citizens’
anti-gun group in Tokyo. ‘But the situation is changing.’”
“A citizen can buy a hunting
rifle, but only after an exhaustive process that includes a lengthy
waiting period and a police investigation of the potential buyer’s
background. Gun owners overwhelmingly support the tough laws; the
Japanese are perplexed at American toleration of easy access to
weapons in the face of widespread violence.
“The yazuka are the exception.
Experts believe most of the estimated 80,000 underworld members have
weapons, and police have been unable or unwilling to dent that
figure.”
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November 2000
A retired Justice
Department prosecutor said BATF agents “have sought to intimidate
the author of a 1996 novel about a man fighting against corrupt ATF
agents,” reported writer James L. Pate recently in The Washington
Times.
“In a harshly worded letter to
Director Bradley Buckles,” wrote Pate, “lawyer James H. Jeffries
III said agents are attempting to ‘suppress’ the fictional
account.
“‘Because the book, Unintended
Consequences, is highly critical of the (BATF), it appears that some
in your agency have undertaken to suppress it and to intimidate its
author,’ wrote Mr. Jeffries, who worked almost 28 years as a
federal prosecutor before retiring to enter private practice
specializing in federal firearms law.
“‘It has long been clear, from
repeated court decisions and congressional committee reports, that
your agents have no familiarity with the Second, Fourth, Fifth and
Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution,’ Mr. Jeffries
stated in the three-page letter to Mr. Buckles. ‘Now it appears
that they have not even been introduced to the very first article of
the Bill of Rights.’
“John Ross, the author of
Unintended Consequences, says ATF agents have harassed vendors of
his book and have even tried to enlist his wife as an informant
against him.”
“Smith & Wesson Corp.’s gun-safety deal with federal
regulators appears to have misfired for the nation’s largest
handgun manufacturer,” reports Gary Fields in The Wall Street
Journal.
“The company’s chief executive
officer, Ed Shultz,” he continued, “signed a code-of-conduct
agreement with the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing
and Urban Development in March, promising to equip firearms with
trigger locks and accept an unusual level of government oversight
into the way the company does business.
“For the company, a unit of
Britain’s Tomkins PC, the agreement was supposed to allow it to
escape government lawsuits being filed against the industry, but
Smith & Wesson is still a defendant in all but one of the cases.
“Meanwhile, promises of
preferential treatment in government gun purchases – a reward for
the company’s commitment to gun safety – have been slow to
materialize. In fact, even though HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo is the
Clinton Administration’s point man on the matter, HUD’s
Inspector General’s Office recently bought guns from Smith &
Wesson rival Glock Inc.”
Gun grabbers in Washington, D. C. early last month announced the
initiation of a two-year effort at 300 colleges and universities
they said would bring new voices and ideas to the campaign for
tighter gun control around the nation.
Coordinating the events, reported
The New York Times, were the Alliance for Justice, a liberal group
that monitors judicial selections, and Physicians for Social
Responsibility, a doctors’ group that advocates stricter gun
control laws.
The Million Mom March, the
National Education Association and the American Bar Association were
among the co-sponsors.
A spokeswoman for the alliance,
reported the newspaper, said the campaign sought measures such as
mandatory gun owner licensing, safety locks and firearms
registration.
Nan Aron, President of the
Alliance for Justice, said that the group hoped to put a “human
face on the tragedy of gun violence.”
Attorney General Janet Reno
appeared at an event in Baltimore, Maryland. The television talk
show hostess Rosie O’Donnell and Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New
York participated in New York, and Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development Andrew M. Cuomo spoke in Washington.
The U. S. Supreme Court, in the case of Navegar v. United States,
No. 99-1874, rejected without comment a constitutional challenge to
the 1994 law that prohibits the manufacture, sale or possession of
certain semiautomatic firearms. The makers of several such firearms,
including the TEC-DC9 and TEC-22 semiautomatic handguns, challenged
the law on the ground that it exceeded the authority of Congress to
regulate interstate commerce.
The challenge, made by Navegar,
Inc. and Penn Arms, Inc., was rejected by the U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia, which called the law a
permissible “regulation of activities having a substantial effect
on interstate commerce.”
One judge on that court, David
Sentelle, issued a strong call for the case to be reheard because,
he said, the Supreme Court had ruled in a 1995 case striking down
the Gun-Free School Zones Act that possession of a gun did not have
enough connection with commerce to come within Congress’
regulatory power.
