Meet the Boogeyman

Recently, I got hold of a fundraising letter that Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) sent out on behalf of a new group calling itself the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR). To give you a perspective on their ideology, NAGR Executive Director Dudley Brown calls the Brady Law (which requires federally licensed firearm dealers to conduct background checks on gun purchasers) “dangerous” and “extreme” in a video on their homepage.

But I digress... Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

Dear Concerned American,

The great pay-back has begun, and it's going to be ugly. The gun grabbers in Congress are paying back the anti-gun extremists who put them and Barack Obama in office.

Hi, this is Congressman Paul Broun from Georgia. I wish I had better news, but you and I are facing an assault on our gun rights like we've never seen before. You see, H.R. 45 is Barack Obama's gun control package, and it includes the most vile anti-gun measures he's supported over the years. It's only the first step...but it's a HUGE step. H.R. 45 establishes a NATIONAL gun registry database of every gun and its owner—for the whole county! Your private information and every gun you own would be in the system. But that's only if you succeed in buying a gun in the first place! And since H.R. 45 dramatically increases requirements for firearms purchases far beyond those ever proposed, you just might find yourself incapable of buying a firearm once this bill takes effect.

And it gets worse too. The National Association for Gun Rights has a survey ready for you to complete, but I want you to understand just how dangerous this bill is before I give you the link. Please bear with me for a moment. You see, H.R. 45 would establish a national gun registry database which would:

* Increase requirements for firearms purchases, far beyond those ever proposed.

* Create a national firearms registry overseen by the Federal Government.

* Invoke Draconian penalties for bookkeeping errors related to the Federal Firearms Database.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that gun registration has historically laid the groundwork for total firearm confiscation. Citizen disarmament is the watchword of tyrants everywhere. In fact, the most brutal dictators of the last century were famous for their gun registration and confiscation schemes. But H.R. 45, Obama's National Gun Registry and Citizen Disarmament Act, is more than just a forced registration of all firearms in America. The bill also makes it increasingly difficult to buy a gun in the first place.

It is certainly appropriate for this letter to hit mailboxes as Halloween approaches. Because here-in are three of the gun lobby’s biggest Boogeymen—Barack Obama, gun control and gun bans—all in one neat, scary package!

Never mind that the letter describes H.R. 45 as “Barack Obama’s gun control package,” even though it was introduced in the House of Representatives on January 6, 2009, two weeks before the president was even inaugurated...

Never mind that H.R. 45 has no co-sponsors and has received no hearing in a House committee—meaning you’re more likely to see a pig fly than this bill passing Congress...

Never mind that H.R. 45, “Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009,” is named after a young man who died heroically while shielding a young lady from gunfire on a Chicago bus; and fully supported by his surviving parents…...

Never mind that overwhelming majorities of Americans support licensing gun owners and registering firearms (79% and 77%, respectively)...

Never mind that virtually every other modern democracy licenses gun owners and registers firearms, and none of those reforms have led to “brutal dictators” or outright gun bans (although they have led to astronomically lower gun death rates than we have here in the U.S.)...

Never mind that a tougher screening process for gun purchasers might be a good idea in a country that routinely arms individuals who are clearly a threat to themselves and others…

I think you get the idea... While it is entertaining to see the lengths to which some groups will go to scare donors into sending cash, it is also an important reminder to all of us to check the facts whenever we receive alarming claims in fundraising appeals. It turns out that line between fantasy and reality isn’t so fine after all...

Does it Apply?

Last year, the Supreme Court overturned a handgun ban here in the federal enclave of Washington and ruled that the Second Amendment protects individual gun ownership (the justices did leave room for firearms regulation, saying government could prohibit guns in "sensitive places" and forbid ownership by certain dangerous people, such as felons). But the court did not say whether the Second Amendment also applies to the states.

