Month: October 2007

There’s an article by Jennifer Collins of Concurring Opinions describing why she thinks tossing out the gun ban might have a tremendous impact on crime-fighting The District:

I think it’s worth acknowledging the primary functions of the law as it’s used by prosecutors in DC: the gun ban is both a preventive detention statute and an intelligence-gathering tool. At one time when I was a prosecutor, we were prohibited from extending a plea offer in gun cases unless the defendant agreed to come into the office (with his attorney, of course) and be “debriefed” about his knowledge of criminal activity in the city. The statute was also a mechanism for locking up individuals perceived as violent, but against whom other cases could not be brought for whatever reason. It’s pretty simple to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an individual was in possession of a gun without a license and a lot tougher to prove that he committed a violent crime.

I have issues with this method just from a civil liberties standpoint.  The question should not be, as a society, what makes life easier for prosecutors and the police.  After all, it would make life for prosecutors easier to allow door to door searches of homes in bad neighborhood for drugs and guns, but we would, quite properly, find that unconstitutional and reprehensible.  This law is also guaranteed to disproportionately affect the law abiding.  If I were to be caught transporting a firearm through DC (DC claims FOPA doesn’t apply to them, stupidly enough), I have nothing to offer a prosecutor in terms of information or a deal, so they will just charge me with the weapons violation.  Robb is correct to point out:

I want the government to catch and prosecute criminals. What I fear is that Uncle Sam keeps broadening the definition of criminal to make it impossible to not be one.

I think government has an obligation not to cast such a large net that they catch the good people along with the bad.

But as Dave Hardy points out:

Those seem rather doubtful objectives for a law of this type… but even so, could have been met with almost any other form of law, even permissive CCW licensing. Odds are that persons suspected of ongoing violence already have a criminal record that would disqualify them, or at the very least, wouldn’t care for the attention that would follow filing an application.

I agree with Dave, and I think Ms. Collins overestimates the impact this will have on crime fighting.  How often are people being caught in their homes with a firearm rather than being pulled off the streets with a concealed firearm?  How often are people who are caught not already persons who are prohibited from possessing firearms?  Before assessing how large the impact would be, one would have to know these things.

Here’s what I get for being behind.   I got the same e-mail that SayUncle and Joe Huffman got, but I was busy all weekend and didn’t get a chance to post it:

Based on concerns raised by NRA, the House Appropriations Committee report on the Commerce/Justice/Science appropriations bill (H.R. 3093) includes the following language: 

“The committee has heard reports that [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] has pursued license revocations and denials against firearms dealers based on violations that consist largely of recordkeeping errors of various types that are unlikely to impede tracing investigations or prosecution of individuals who use firearms in crime.  The Committee encourages ATF to consider lesser gradation of sanctions for recordkeeping errors.”

This is a continuation of NRA’s longstanding efforts to reform the BATFE, and to ensure that any penalties administered by BATFE against FFLs appropriately fit the transgression and that BATFE does not abuse its authority.  Last spring, NRA-ILA secured passage in the U.S. House of H.R. 5092 (http://www.nraila.org//News/Read/NewsReleases.aspx?ID=8224), a bill that included many reforms to the process by which BATFE punishes violations of federal law and regulations (more information on bill here: http://www.nraila.org//Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=205). These reforms would have provided a fairer process for FFLs accused of violations.  Passage of the bill followed on the heels of House hearings (also prompted by NRA’s efforts) on BATFE abuses with respect to FFL enforcement and gun show operations. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to consider the bill before adjourning for the year. 

Others in the pro-gun grassroots community have reported on this issue, including Ryan Horsley of Red’s Trading Post, and numerous other bloggers.  Working together, it is our hope that we can continue our mutual efforts to reform BATFE once and for all to reduce and eliminate unjust harassment of legitimate gun dealers.

It’s a good start.  It’ll be very very difficult to get any meaningful reform out of this Congress.  While they might be scared into inaction by the NRA, the anti-gun leaders in Congress aren’t going to bend over backwards to kiss our asses either.  At the very least, the ATF bureaucracy knows that Congress may be less than happy with some of their activities.  But they also know they probably don’t have much to fear from the people running Congress.  While I am not at all happy with the Republican Party being a bunch of corrupt and incompetent boobs, I’ll take incompetence over Hillary and Pelosi any day of the week.