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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/12/politics/12GUNS.html
June 12, 2003
Unlikely Allies Seek Better Enforcement of Firearms Statutes
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, June 11 — In an unlikely tandem, gun-control groups and a congressman who has long supported gun rights are pressuring the Justice Department to become more aggressive in prosecuting weapons crimes.
Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, a vocal backer of the Second Amendment, wrote to Attorney General John Ashcroft last week demanding to know "how the Justice Department plans to improve its abysmal record of enforcement of all of the major federal firearms statutes."
Mr. Ashcroft has made tougher enforcement of gun laws one of his top priorities. He argues that enforcement — not more laws — is the key to stopping gun violence.
"Our message to armed criminals is unambiguous," Mr. Ashcroft said earlier this year. "No more slipping through the cracks."
Mr. Ashcroft's advisers point to a 38 percent increase in prosecutions of gun crimes since 2001 as evidence of his success.
But the sharply worded attack by Mr. Dingell on the Justice Department's record could signal a significant bellwether because of the congressman's reputation as a passionate defender of gun rights. A lifelong member of the National Rifle Association, Mr. Dingell has been an influential voice in the House for years in repelling gun-control measures that he considered unnecessary.
Now, however, Mr. Dingell finds himself aligned with gun-control groups like Americans for Gun Safety, a Washington-based lobby that put out a study last month concluding that only 2 percent of federal gun crimes result in prosecutions.
"People who are gung ho for gun control and people who are totally opposed to it all respond the same way: gun laws need to be enforced," Mr. Dingell said in an interview. "The N.R.A. feels that way, moderate gun-control folks feel that way. We can all agree on that."
The debate over how effectively firearms laws are enforced comes at a time when gun control has resurfaced as a political issue.
The supporters of gun rights are pushing legislation that would protect firearms manufacturers from liability in lawsuits. Supporters of gun control, meanwhile, are seeking to impose new regulations on design and manufacture of guns, and they are also seeking to extend a 1994 ban on the sale of assault-style weapons. President Bush supports the ban, but the N.R.A. and many Republicans have vowed to defeat it.
More aggressive enforcement of gun laws has been a rallying point for the advocates of gun rights. Mr. Dingell, who said he would probably oppose the reauthorization of the assault ban, said better enforcement was one way of staving off further gun-control measures. "We'd see a lot less pressure for a lot of these unwise gun-control laws that are so hurtful to sportsmen," he said.
Mr. Bush, in campaigning for the White House, said he, too, wanted to bolster lax enforcement of gun laws, a problem that has helped give the United States the highest gun casualty rate in the world.
Mr. Ashcroft, like Mr. Dingell a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, has defended and even broadened the Justice Department's view of the legal rights of law-abiding gun owners, and he has focused enforcement efforts on locking up criminals who use guns. Prosecutions of felons who own guns illegally and people who use firearms in a crime make up a large share of the 38 percent increase in cases brought under Mr. Ashcroft.
But both the study by Americans for Gun Safety and a second study last month by a group at Syracuse University concluded that the authorities have paid scant attention to illegal gun dealers, black market dealers and others.
Americans for Gun Safety said the Justice Department could claim noticeable percentage increases in bringing some gun charges only because the numbers were so low in the first place.
For instance, the Justice Department said prosecutions of people who make false statements in trying to buy a gun have surged 43 percent since 1999. But Americans for Gun Safety said fewer than 578 prosecutions were brought last year out of an estimated 150,000 violations, meaning that 99.6 percent of the violations go unpunished.
Mr. Dingell, in his letter to the attorney general, said he found the study "alarming," and he said he was particularly troubled that "despite your assurances to the contrary," people who lie on gun background checks are prosecuted infrequently. In Michigan, he said, 11,000 people lied on gun background checks in the last several years, but federal prosecutors brought charges only 18 times.
Justice Department officials said Mr. Ashcroft had sought to step up prosecutions aggressively in such cases, but the findings of the two recent studies appear to have thrown the department on the defensive.
The findings have prompted the Justice Department to send a seven-page memorandum to prosecutors around the country to use in rebutting the studies. "Disregarding our record-setting work to prosecute and convict criminals who misuse firearms demonstrates a fundamental disregard for the facts about the department's efforts to ensure safer neighborhoods," officials wrote in the memorandum.
Gun-control groups said they believed that Mr. Dingell's strong stance on the enforcement issue could help tip the debate.
"When you have someone like John Dingell speaking out," said Matt Bennett of Americans for Gun Safety, "it becomes crystal clear that even very strong proponents of gun rights are interested in toughened enforcement."
Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign, another gun control group, said, "We think John Dingell is usually, if not always, wrong on gun laws and safety issue, but on enforcement, he's right."
