3/22/00
Who Says Guns Aren't Playthings?
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS JR.
If there was any doubt about it, it's now certain that President Clinton and the National Rifle Association won't be invited to each other's birthday parties. Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's front man, accused the president of favoring a "certain level of killing" so the Democrats can make hay of gun politics (nyah, nyah).
As to the substance of Mr. LaPierre's charges, the lack of Brady Law prosecutions reflects the reality that local prosecutors exercise their discretion not to throw the book at law-abiding citizens. The majority of people tripped up by background checks are undeserving of jail simply for failing to answer a question properly.
But Mr. LaPierre has a broader point that applies even to himself: Washington's sudden devotion to arguing about guns is more relevant to raising money and votes than to doing anything about violence.
With crime falling to 1950s levels, the symbolism of the gun nonetheless remains a wonderful way to exploit the fact that large numbers of Americans despise each other on cultural grounds. Gun owners are stereotypical yahoos to a lot of Democrats, and gun owners know it.
Meanwhile, the gun control folks are the left's anti-abortionists. Their ultimate goal of confiscation is a pipedream and would embroil the government in a completely unappetizing confrontation with its citizenry. Lesser steps -- an assault weapon ban here, a waiting period there -- stir up far more political passion than they're worth.
At the final, light-headed summit of irrelevance are restrictions on upstream manufacturers like those agreed to this week by Glock and Smith & Wesson.
Using threats of litigation to extort concessions is an offense against due process and a nasty way for politicians to behave. That said, the S&W concessions should dismay the true controllers more than anyone else. Rigmarole imposed on gun dealers won't keep guns out of the hands of dedicated criminals, but the smart-gun technology that S&W is pledged to develop threatens to overcome the single biggest source of resistance to guns in the home: Women.
The gun industry has reasoned for years that single moms, women living alone and women who work late should represent a market for self-defense guns. But as gun store owners will testify, their window shoppers are men whose wives and girlfriends won't let a gun in the house, sensibly fearing it would get into the hands of a child or intruder (though, statistically, more small children drown in mop buckets than die from gun accidents). Technology would fundamentally change this consideration by preventing a gun from being fired by an unauthorized user.
This will reinforce two trends that have transformed gun regulation over the past decade, though you wouldn't guess it from the vaporous fireworks in Washington.
Everything we know tells us that violence is committed by a relatively small number of people who see it as an all-purpose solution. In Florida, Texas, Virginia and 28 other states, legislatures have allowed ordinary citizens to qualify to carry a concealed weapon. While the size of the effect is disputed, the evidence strongly suggests that "confrontational" crimes have dropped as a direct result.
In a world of Columbine, Jonesboro and recurrent workplace massacres, this finding may rub uneasily with anecdotal experience. The media aren't adept at making sensations of crimes that don't happen or encounters with criminals that don't end up in fatal shootings. Yet most of the ways in which the nation's private gun supply interacts with the crime rate take this unheralded form.
Who buys laser accessories for handguns? These are said to have a powerful effect in motivating an intruder or potential assailant to turn tail. What exactly is the market for assault-weapon lookalikes? We are just beginning to take note, although perhaps $1 billion a year is spent on "self-defense," and it's the only part of the gun market not shrinking.
A few things the data don't quibble about: The issuance of more than a million permits has not led to any significant incidence of gun crimes by permit holders. Accidental gun deaths are at their lowest level since 1913. Crime is down. And gun sales have been on a downward drift for three decades.
Now consider a second landmark trend, the aggressive use of gun laws to disarm criminals.
Under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New York police have been using their expanded stop-and-frisk authority to target people who gave off signs of being likely members of the criminal sub-population. Whether they found a gun or made an arrest hardly was a crucial matter (though their success in a city of seven million people was not statistically negligible.) Word got around to professional predators that it was no longer safe to carry a weapon.
Even the NRA has endorsed gun control as a form of criminal control, constantly citing Richmond's crackdown on illegal guns in crime-filled neighborhoods. The last mile is taking pre-emptive measures against the psycho-shooters who are a puzzling manifestation in an unviolent age. As Colorado police psychologist John Nicoletti has suggested, we might begin by dispensing with the notion that some people "just snap." Psychopaths exhibit disturbed patterns of thinking and behavior long before the shooting begins. More killings might be aborted if people simply recognized these patterns.
Somewhere amidst this swirl lies an emerging consensus that disarming criminals is a better use of political capital than trying to disarm a large bloc of avid gun-owning voters.
With people like Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Andrew Cuomo, it is hard to know, and foolish to ask, what they really believe about guns and crime. Their business is winning elections, shaking down contributors and kicking back amid their fawning retinue in Martha's Vineyard. Republicans, especially the supposedly fire-breathing right wingers who are always asking what Jesus would have them do, get rolled every time.
Let us say this for Mayor Giuliani on the eve of his Senate run against Hillary Clinton. Whatever hypocrisies he committed in the rest of his career, he actually did something brave in taking on crime in New York. This was a novel and risky approach to political advancement, and one that seems in little danger of catching on right now. But beyond the next election, when the blitherers have gone back to their corners, maybe we can have an overdue discussion about what kinds of gun laws really work.
Who Says Guns Aren't Playthings?
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS JR.
