http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2361320
Concerns about gun stores misguided
By DOUG PIKE
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
A Washington-based non-profit group called Americans for Gun Safety claims to take the middle ground on gun ownership. I question its neutrality.
As a hunter, target-shooter and gun owner, I've been courted in the past by groups that claimed common-sense positions on firearms. These champions of "responsible use" recruit membership and money from both sides but typically lean hard to one side.
At its Web site, AGS says it is "bringing a new voice to the debate over guns and gun safety, which for too long has been dominated by the far left and far right. Through legislative measures and public outreach, AGS supports the rights of law-abiding gun owners and promotes reasonable and effective proposals for fighting gun crime and keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and children."
Those are fine avenues to explore, but I'm unsure who is at the wheel (calls to AGS were not returned).
A 31-page report (Selling Crime, High Crime Gun Stores Fuel Criminals) issued recently by AGS and reported in Saturday's Chronicle shakes an accusing finger at 120 U.S. gun dealers who sold at least 200 firearms traced to some sort of criminal activity from 1996-2000. (The most recent statistics.)
Note that "traced to crime" doesn't necessarily mean "traced to violent crime." If I report a gun stolen, the store that sold me the gun years ago gets a mark next to its name. If a law enforcement agency runs a routine check on a firearm and turns up nothing, that check may generate a mark against the original seller.
The AGS report opens: "A small number of the nation's 80,000 gun dealers are flooding America's streets with crime guns -- yet Washington rarely investigates, shuts down or prosecutes most of these high-crime dealers."
Flooding the streets with crime guns? A firearm sold in accordance with current federal guidelines is not a "crime gun." Driving under the influence of alcohol is illegal, but I have yet to hear the new automobiles on a dealer's lot described as "crime cars."
Actually, several dealers on AGS' bad-guy list have been cited for violations after random inspection by agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The clear majority of those citations, however, 52 of 67 issued to the seven most-cited dealers as tracked from January 2000-May 2003, were for record-keeping mistakes. Not for peddling assault rifles to terrorists or dealing Saturday-night specials to street thugs, but for clerical goofs.
Firearms sellers should be held to high administrative standards, but linking typographical errors and back-door gun running is a stretch.
I concede that some of the dealers on AGS' list appear shady and warrant closer, more frequent inspection, but I disagree with the foundation's inference that each of those sellers is somehow directly responsible for violent gun crimes. Many of the named dealers merely are high-volume retailers caught in a statistical web that makes them victims of their own success.
Consider that a busy gun store often sells more than 10,000 firearms annually, and a few shops on AGS' list move twice that volume of hardware. Multiply that by 10, 15 or 20 years in business and throw in a system that is quick now to trace a gun's history. Even the AGS recognizes that booming business might have landed honest dealers on its "high crime gun store" roster, which includes a California dealer who had 1,000-plus guns stolen during Los Angeles riots.
AGS wonders why the ATF so rarely "shuts down or prosecutes ... high-crime dealers." Maybe that is because even the most-cited dealer on the list had just 13 ATF violations from 2000-2003 against 483 crime-gun traces from 1996-2000. The shop that had 2,294 crime-gun traces, second highest of all, received only one ATF citation through the same time windows.
The anti-gun movement's efforts to blame firearms makers for gun violence has failed in the courts. Since they could not defeat gun manufacturers and lack the strength to tackle gun owners, the logical targets are small companies and individuals who sell guns.
AGS claims to be the Switzerland of gun politics, but its report waves a different flag.
Criminal use of guns is rampant, but we never will rebuild our nation's damaged framework until we quit blaming the hammers and the hardware stores for bad carpenters.
Concerns about gun stores misguided
By DOUG PIKE
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
A Washington-based non-profit group called Americans for Gun Safety claims to take the middle ground on gun ownership. I question its neutrality.
As a hunter, target-shooter and gun owner, I've been courted in the past by groups that claimed common-sense positions on firearms. These champions of "responsible use" recruit membership and money from both sides but typically lean hard to one side.
At its Web site, AGS says it is "bringing a new voice to the debate over guns and gun safety, which for too long has been dominated by the far left and far right. Through legislative measures and public outreach, AGS supports the rights of law-abiding gun owners and promotes reasonable and effective proposals for fighting gun crime and keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and children."
Those are fine avenues to explore, but I'm unsure who is at the wheel (calls to AGS were not returned).
A 31-page report (Selling Crime, High Crime Gun Stores Fuel Criminals) issued recently by AGS and reported in Saturday's Chronicle shakes an accusing finger at 120 U.S. gun dealers who sold at least 200 firearms traced to some sort of criminal activity from 1996-2000. (The most recent statistics.)
Note that "traced to crime" doesn't necessarily mean "traced to violent crime." If I report a gun stolen, the store that sold me the gun years ago gets a mark next to its name. If a law enforcement agency runs a routine check on a firearm and turns up nothing, that check may generate a mark against the original seller.
The AGS report opens: "A small number of the nation's 80,000 gun dealers are flooding America's streets with crime guns -- yet Washington rarely investigates, shuts down or prosecutes most of these high-crime dealers."
Flooding the streets with crime guns? A firearm sold in accordance with current federal guidelines is not a "crime gun." Driving under the influence of alcohol is illegal, but I have yet to hear the new automobiles on a dealer's lot described as "crime cars."
Actually, several dealers on AGS' bad-guy list have been cited for violations after random inspection by agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The clear majority of those citations, however, 52 of 67 issued to the seven most-cited dealers as tracked from January 2000-May 2003, were for record-keeping mistakes. Not for peddling assault rifles to terrorists or dealing Saturday-night specials to street thugs, but for clerical goofs.
Firearms sellers should be held to high administrative standards, but linking typographical errors and back-door gun running is a stretch.
I concede that some of the dealers on AGS' list appear shady and warrant closer, more frequent inspection, but I disagree with the foundation's inference that each of those sellers is somehow directly responsible for violent gun crimes. Many of the named dealers merely are high-volume retailers caught in a statistical web that makes them victims of their own success.
Consider that a busy gun store often sells more than 10,000 firearms annually, and a few shops on AGS' list move twice that volume of hardware. Multiply that by 10, 15 or 20 years in business and throw in a system that is quick now to trace a gun's history. Even the AGS recognizes that booming business might have landed honest dealers on its "high crime gun store" roster, which includes a California dealer who had 1,000-plus guns stolen during Los Angeles riots.
AGS wonders why the ATF so rarely "shuts down or prosecutes ... high-crime dealers." Maybe that is because even the most-cited dealer on the list had just 13 ATF violations from 2000-2003 against 483 crime-gun traces from 1996-2000. The shop that had 2,294 crime-gun traces, second highest of all, received only one ATF citation through the same time windows.
The anti-gun movement's efforts to blame firearms makers for gun violence has failed in the courts. Since they could not defeat gun manufacturers and lack the strength to tackle gun owners, the logical targets are small companies and individuals who sell guns.
AGS claims to be the Switzerland of gun politics, but its report waves a different flag.
Criminal use of guns is rampant, but we never will rebuild our nation's damaged framework until we quit blaming the hammers and the hardware stores for bad carpenters.