June 12, 2003
Unlikely Allies Seek Better Enforcement of Firearms Statutes
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, June 11 — In an unlikely tandem, gun-control groups and a congressman who has long supported gun rights are pressuring the Justice Department to become more aggressive in prosecuting weapons crimes.
Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, a vocal backer of the Second Amendment, wrote to Attorney General John Ashcroft last week demanding to know "how the Justice Department plans to improve its abysmal record of enforcement of all of the major federal firearms statutes."
Mr. Ashcroft has made tougher enforcement of gun laws one of his top priorities. He argues that enforcement — not more laws — is the key to stopping gun violence.
"Our message to armed criminals is unambiguous," Mr. Ashcroft said earlier this year. "No more slipping through the cracks."
Mr. Ashcroft's advisers point to a 38 percent increase in prosecutions of gun crimes since 2001 as evidence of his success.
But the sharply worded attack by Mr. Dingell on the Justice Department's record could signal a significant bellwether because of the congressman's reputation as a passionate defender of gun rights. A lifelong member of the National Rifle Association, Mr. Dingell has been an influential voice in the House for years in repelling gun-control measures that he considered unnecessary.
Now, however, Mr. Dingell finds himself aligned with gun-control groups like Americans for Gun Safety, a Washington-based lobby that put out a study last month concluding that only 2 percent of federal gun crimes result in prosecutions.
"People who are gung ho for gun control and people who are totally opposed to it all respond the same way: gun laws need to be enforced," Mr. Dingell said in an interview. "The N.R.A. feels that way, moderate gun-control folks feel that way. We can all agree on that."
The debate over how effectively firearms laws are enforced comes at a time when gun control has resurfaced as a political issue.
The supporters of gun rights are pushing legislation that would protect firearms manufacturers from liability in lawsuits. Supporters of gun control, meanwhile, are seeking to impose new regulations on design and manufacture of guns, and they are also seeking to extend a 1994 ban on the sale of assault-style weapons. President Bush supports the ban, but the N.R.A. and many Republicans have vowed to defeat it.
More aggressive enforcement of gun laws has been a rallying point for the advocates of gun rights. Mr. Dingell, who said he would probably oppose the reauthorization of the assault ban, said better enforcement was one way of staving off further gun-control measures. "We'd see a lot less pressure for a lot of these unwise gun-control laws that are so hurtful to sportsmen," he said.
Mr. Bush, in campaigning for the White House, said he, too, wanted to bolster lax enforcement of gun laws, a problem that has helped give the United States the highest gun casualty rate in the world.
Mr. Ashcroft, like Mr. Dingell a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, has defended and even broadened the Justice Department's view of the legal rights of law-abiding gun owners, and he has focused enforcement efforts on locking up criminals who use guns. Prosecutions of felons who own guns illegally and people who use firearms in a crime make up a large share of the 38 percent increase in cases brought under Mr. Ashcroft.
But both the study by Americans for Gun Safety and a second study last month by a group at Syracuse University concluded that the authorities have paid scant attention to illegal gun dealers, black market dealers and others.
Americans for Gun Safety said the Justice Department could claim noticeable percentage increases in bringing some gun charges only because the numbers were so low in the first place.
For instance, the Justice Department said prosecutions of people who make false statements in trying to buy a gun have surged 43 percent since 1999. But Americans for Gun Safety said fewer than 578 prosecutions were brought last year out of an estimated 150,000 violations, meaning that 99.6 percent of the violations go unpunished.
Mr. Dingell, in his letter to the attorney general, said he found the study "alarming," and he said he was particularly troubled that "despite your assurances to the contrary," people who lie on gun background checks are prosecuted infrequently. In Michigan, he said, 11,000 people lied on gun background checks in the last several years, but federal prosecutors brought charges only 18 times.
Justice Department officials said Mr. Ashcroft had sought to step up prosecutions aggressively in such cases, but the findings of the two recent studies appear to have thrown the department on the defensive.
The findings have prompted the Justice Department to send a seven-page memorandum to prosecutors around the country to use in rebutting the studies. "Disregarding our record-setting work to prosecute and convict criminals who misuse firearms demonstrates a fundamental disregard for the facts about the department's efforts to ensure safer neighborhoods," officials wrote in the memorandum.
Gun-control groups said they believed that Mr. Dingell's strong stance on the enforcement issue could help tip the debate.
"When you have someone like John Dingell speaking out," said Matt Bennett of Americans for Gun Safety, "it becomes crystal clear that even very strong proponents of gun rights are interested in toughened enforcement."
Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign, another gun control group, said, "We think John Dingell is usually, if not always, wrong on gun laws and safety issue, but on enforcement, he's right."