Last Thursday, an 11-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals grappled with this specific question. The case, Nordyke v. King, involves a dispute over a firearms ban at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in California. Some members of the divided panel argued that the Second Amendment "right to keep and bear arms" is binding on states. Others argued that the Supreme Court has never overturned its earlier rulings that said the Second Amendment applies only to the federal government. One judge suggested the court uphold the ordinance as a valid public safety measure while side-stepping the constitutional argument.

Sayre Weaver, attorney for Alameda County, presented the argument that the earlier Supreme Court decisions that set precedents on the scope of the Second Amendment remain binding and can be overturned only by the high court. The 9th Circuit issued an order after the argument that they are holding the Nordyke case pending disposition by the Supreme Court of another case, National Rifle Association v. Chicago, where the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Second Amendment is not incorporated at the state level.

The Supreme Court’s decision on whether to accept the Chicago case for consideration will be a key one and have a significant effect on gun-related litigation across the country.

Sound the Battle Cry of Radicalism

At my age I probably should not be—but constantly am—amazed at the things some in the pro-gun lobby will say in order to get a mention in the news. In a desperate attempt to fire-up the faithful, groups like Gun Owners of America (GOA) have accused Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor of being “an anti-gun radical” for joining a Court of Appeals for the 2^nd Circuit opinion earlier this year that refused to incorporate the U.S. Supreme Court’s D.C. v. Heller decision on the Second Amendment at the state level.

In their shrill statement, the group charged that “Sotomayor, a politically correct lover of centralized government power (as long as she is part of the power elite), immediately went into counter-attack mode against the Heller decision” in the opinion mentioned above in the case of Maloney v. Cuomo.

As if to emphasize how detached from reality that rant was, this past week a panel of conservative judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7^th Circuit, hearing a challenge to gun laws in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois, came to the same conclusion as the Sotomayor panel. “We agree with Maloney” read the unanimous decision written by the circuit’s Chief Judge, Frank K. Easterbrook, one of the country’s leading conservative jurists. “The Supreme Court has rebuffed requests to apply the Second Amendment to the states,” Easterbrook wrote. He was joined in the decision by the well-known conservative jurist Richard A. Posner and a third Republican-appointed judge.

Now, I have no idea of how Judge Sotomayor actually feels about the gun rights/responsibility debate. I truly wish that I did. However, I do know that the gun lobby has no more information than I do. That does not prevent them, however, from making outlandish and defaming statements to play to the media and attempt to raise more funds from the faithful. Nor does it bode well for an honest debate on the issues. Once again, the gun lobby adheres to the admonition to not let the salt of truth ruin the flavor of a good press quote.

School Daze

News this past weekend of a school shooting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, served to remind me of a couple of misconceptions about the nature of gun violence in our nation’s school systems.

As I travel around the country, I often hear people say that our nation’s schools are inherently dangerous because of gun violence. The truth is that our schools are far safer than the world outside. The most recent data from the Department of Justice (DOJ) shows that youth are over 50 times more likely to be murdered—and over 150 times more likely to commit suicide—when they are away from school than at school. Another DOJ study found that 93% of violent crimes that victimize college students occur off campus.

Secondly, I hear the belief expressed that school gun violence is confined to schools in large inner cities. The sheer lunacy of this line of argument always makes me think of the Columbine High School shooting, which took place in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. Two white students from this suburban school killed 15 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before killing themselves.

This past year there have been major school shootings in Blacksburg, Virginia; Opelousas, Louisiana; Willoughby, Ohio; Phoenix , Arizona; Boca Raton, Florida; Omaha, Nebraska; Mobile, Alabama; and DeKalb, Illinois. A more complete listing of school shootings by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence illustrates the fact that the problem is not confined to major urban areas.

Despite that fact that our schools are some of the safest places in the country, we must continue to endeavor to keep them that way and improve existing security procedures. We must also be wary of a hard push by the gun lobby to put concealed handguns in our children’s classrooms. This disturbing development threatens to put our kids at greater risk and take the focus off the real problem—the incredibly easy access that children and the mentally unbalanced have to guns in our society.