-Caveat Lector- http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa109.html Gun Licensinq Although opinion polls indicate that most Americans favor some form of gun licensing (for the same reasons they approve of auto licensing), 69 percent of Americans oppose laws giving the police power to decide who may or may not own a firearm.[142] That is exactly what licensing is. Permits tend to be granted not to those who are most at risk but to those with whom the police get along. In St. Louis, for example, permits have routinely been denied to homosexuals, nonvoters, and wives who lack their husbands' permission.[143] Other police departments have denied permits on the basis of race, sex, and political affiliation, or by determining that hunting or target shooting is not an adequate reason for owning a handgun. Class discrimination pervades the process. New York City taxi drivers, who are more at risk of robbery than anyone else in the city, are denied gun permits, since they carry less than $2,000 in cash. (Of course, most taxi drivers carry weapons anyway, and only rookie police officers arrest them for doing so.) As the courts have ruled, ordinary citizens and storeowners in the city may not receive so-called carry permits because they have no greater need for protection than anyone else in the city.[144] Carry permits are apparently reserved for New Yorkers such as the Rockefellers, John Lindsay, the publisher of the New York Times, (all of them gun control advocates), and the husband of Dr. Joyce Brothers.[145] Other licensees include an aide to a city councilman widely regarded as corrupt, several major slumlords, a Teamsters Union boss who is a defendant in a major racketeering suit, and a restaurateur identified with organized crime and alleged to control important segments of the hauling industry--hardly proof that licensing restricts gun ownership to upstanding citizens.[146] The licensing process can be more than a minor imposition on the purchaser of a gun. In Illinois the automated licensing system takes 60 days to authorize a clearance.[147] Although New Jersey law requires that the authorities act on gun license applications within 30 days, delays of 90 days are routine; some applications are delayed for years, for no valid reason.[148] Licensing fees may be raised so high as to keep guns out of the hands of the poor. Until recently Dade County, Florida, which includes Miami, charged $500 for a license; nearby Monroe County charged $2,000.[149] These excessive fees on a means of self- defense are the equivalent of a poll tax. Or licensing may simply turn into prohibition. Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary, Indiana, ordered his police department never to give anyone license application forms.[150] The police department in New York City has refused to issue legally required licenses, even when commanded by courts to do so. The department has also refused to even hand out blank application forms.[151] In addition to police abuse of licensing discretion, there is also the problem of the massive data collection that would result from a comprehensive licensing scheme. For example, New York City asks a pistol permit applicant: Have you ever . . . Been discharged from any employment? Been subpoenaed to, or attended [!] a hearing or inquiry conducted by any executive, legislative, or judicial body? Been denied appointment in a civil service system, Federal, State, Local? Had any license or permit issued to you by any City, State, or Federal Agency? Applicants for a business premises gun permit in New York City must also supply personal income-tax returns, daily bank deposit slips, and bank statements. Photocopies are not accep- table. A grocer in the South Bronx may wonder what the size ofhis bank deposits has to do with his right to protection. The same arguments that lead one to reject a national identity card apply to federal gun licensing. A national licensing system would require the collection of dossiers on half the households in the United States (or a quarter, for handgun- only record-keeping). Implementing national gun licensing would make introduction of a national identity card more likely. Assuming that a large proportion of American families would become accustomed to the government collecting extensive data about them, they would probably not oppose making everyone else go through the same procedures for a national identity card. Finally, licensing is not going to stop determined criminals. The most thorough study of the weapons behavior of felony prisoners (the Wright-Rossi project funded by the National Institute of Justice) found that five-sixths of the felons did not buy their handguns from a retail outlet anyway. (Many of the rest used a legal, surrogate buyer, such as a girlfriend.)[152] As noted above, felons have little trouble buying stolen guns on the streets. In sum, it remains to be proven that gun licensing would significantly reduce crime. Given the very clear civil liberties problems with licensing, it cannot be said that the benefits outweigh the costs. Waiting Periods In the 1960s and 1970s bills to implement federal gun registration and licensing were soundly defeated in Congress, never to resurface as politically viable proposals. The broadest federal gun legislation currently under consideration is a national waiting period for gun purchases. Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) has introduced legislation to require a national seven-day waiting period for handgun transfers, which would be permitted only after police officials had an opportunity to check an applicant's background. Because the bill applies to all gun transfers, it would even compel a wife to get police permission before receiving a handgun as a gift from her husband.