All gun control can't be local (Barfer)

Members of Congress are so cowed by the power of the National Rifle Association that they can't hear a cry from US cities: "Please, help us get handguns off our streets." Congress has even tried to block cities from taking action against gunmakers.

The latest skirmish between Washington and the cities came last Thursday in a New York City courthouse. A federal judge ruled that the city can have access to gun-tracing information gathered by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Such information is critical in a lawsuit brought by New York City against gun manufacturers in its effort to control handguns.

The civil suit aims to hold gunmakers responsible for creating a public nuisance in how they sell their lethal wares. The data, such as the serial numbers, purchase records, and caliber of firearms, may help show that gunmakers and distributors can determine which of their dealers sell the guns used in crimes, and thus can be held culpable.

Such suits, which sprang up in the 1990s, have struck fear among gun manufacturers. The gunmakers decided to use the NRA's clout and pushed Congress in 2004 to pass a law that forbids the release to the public of federal data on gun tracing. When a judge said such data could be released in private suits, Congress acted again last year to prevent the data from being used in any suit. But the latest ruling further challenges the NRA and Congress.

NRA-controlled US lawmakers are so afraid of suits against the gun industry that they've even tried to tell all courts to dismiss them.

The city's suit is just one action being taken by New York. Last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg hosted a meeting of 15 city mayors in a show of support against Washington's campaign to squelch the fight against guns. The National Summit on Illegal Guns called for Congress to roll back its recent anti-gun-control laws and help cities in such efforts as targeting those few gun dealers who regularly sell guns to criminals. (Five out of 6 guns used in a crime are obtained illegally.) Despite tough laws against guns in many cities and states, lax federal rules do not prevent the sale of handguns across state lines. The mayors hope to enlist other cities later this year in a national campaign for federal action.

"If the leadership won't come from Congress or from the White House, it will have to come from us," said Mayor Bloomberg at the mayors conference.

The mayors are not alone. More than 80 percent of police chiefs want tougher measures, such as mandatory trigger locks on new handguns, according to a recent survey.

With some 30,000 Americans killed each year by guns, Congress cannot just cower before the NRA and hinder efforts by cities to combat the sale of guns to criminals. City officials are the ones who almost daily deal with such shooting, and the results of such violence on city life. When they gather on this issue and plead for help, silence cannot be the answer.

Let the ATF join the cities in using key data on firearms to nab unscrupulous dealers and gun-toting criminals.

NRA 2006 Firearms Fact Card

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

The right to keep and bear arms is derived from and inseparably linked to the right of self-defense. Thus, by nature it is an individually possessed right, as are all rights protected in our Constitution.

The Founding Fathers, the Framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and those whom the Supreme Court (U.S. v. Miller, 1939) referred to as “approved commentators” could not have been more clear about the nature of the right and the purpose of the Second Amendment.

Thomas Jefferson said, “No free man shall be debarred the use of arms.” Patrick Henry said, “The great object is, that every man be armed.” Richard Henry Lee wrote, “To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms.” Thomas Paine noted, “[A]rms . . . discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.”

Prominent Federalist Tench Coxe asked, “Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves?. . . Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American. . . . [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”

In introducing the Bill of Rights in the House of Representatives, James Madison noted that the amendments “relate first to private rights.” Sen. William Grayson observed that they “altogether respected personal liberty.” Tench Coxe wrote, “[T]he people are confirmed by the next article [of amendment] in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”

Constitutional scholars have noted that there is no historical basis for the claim that the Second Amendment only protects a so-called “collective right” of the states to arm militias. Author, attorney and constitutional expert Stephen P. Halbrook sums it up succinctly, writing: “If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the eighteenth century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis.” (That Every Man Be Armed, Univ. of N.M. Press, 1984)

Historian Joyce Lee Malcolm, testifying before Congress in 1995, told Rep. John Conyers, “It is very hard, sir, to find a historian who now believes it is only a ‘collective right.’ [T]here is a general consensus that in fact it is an individual right.”

The Supreme Court recognized that the right to arms is an individual right in U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876), Presser v. Illinois (1886), Miller v. Texas (1894), U.S. v. Miller (1939) and U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990). In U.S. v. Cruikshank, the nation’s highest court also recognized that the right preexisted the Constitution.

