Guns R’ US?

 

It’s hard to explain why the right to own and use a semiautomatic assault firearm or to carry a concealed gun are a basic American right. I’ve tried to explain this reality to foreign friends, but I don’t believe there is a justification. To make matters worse, for over two centuries, there was never an assumption that the Second Amendment carried with it a universal right to gun ownership. It took a distorted Supreme Court view of the wording of that amendment, ignoring that “well regulated militia” phrase and citing an interpretation of British law in the 18th century (as justification and context) that was simply wrong, to change that. Heller vs DC, 2008.

The only earlier legal reality that was deeply pro-guns was the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA, a notorious federal statute that in effect barred civil lawsuits against gun manufacturers for the ‘criminal or unlawful misuse’ of their products. I have written about the gun-death reality, how only one in 35 civilian gun homicides is “justifiable,” and how bullets used in assault weapons are vastly more damaging that ordinary bullets. For example, see my Bullets for God and Country, But Not for Hunting? blog (June 19th).

As gunmakers have purposely targeted inappropriate buyers – such as engraving guns with notorious Latin American bandits – or selling weapons that they knew or should have known would find their way to people who should not have them, a few courts have held that these gun-sellers stepped out of the PLCAA protective umbrella. But most legal experts believe those anti-gun rulings will be overirturned. Mexico is also a plaintiff against these gunmakers, claiming demand for many weapons knowing targeted the criminal element, especially cartels, that are/were decimating the entire country.

The recently passed band aid of requiring more background checks and identifying buyers who violate red flag restrictions (folks with domestic abuse, criminal records, a history of mental illness, etc.) is a step… a tiny, inch-long step… that will make almost no difference in the rate of mass shootings or even simple one-on-one gun homicides. Add this light touch law to the PLCAA and you have what many Republicans needed from “do something” constituency demands… without really doing much at all. NRA rules! Until the volume of guns is significantly reduced, especially military grade assault weapons, expect more carnage. Every jurisdiction that has reduced or limited gun ownership has shown a marked reduction in gun violence.

Even where background checks and red flag restrictions have been in place, too many obvious miscreants easily slip under the radar. The information is not centralized enough, it takes too much time to do a thorough search, and those charged with the investigation are woefully understaffed. While the new bill will help a bit with some of those issues, expect very little improvement from past realities. “There were over 1 million opportunities for someone to buy a gun from a licensed dealer without a completed background check in 2020 and 2021, according to an FBI report released last month.

“In all, 1,002,274 background checks — or 4.2 percent — took longer than three business days in 2020 and 2021, a higher share than any other period since at least 2014, according to data compiled by NBC News. After the third business day, federal law allows dealers to sell weapons while the background check is still pending, which potentially puts weapons in the hands of people who can’t legally own a gun because of mental illness or their criminal history… The FBI ultimately completed about one-fourth of those delayed background checks and discovered that 11,564 people were able to buy guns in 2020 and 2021 before the check showed that they should not have been allowed to do so, according to the FBI report. Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives then had to retrieve the weapons.

“But that number only accounts for a fraction of the delayed background checks. The FBI never completed 734,604 checks from January 2020 through November 2021, the most recent data available, because they took longer than 88 days — after which the bureau must stop its research and purge the unfinished checks from its system… Some dealers choose not to sell weapons without a completed check, and many states also have more stringent requirements.

“Still, it’s impossible to know how many people who bought guns after an unfinished background check would have been denied had it been completed… ‘Every gun sold without a completed background check poses a potential risk,’ said Rob Wilcox, federal legal director for the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety. ‘And these staggering numbers show that we have a serious problem.’” NBC News, July 8th. Even with a documented history of violence, Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III (the self-confessed 4th of July mass shooter), slid past background checks to purchase his assault rifle and a few other firearms… legally!

The recent shooting of three in Denmark drew US gun-zealots to use that as an example of why Danish gun control does not work. Yet that was an anomaly; within days, US criminal gun homicides exceeded the total of all gun deaths in Denmark since 2015. In Japan, where guns are almost completely banned, the assassin of former PM Shinzo Abe used the only gun he could find: one awkward weapon he made himself.

Los Angeles Times OpEd columnist Michael Hiltzik, July 7th, suggests mandatory gun insurance for all gun owners could be a start: “Only one such law has been passed thus far — by the city of San Jose, which was the scene of a mass shooting at a regional rail yard in May 2021 in which 10 people died, including the shooter. It enacted an insurance mandate in February.

“Even before the city ordinance was passed, it came under attack from gun rights advocates; their lawsuit seeking to invalidate the ordinance is currently before U.S. Judge Beth Labson Freeman of San Jose. The ordinance requires all gun owners to carry liability insurance ‘specifically covering losses or damages resulting from any accidental use of the Firearm, including but not limited to death, injury or property damage.’ The ordinance also imposes an annual fee expected to be about $25 on gun owners to fund a municipal program for ‘gun harm reduction.’…

“A measure requiring liability coverage of at least $1 million has been introduced in New York state…These measures have several goals. The most obvious is to provide that gun owners, rather than victims of shootings or the public, bear the costs of gun violence. Another is in effect to outsource the regulation of gun safety to the private market, and to do so in ways that are immune from constitutional challenges.” The specifics of such policies are still in the formative stages. Whatever happens will probably be less than remotely effective. After all, we live in a nation where those who oppose abortion on “right to life” grounds are usually the first to support the continued proliferation of guns… more guns than the total population of the United States.

I’m Peter Dekom, and until Americans begin to love their children more than firearms, expect the carnage to continue unabated.