[153] However, statistical evidence shows no correlation between waiting periods and homicide rates.[154] The image of a mur- derously enraged person leaving home, driving to a gun store, finding one open after 10 p.m. (when most crimes of passion occur), buying a weapon, and driving home to kill is a little silly.[155] Of course, a licensing system is bound to deny some purchasers an opportunity to buy, but only the most naive rejected purchaser would fail to eventually find a way to acquire an illegal weapon. In addition, waiting periods can be subterfuges for more restrictive measures. Former Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson proposed a six-month waiting period--a long time to wait for a woman who is in immediate danger of attack from her ex-boyfriend. Senator Metzenbaum's bill would give the police de facto licens- ing powers, even in states that have explicitly considered and rejected a police-run licensing system. Mandatory Sentencing Those who want to make simple gun possession a crime frequently call for a mandatory prison sentence for unlawful possession of a gun. The National Handgun Information Center demands a one-year mandatory minimum sentence for possession of a handgun during "any crime" (apparently including drunk driving or possession of a controlled substance). Detroit recently enacted a 30-day mandatory sentence for carrying an unlicensed gun.[156] None of those proposals is a step toward crime control. Massachusetts's Bartley-Fox law, with a mandatory one-year sentence for carrying an unlicensed gun, has apparently reduced the casual carrying of firearms but has not significantly affected the gun use patterns of determined criminals.[157] Of the Massachusetts law, a Department of Justice study concluded that "the effect may be to penalize some less serious offenders, while the punishment for more serious offenses is postponed, reduced, or avoided altogether."[158] New York enacted a similar law and saw handgun homicides rise by 25 percent and handgun robberies 56 percent during the law's first full year.[159] The effects of laws that impose mandatory sentences are sometimes brutally unfair. In New Mexico, for example, one judge resigned after being forced to send to prison a man with a clean record who had brandished a gun during a traffic dispute.[160] One of the early test cases under the Massachusetts Bartley-Fox law was the successful prosecution of a young man who had inadvertently allowed his gun license to expire. To raise money to buy his high school class ring, he was driving to a pawn shop to sell his gun. Stopping the man for a traffic violation, a policeman noticed the gun. The teenager spent the mandatory year in jail with no parole.[161] Another Massachusetts case involved a man who had started carrying a gun after a co-worker began threatening to murder him.[162] The Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts had opposed Bartley-Fox precisely because of the risk that innocent people would be sent to jail.[163] The call for mandatory jail terms for unlicensed carrying is in part an admission by the gun control advocates that judges reject their values and instead base sentences on community norms. A Department of Justice survey of how citizens regard various crimes found that carrying an illegal gun ranked in between indecent exposure and cheating on taxes--hardly the stuff of a mandatory year in jail.[164] The current judicial/community attitude is appropriate. In a world where first-time muggers often receive probation, it is morally outrageous to imprison for one year everyone who carries a firearm for self-defense. As a general matter of criminal justice, mandatory sentences are inappropriate. One of the most serious problems with any kind of mandatory sentencing program is that its proponents are rarely willing to fund the concomitant increase in prison space. It is very easy for legislators to appear tough on crime by passing draconian sentencing laws. It is much more difficult for them to raise taxes and build the prison space necessary to give those laws effect. Instead of more paper laws, a more effective crime-reduction strategy would be to build enough prisons to keep hard-core violent criminals off the streets for longer periods. If there are to be mandatory sentences for gun crimes, the mandatory term should apply only to use of a firearm in a violent crime Handgun Bans A total ban on the private possession of handguns is the ultimate goal of a Washington lobby called the National Coalition to Ban Handguns. Unlike some other gun control measures, a ban lacks popular support; only one-sixth to one-third of the citizenry favors such a measure.[165] Handgun-ban proponents sometimes maintain that handguns have no utility except to kill people. The statement is patently wrong and typical of how little the prohibitionists understand the activities they condemn. Although self-defense is the leading reason for handgun purchases, about one-sixth of handgun owners bought their gun primarily for target shooting, and one- seventh bought the gun primarily as part of a gun collection. In addition, hunters frequently carry handguns as a sidearms to use against snakes or to hunt game.[166] Cost-benefit analysis hardly offers a persuasive case for a ban. One recent study indicates that handguns are used in roughly 645,000 self-defense actions each year--a rate of once every 48 seconds. (As noted above, most defensive uses simply involving brandishing the gun.) The number of self-defense uses is at least equal to, and probably more than, the number of times handguns are used in a crime.