In U.S. v. Emerson (2001) the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, and that this right is subject only to “limited, narrowly tailored specific exceptions” that “are not inconsistent with the right of Americans generally to individually keep and bear their private arms as historically understood in this country. . . . All of the evidence indicates that the Second Amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans.” Other federal court decisions have been divided on the nature of the right.

During the Bush Administration, the Attorney General and the Department of Justice have recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is an individually-held right. (www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm).

The National Guard, established in 1903, is not the militia referred to in the Second Amendment. For more than 400 years, the term “well regulated militia” has meant the people, with privately owned weapons, led by officers chosen by themselves. Tench Coxe said that the militia “are in fact the effective part of the people at large.” Richard Henry Lee said that the militia “are in fact the people themselves.” George Mason said that the militia consist “of the whole people.”

The Guard is subject to absolute federal control (Perpich v. Dept. of Defense, 1990) and thus is not the “well regulated militia” referred to in the Second Amendment. “The Militia of the United States” is defined under federal law to include all able-bodied males of age and some other males and females (10 U.S.C., §311; 32 U.S.C., §313), with the Guard established as only its “organized” element.

CURRENT ISSUES

Repeal D.C.’s gun ban. NRA-backed legislation in Congress would repeal Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban, gun registration requirement, and unconscionable law that effectively prohibits people from using guns to defend themselves in their homes.
Fortifying the right to self-defense. Starting with Florida in 2005, legislatures around the nation are considering laws which expand the right to self-defense from criminal attack by removing the “duty to retreat” when citizens are anywhere they have legal right to be. Under the new laws, if a criminal breaks into your home or occupied vehicle, you may presume that he is there to do bodily harm and use any force, including deadly force, to protect yourself from attack.
The new “Castle Doctrine” laws also prohibit criminals and their families from suing victims for injuring or killing the criminals who have attacked them. In short, the “Castle Doctrine” laws gives rights back to law-abiding people and forces judges and prosecutors to focus on protecting victims.
Workers protection laws and the right to transport firearms. In recent years some employers have adopted far reaching policies that ban the possession of a firearm by employees on company property, including inside locked cars located in company parking lots. In order to protect the rights of employees to transport firearms for self-protection and respect their right to privacy, NRA is supporting passage of laws that would prohibit employers from banning firearms that are being transported in privately owned vehicles.
The federal “assault weapon” law, imposed on Sept. 13, 1994, expired on Sept. 13, 2004.
The BATFE has rejected the Brady Campaign’s claim that the “assault weapon” ban reduced crime. Studies for the National Academy of Sciences (2005), National Institute of Justice (2004), and the Congressional Research Service (2004) noted that reports from state and local law enforcement agencies show that the guns were used in only about 1% of violent crimes. The CRS report also rejected the anti-gun Violence Policy Center’s claim about the use of the guns against police officers. The congressionally-mandated study of the ban (1997) found, “the banned weapons and magazines were never used in more than a fraction of all gun murders.” A follow-up study (2003) found that criminals rarely fire more than 10 rounds, that wounds involving pistols are less likely to be fatal than those involving revolvers, and that the average number of wounds in pistol crimes is lower than with revolvers.
Legislation has been introduced in Congress and some state legislatures to ban millions more guns as “assault weapons,” including all semi-automatic shotguns, detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifles, and even pump-action rifles and shotguns used by American hunters for more than a century.
“Gun show” legislation would not only impose background checks on private gun sales at shows. It would register anyone attending a show and affect many sales of guns that do not occur at shows. Dealer sales of guns, whether at stores or shows, are already subject to the federal background check. Federal studies find that less than 1% of criminals obtain guns at shows. The goal of such legislation is to move toward prohibiting private gun sales altogether, as has occurred in California.
Registration and licensing led to confiscation in Germany, England, Australia, Mexico, California, New Jersey, and New York City. Gun owners in San Francisco, where a handgun ban was recently passed, face the use of registration lists to collect their firearms. Library of Congress and Centers for Disease Control studies found that there is no evidence that registration and licensing reduce crime.
To pave the way for registration in the U.S., anti-gun groups call for a ballistic “fingerprinting” law to require every new handgun to be test fired, and the markings left on bullets and/or cartridge cases entered into a database. Such a system was put in place in Maryland at the cost of millions of dollars, but, after its ineffectiveness was proven, the Maryland State Police Forensic Sciences Division called for scrapping it.
“Smart” gun legislation is intended to reduce handgun purchases by increasing handgun prices, by requiring that handguns be made with “personalized” locking mechanisms that are not necessarily reliable or desired by gun owners.
“Mandatory storage” laws, requiring gun owners to install gun locks on all guns, could prevent the use of guns for self-defense. Gun accidents have decreased, but because of training, not gadgetry or regulation.
Firearm traces. A trace is a procedure by which BATFE tracks a firearm from manufacturer or importer, down the chain of commerce to the last known owner. A trace can assist law enforcement authorities in identifying an individual involved in illegal gun trafficking. However, the Congressional Research Service has repeatedly warned against using tracing data to support calls for “gun control.” Among the numerous limitations of the tracing system, most guns used to commit violent crimes are never traced, and most guns that are traced have not been used to commit violent crimes.