If there was any doubt about it, it's now certain that President Clinton and the National Rifle Association won't be invited to each other's birthday parties. Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's front man, accused the president of favoring a "certain level of killing" so the Democrats can make hay of gun politics (nyah, nyah).
As to the substance of Mr. LaPierre's charges, the lack of Brady Law prosecutions reflects the reality that local prosecutors exercise their discretion not to throw the book at law-abiding citizens. The majority of people tripped up by background checks are undeserving of jail simply for failing to answer a question properly.
But Mr. LaPierre has a broader point that applies even to himself: Washington's sudden devotion to arguing about guns is more relevant to raising money and votes than to doing anything about violence.
With crime falling to 1950s levels, the symbolism of the gun nonetheless remains a wonderful way to exploit the fact that large numbers of Americans despise each other on cultural grounds. Gun owners are stereotypical yahoos to a lot of Democrats, and gun owners know it.
Meanwhile, the gun control folks are the left's anti-abortionists. Their ultimate goal of confiscation is a pipedream and would embroil the government in a completely unappetizing confrontation with its citizenry. Lesser steps -- an assault weapon ban here, a waiting period there -- stir up far more political passion than they're worth.
At the final, light-headed summit of irrelevance are restrictions on upstream manufacturers like those agreed to this week by Glock and Smith & Wesson.
Using threats of litigation to extort concessions is an offense against due process and a nasty way for politicians to behave. That said, the S&W concessions should dismay the true controllers more than anyone else. Rigmarole imposed on gun dealers won't keep guns out of the hands of dedicated criminals, but the smart-gun technology that S&W is pledged to develop threatens to overcome the single biggest source of resistance to guns in the home: Women.
The gun industry has reasoned for years that single moms, women living alone and women who work late should represent a market for self-defense guns. But as gun store owners will testify, their window shoppers are men whose wives and girlfriends won't let a gun in the house, sensibly fearing it would get into the hands of a child or intruder (though, statistically, more small children drown in mop buckets than die from gun accidents). Technology would fundamentally change this consideration by preventing a gun from being fired by an unauthorized user.
This will reinforce two trends that have transformed gun regulation over the past decade, though you wouldn't guess it from the vaporous fireworks in Washington.
Everything we know tells us that violence is committed by a relatively small number of people who see it as an all-purpose solution. In Florida, Texas, Virginia and 28 other states, legislatures have allowed ordinary citizens to qualify to carry a concealed weapon. While the size of the effect is disputed, the evidence strongly suggests that "confrontational" crimes have dropped as a direct result.
In a world of Columbine, Jonesboro and recurrent workplace massacres, this finding may rub uneasily with anecdotal experience. The media aren't adept at making sensations of crimes that don't happen or encounters with criminals that don't end up in fatal shootings. Yet most of the ways in which the nation's private gun supply interacts with the crime rate take this unheralded form.
Who buys laser accessories for handguns? These are said to have a powerful effect in motivating an intruder or potential assailant to turn tail. What exactly is the market for assault-weapon lookalikes? We are just beginning to take note, although perhaps $1 billion a year is spent on "self-defense," and it's the only part of the gun market not shrinking.
A few things the data don't quibble about: The issuance of more than a million permits has not led to any significant incidence of gun crimes by permit holders. Accidental gun deaths are at their lowest level since 1913. Crime is down. And gun sales have been on a downward drift for three decades.
Now consider a second landmark trend, the aggressive use of gun laws to disarm criminals.
Under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New York police have been using their expanded stop-and-frisk authority to target people who gave off signs of being likely members of the criminal sub-population. Whether they found a gun or made an arrest hardly was a crucial matter (though their success in a city of seven million people was not statistically negligible.) Word got around to professional predators that it was no longer safe to carry a weapon.
Even the NRA has endorsed gun control as a form of criminal control, constantly citing Richmond's crackdown on illegal guns in crime-filled neighborhoods. The last mile is taking pre-emptive measures against the psycho-shooters who are a puzzling manifestation in an unviolent age. As Colorado police psychologist John Nicoletti has suggested, we might begin by dispensing with the notion that some people "just snap." Psychopaths exhibit disturbed patterns of thinking and behavior long before the shooting begins. More killings might be aborted if people simply recognized these patterns.
Somewhere amidst this swirl lies an emerging consensus that disarming criminals is a better use of political capital than trying to disarm a large bloc of avid gun-owning voters.
With people like Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Andrew Cuomo, it is hard to know, and foolish to ask, what they really believe about guns and crime. Their business is winning elections, shaking down contributors and kicking back amid their fawning retinue in Martha's Vineyard. Republicans, especially the supposedly fire-breathing right wingers who are always asking what Jesus would have them do, get rolled every time.
Let us say this for Mayor Giuliani on the eve of his Senate run against Hillary Clinton. Whatever hypocrisies he committed in the rest of his career, he actually did something brave in taking on crime in New York. This was a novel and risky approach to political advancement, and one that seems in little danger of catching on right now. But beyond the next election, when the blitherers have gone back to their corners, maybe we can have an overdue discussion about what kinds of gun laws really work.
I only wish more could be written like this and the word spread like wildfire and gospel. Hope more of these media paper pushers sit up and take notice,Someone in their ranks can actually tell it like it is and speak the Truth 