[167] Most homicides (between 50 and 84 percent) occur in circumstances where a long gun could easily be substituted.[168] Besides, sawing off a shotgun and secreting it under a coat is simple. Many modern submachine guns are only 11 to 13 inches long, and an M-1 carbine can be modified to become completely concealable.[169] Since long guns are so much deadlier than handguns, an effective handgun ban would result in at least some criminals switching to sawed-off shotguns and rifles, perhaps increasing fatalities from gun crimes. In the Wright and Rossi prisoner survey, 75 percent of "handgun predators" said they would switch to sawed-off shoulder weapons if handguns were unavailable.[170] If families had to give up handguns and replaced them with long guns, fatalities from gun accidents certainly would in- crease. Since handguns have replaced long guns as a home defense weapon over the last 50 years, the firearm accident fatality rate has declined.[171] The overwhelming majority of accidental gun deaths are from long guns.[172] Handguns are also much better suited for self-defense, especially in the home, than are long guns, which are more difficult to use in a confined setting. Rifle bullets are apt to penetrate their intended target and keep on going through a wall, injuring someone in an adjacent apartment. Further, the powerful recoil of long guns makes them difficult for women, frail people, or the elderly to shoot accurately. Lastly, a robber or assailant has a much better chance of eventual recovery if he is shot with a handgun rather than a long gun. Banning Saturday Niqht Specials If a Saturday night special is defined as any handgun with a barrel length less than 3 inches, a caliber of .32 or less, and a retail cost of under $100, there are roughly six million such guns in the United States. Each year, between 1 and 6 percent of them are employed in violent gun crimes, a far higher percentage of criminal misuse than for other guns.[173] Although opinion polls find the majority of Americans in favor of banning Saturday night specials, the practical case for banning these weapons is not compelling.[174] Criminals do prefer easily concealable weapons; roughly 75 percent of all crime handguns seized or held by the police have barrel lengths of 3 inches or less.[175] At least for serious felons, though, low price is a very secondary factor in choice of firearm. Experienced felons prefer powerful guns to cheap ones. The Wright and Rossi survey, which focused on hardened criminals, found that only 15 percent had used a Saturday night special as their last gun used in a crime.[176] It should not be surpris- ing that serious criminals prefer guns as powerful as those carried by their most important adversaries, the police. It is often said that a Saturday night special is "the kind of gun that has only one purpose: to kill people."[177] Again, this is untrue. Such guns are commonly used as hunting sidearms, referred to as "trail guns" or "pack guns." One does not need long-range accuracy to kill a snake, and lightness and compact- ness are important. Nor can all hunters afford $200 for a quality sidearm.[178] More importantly, inexpensive handguns are used for self-defense by the poor. There is no question that laws against Saturday night specials are leveled at blacks. The first such law came in 1870 when Tennessee attempted to disarm freedmen by prohibiting the sale of all but "Army and Navy" handguns. Ex-confederate soldiers already had their military handguns, but ex-slaves could not afford high-quality weapons.[179] The situation today is not very different. As the federal district court in Washington, D.C., has noted, laws aimed at Saturday night specials have the effect of selectively disarming minorities, who, because of their poverty, must live in crime- ridden areas.[180] Little wonder that the Congress on Racial Equality filed an amicus curiae brief in a 1985 suit challenging the Maryland Court of Appeals' virtual ban on low-caliber handguns. As the Wright and Rossi National Institute of Justice study concluded: The people most likely to be deterred from acquiring a handgun by exceptionally high prices or by the nonavailability of certain kinds of handguns are not felons intent on arming themselves for criminal purposes (who can, if all else fails, steal the hand- gun they want), but rather poor people who have decided they need a gun to protect them- selves against the felons but who find that the cheapest gun in the market costs more than they can afford to pay.[1811 Indeed, one wonders what a ban on these low-caliber guns would accomplish. Criminals who use them could easily take up higher-powered guns. Some criminals might switch to knives, but severe knife wounds are just as deadly (and almost as easy to inflict at close range, where most robberies occur).[182] If a ban on Saturday night specials failed to reduce crime, is it likely that its proponents would admit defeat and repeal the law? Or would they conclude that a ban on all handguns was what was really needed? Once criminals started substituting sawed-off shotguns, would the new argument be that long guns too must be banned?[183] That is the point that gun control in Great Britain is approaching, after beginning with a seemingly innocuous registration system for handguns. Bard DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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