SELF-DEFENSE & RIGHT-TO-CARRY (RTC)

Anti-gun groups openly oppose the use of firearms for protection and claim that self-defense is not a right under the Constitution. The federal and 44 state constitutions, and the laws of every state, recognize the right to arms for defensive purposes.

Survey research by award-winning criminologist Gary Kleck found as many as 2.5 million protective uses of guns each year in the U.S. “[T]he best available evidence indicates that guns were used about three to five times as often for defensive purposes as for criminal purposes,” Kleck concluded. Analyzing National Crime Victimization Survey data, he found, “robbery and assault victims who used a gun to resist were less likely to be attacked or to suffer an injury than those who used any other methods of self-protection or those who did not resist at all.” In most defensive gun uses, the gun is not fired. In only 1% of instances are criminals wounded, and in only 0.1% are criminals killed.

A Dept. of Justice survey (1986) found that 40% of felons chose not to commit at least some crimes for fear their victims were armed; 34% admitted having been scared off or shot at by armed victims. Forty states now have RTC laws providing for law-abiding citizens to carry guns for protection. Twenty-nine states have adopted RTC laws since 1987. Two-thirds of Americans live in RTC states. Only Wisconsin and Illinois flatly refuse to recognize the right of law-abiding citizens to carry firearms for self-protection against criminal attack.

John R. Lott, Jr., and David B. Mustard, in the most comprehensive study to date of RTC laws, concluded, “When state concealed-handgun laws went into effect in a county, murders fell about 8%, rapes fell by 5%, and aggravated assaults fell by 7%.” (1998)

RTC states have lower violent crime rates on average: 21% lower total violent crime, 28% lower murder, 43% lower robbery, and 13% lower aggravated assault. People who carry legally are by far more law-abiding than the rest of the public.

"GUN CONTROL" DOESN`T REDUCE CRIME

Studies for Congress, the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Congressional Research Service, the Library of Congress, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found no evidence that “gun control” reduces crime.

A 1983 study for the DOJ concluded, “there are about 20,000 firearms laws of one sort or another already on the books.” However, a NAS study in 2005, conducted by a panel of academics organized during the anti-gun Clinton administration and including prominent “gun control” advocates, could not identify a single restriction that reduced crime, suicides, or accidents.

For the CDC (2003), an independent Task Force studied a wide variety of gun control laws, but “found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence.” A Library of Congress study (1998) concluded, “it is difficult to find a correlation between the existence of strict firearms regulations and a lower incidence of gun-related crimes.”

Following the federal Gun Control Act (1968), violent crime increased until 1991. Washington, D.C., banned handguns in 1976, and by 1991 its murder rate tripled while the U.S. rate rose only 12%. Despite having some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, Maryland`s robbery rate remains the highest among the states, and Baltimore`s murder rate is similar to D.C.`s.

States that delay gun sales with waiting periods, licensing and purchase permits have historically had higher crime rates. For many years after California imposed a 15-day waiting period in 1975 (reduced to 10 days in 1997), its violent crime rate was 50% higher each year, on average, compared to the rest of the country. States that prohibit or severely restrict carrying guns have higher crime rates, on average.

