OpEd piece (or is it POS?) in the Naples Daily News. Note the closing sentence.
http://www.naplesnews.com/00/07/perspective/d466244a.htm
Dan Thomasson: The NRA vs. the feds
Tuesday, July 18, 2000
By DAN K. THOMASSON, Scripps Howard News Service
WASHINGTON — When considering the National Rifle Association's glib contention that there are sufficient laws now to control guns and all that is needed is diligent enforcement of them, two statistics should be kept in mind.
First, most of the weapons used today in the commission of crimes were legally obtained through huge NRA-backed loopholes in those laws. And second, the job of investigating and arresting gun violators is the most dangerous in federal service and has been made more so by constant attacks from those who cry the loudest about the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Since 1900, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has lost 182 agents in the line of duty. The deaths among the bureau's agents are more than triple the number of those killed in the FBI, 50, and more than twice as many as the next highest federal service, the Border Patrol, which has lost 87 officers.
Actually, the ATF is eighth among all state, local and federal law-enforcement organizations in the number of those killed on the job, ranking only behind major metropolitan police forces like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
There are several explanations for the disparity between the ATF and other federal agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration, 46; U.S. Marshals, and U.S. Customs, both with 69, and the Secret Service, 26. Not the least of these, of course, is the nature of the criminal ATF agents deal with daily. They are explosives or gun violators, arsonists and drug dealers and motorcycle gangs or, in the early part of the century, well- armed bootleggers.
But there is a reason that the NRA and other pro-gun factions don't like to mention. For 30 years the gun lobby has spent millions of dollars in political contributions to thwart firearms control. It has waged an anti-ATF campaign in Congress to paint ATF agents as Nazis only interested in violating the constitutional rights of Americans. Its loudmouth lead spokesman and chief paid executive, Wayne LaPierre, labeled ATF agents, "Jack Booted Thugs," a phrase that even NRA President Charlton Heston admitted recently was a terrible mistake.
Through its almost constant efforts, the NRA has succeeded in keeping the number of ATF agents below 2,000. It has stopped the computerization of gun records and held down audits of licensed dealers to one a year. It managed to reduce the failure to keep adequate records of gun sales from a felony to a misdemeanor and it has been directly responsible for preventing the ATF from establishing a system of registration.
All this and the open disparagement of agents already facing the worst kind of criminal — those who are armed — has increased their vulnerability and helped drive up the number of agents killed on the job.
It is so easy to buy a firearm in this nation that there is no real black market for them and the ability of federal agents to control them is not only difficult it is nearly impossible. The use of clean "straw buyers" and gun shows and legitimate weapons trading keeps the flow of firearms to actual and potential criminals unimpeded. To be sure, there has been a reluctance of U.S. attorneys to prosecute gun violations, but that is changing.
In most jurisdictions in this country, one can buy as many weapons a month as he wants, enough to start a war, and the NRA consistently opposes limiting gun sales to one or two a month as impinging on a cherished American constitutional freedom.
The NRA loves to throw around statistics about the number of lives saved by those able to protect themselves and about the decline in crime in areas where average citizens are allowed to carry concealed weapons. But it conveniently overlooks the number of law officers killed by guns while trying to prevent that crime. During the last century, 7,000 policemen were shot to death, accounting for about 49 percent of all law-enforcement fatalities.
The Clinton administration finally has called for upping the number of ATF agents by close to 1,000 — hardly a lot, considering there seems to be a direct correlation between the number of police officers killed and the number of those on duty. An average 222 policemen were killed each year during the 1970s when the nation had 315,000 officers. By the 1990s when the police numbers had increased to 740,000, the yearly average was only 155 deaths.
Let's see if the NRA backs the ATF increases or once again is just paying lip service to the need for more enforcement.
Dan Thomasson is former editor of Scripps Howard News Service.
Copyright © 2000 Naples Daily News.