The Clinton-Gore Administration,
urging the justices to reject the appeal, said the ban was based on
evidence that “the nationwide market for firearms renders purely
local prohibitions ineffective” and was not invalidated by the
1995 decision in United States v. Lopez.
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December 2000
A tiny southern Utah town
has passed an ordinance that requires every household to own a gun
and ammunition so residents can protect themselves against
aggressors, reports The Associated Press.
Jay Lee, the Mayor of Virgin,
Utah, a town just north of the Arizona border, told KSL-TV that most
of the 350 residents already own firearms so there is a lot of
support for the initiative.
The town council passed the
ordinance after residents expressed fear that the individual Second
Amendment civil right to keep and bear arms itself was under fire.
The move, according to AP, has
some Utah residents perplexed.
“The state legislature hasn’t
addressed guns on any basis,” said Kim DeMille, of Utah’s Safe
to Learn. Safe to Worship Coalition, which is fighting to keep guns
out of schools and churches. “I don’t know why they should think
their Second Amendment rights are being taken away.”
Virgin residents who don’t
comply will not be punished, the Mayor said. He also said exceptions
will be made for the mentally ill, convicted felons, conscientious
objectors and people who can not afford to buy a gun.
Town leaders say they got the idea
from a city in the State of Georgia, Kennesaw, which passed a
similar law about a dozen years ago.
A U.S. Department of Justice review indicates that firearm-related
injuries in crimes have fallen 40 percent in the five-year period
ending in 1997, reports USA Today.
Data gathered from the FBI,
hospitals and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed
that gunshot wounds from any kind of crime dropped from 64,100 to
39,400 during the five-year period.
The data also showed that
firearm-related homicides declined by 27 percent, from 18,300 to
13,300. African-Americans represented a disproportionate number of
all gunshot victims – almost half – and four out of five victims
were male.
Black males ages 15-24 were
victims in 26 percent of all non-fatal gun incidents and 22 percent
of all gun-related homicides.
The Justice Department review,
written by researchers Marianne W. Zawitz and Kevin J. Strom, did
not account for the disproportionate number of black victims, but it
determined that “most victims of firearm injuries and deaths,
suicides and suicide attempts with firearms were white.”
According to the review, juveniles
were victims in 16 percent of all non-fatal gunshot wounds inflicted
during crimes. They were the victims in 10 percent of gun-related
murders.
In 44 percent of slayings, the
victims knew their killers. In 15 percent of the cases, the killer
was a stranger, and in 41 percent the relationship was not known.
After discovering that gun locks it has distributed can be opened
easily, the Knoxville, Tennessee Police Department is recalling some
300 of the devices, reports the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
Project HomeSafe, however, which
sent 400,000 of the cable locks to 650 law enforcement agencies
across the country, isn’t ready to issue a national recall.
A Knoxville police officer
fiddling with one of the cable locks found that it would spring open
when bounced against his hand. The officer alerted Police Chief Phil
Keith, who ordered a test of the devices, said Craig Griffith, city
spokesman.
A check of the 5,000 cable locks
Knoxville police were prepared to give away showed that ease of
opening was a common trait, authorities said.
“The individuals who received
these free gun locks should not assume that the locks will work
properly,” Chief Keith said.
When informed by Knoxville police
of the discovery, the Chattanooga, Tennessee Police Department
issued an alert for people to throw away the 4,500 gun locks it has
distributed, said Ed Buice, spokesman for Chattanooga police.
“My biggest concern was that
some child would get hurt because a parent had a false sense of
security with the device,” Mr. Buice said. “I wish we knew this
before we gave them out.”
Knoxville police began
distributing the devices as part of an overall so-called Safe
Streets Campaign that included buying back guns, paying people to
tell police about illegally possessed guns and increasing penalties
for gun-toting criminals.
According to preliminary results of a Voter News Service (VNS) exit
poll of 13,049 national voters in the November 7 presidential
election, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.1 percentage
points, 48 percent of all voters say there is a gun owner in their
household and 52 percent say there is not; 36 percent of all Gore
voters say there is and 59 percent say there is not; and 60 percent
of all Bush voters say there is and 38 percent say there is not. The
Associated Press and the ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC television
networks are members of VNS.
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