“Gun control” advocates claim that the federal Brady Act and former “assault weapon” law reduced crime. However, both laws were imposed in 1994, three years after violent crime began declining, and studies (noted above) have found no evidence that either affected crime levels. A study by anti-gun researchers, published in the anti-gun Journal of the American Medical Association (2000), found the Brady Act ineffective.

Most criminologists, sociologists and law enforcement professionals, including the FBI, attribute the decrease in crime to factors unrelated to “gun control,” such as increased imprisonment rates, mandatory sentencing requirements, the hiring of additional police officers, improved policing methods and equipment, the aging of gang populations, the decline in the crack cocaine trade, and the improved economy during the 1990s. Notably, only about one-fourth of violent crimes are committed with guns. (FBI)

MORE GUNS, LESS “GUN CONTROL,” LESS CRIME

The number of privately owned guns in the U.S. is at an all-time high (upwards of 200 million) and rises about 4.5 million annually. The number of gun owners is also at an all-time high. Almost half of all households in America have guns.

During the last decade, many “gun control” laws have been eliminated or made less restrictive. Forty states now have RTC laws. The federal waiting period on handgun sales ended in 1998, in favor of the National Instant Check, and some states thereafter eliminated waiting periods, purchase permit requirements, or other laws delaying gun sales. The federal “assault weapon” ban expired in 2004.

All states now have hunter protection laws, 46 have range protection laws, 46 prohibit local jurisdictions from imposing gun laws more restrictive than state law, and 44 protect the right to arms in their constitutions. Congress and 33 states have prohibited frivolous lawsuits against the firearm industry.

Since 1991, violent crime has declined every year, 39% overall, to a 30-year low. Murder has decreased 44%; rape, 24%; robbery, 50%; and aggravated assault, 33%. RTC states have lower violent crime rates on average: (total violent crime is lower by 21%, murder by 28%, robbery by 43%, and aggravated assault by 13%).

ENFORCE THE LAWS AGAINST CRIMINALS

Violent crime began decreasing in the 1990s, as states increased prison sentences for violent criminals.

In 2001 the Bush administration created the Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) program, which targeted criminals who use firearms, by allocating federal law-enforcement resources to enforce federal gun laws.

PSN resulted in a 68% increase in federal gun crime prosecutions, a 62% increase in the number of defendants charged with those crimes, and increases in sentences for those convicted. In 2003, 93% of defendants were sentenced to some prison time, and 72% were sentenced to more than three years.

FIREARM SAFETY

Because focus group research showed that the public reacts unfavorably to the term “gun control,” anti-gun groups now refer to gun bans, registration, waiting periods and other restrictions as “gun safety.”

True gun safety depends on education and personal responsibility, not government regulation. NRA’s 62,000 Certified Instructors and Law Enforcement Instructors reach 800,000 Americans each year. NRA’s award-winning Eddie Eagle GunSafe® Program has been used by more than 24,000 schools, law enforcement agencies and civic groups to reach more than 18 million children since 1988.

Accidental deaths with guns have been decreasing for decades. Since 1930, the annual number of such accidents has decreased 76%, while the U.S. population has more than doubled and the number of privately owned guns has quintupled. Among children, fatal gun accidents have decreased 89% since 1975. (National Center for Health Statistics and National Safety Council)

The per capita rate of accidental deaths with guns is at an all-time low, having decreased 91% since the all-time high in 1904. Gun accidents account for only 0.7% of accidental deaths. Most accidental deaths involve motor vehicles or are due to drowning, falls, fires, poisoning, medical mistakes, choking on ingested objects and environmental factors.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Privately owned firearms in the U.S.: Well over 200 million, including upwards of 65-70 million handguns. The number rises by approximately 4.5 million annually. (BATFE)
Gun owners in the U.S.: 65-80 million; 30-35 million own handguns
American households that have firearms: Approx. 45%
Hunters nationwide: 18.5 million (National Shooting Sports Foundation)
NRA State Associations and Local Clubs: 10,000
NRA Target Shooting Tournaments annually: 10,000
NRA Certified Instructors and Law Enforcement Instructors: 62,000

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