-- 30 --
The opinion editor is at:
jflytle@naplesnews.com
Letters to the Editor:
letters@naplesnews.com
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
http://www.naplesnews.com/00/07/perspective/d466244a.htm
Dan Thomasson: The NRA vs. the feds
Tuesday, July 18, 2000
By DAN K. THOMASSON, Scripps Howard News Service
WASHINGTON — When considering the National Rifle Association's glib contention that there are sufficient laws now to control guns and all that is needed is diligent enforcement of them, two statistics should be kept in mind.
First, most of the weapons used today in the commission of crimes were legally obtained through huge NRA-backed loopholes in those laws. And second, the job of investigating and arresting gun violators is the most dangerous in federal service and has been made more so by constant attacks from those who cry the loudest about the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Since 1900, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has lost 182 agents in the line of duty. The deaths among the bureau's agents are more than triple the number of those killed in the FBI, 50, and more than twice as many as the next highest federal service, the Border Patrol, which has lost 87 officers.
Actually, the ATF is eighth among all state, local and federal law-enforcement organizations in the number of those killed on the job, ranking only behind major metropolitan police forces like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
There are several explanations for the disparity between the ATF and other federal agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration, 46; U.S. Marshals, and U.S. Customs, both with 69, and the Secret Service, 26. Not the least of these, of course, is the nature of the criminal ATF agents deal with daily. They are explosives or gun violators, arsonists and drug dealers and motorcycle gangs or, in the early part of the century, well- armed bootleggers.
But there is a reason that the NRA and other pro-gun factions don't like to mention. For 30 years the gun lobby has spent millions of dollars in political contributions to thwart firearms control. It has waged an anti-ATF campaign in Congress to paint ATF agents as Nazis only interested in violating the constitutional rights of Americans. Its loudmouth lead spokesman and chief paid executive, Wayne LaPierre, labeled ATF agents, "Jack Booted Thugs," a phrase that even NRA President Charlton Heston admitted recently was a terrible mistake.
Through its almost constant efforts, the NRA has succeeded in keeping the number of ATF agents below 2,000. It has stopped the computerization of gun records and held down audits of licensed dealers to one a year. It managed to reduce the failure to keep adequate records of gun sales from a felony to a misdemeanor and it has been directly responsible for preventing the ATF from establishing a system of registration.
All this and the open disparagement of agents already facing the worst kind of criminal — those who are armed — has increased their vulnerability and helped drive up the number of agents killed on the job.
It is so easy to buy a firearm in this nation that there is no real black market for them and the ability of federal agents to control them is not only difficult it is nearly impossible. The use of clean "straw buyers" and gun shows and legitimate weapons trading keeps the flow of firearms to actual and potential criminals unimpeded. To be sure, there has been a reluctance of U.S. attorneys to prosecute gun violations, but that is changing.
In most jurisdictions in this country, one can buy as many weapons a month as he wants, enough to start a war, and the NRA consistently opposes limiting gun sales to one or two a month as impinging on a cherished American constitutional freedom.
The NRA loves to throw around statistics about the number of lives saved by those able to protect themselves and about the decline in crime in areas where average citizens are allowed to carry concealed weapons. But it conveniently overlooks the number of law officers killed by guns while trying to prevent that crime. During the last century, 7,000 policemen were shot to death, accounting for about 49 percent of all law-enforcement fatalities.
The Clinton administration finally has called for upping the number of ATF agents by close to 1,000 — hardly a lot, considering there seems to be a direct correlation between the number of police officers killed and the number of those on duty. An average 222 policemen were killed each year during the 1970s when the nation had 315,000 officers. By the 1990s when the police numbers had increased to 740,000, the yearly average was only 155 deaths.
Let's see if the NRA backs the ATF increases or once again is just paying lip service to the need for more enforcement.
Dan Thomasson is former editor of Scripps Howard News Service.
Copyright © 2000 Naples Daily News.
-- 30 --
The opinion editor is at:
jflytle@naplesnews.com
Letters to the Editor:
letters@naplesnews.com
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
