Printed in the USA.
The Gottlieb-Tartaro Report
Issue 066
June, 2000INSTANT BACKGROUND CHECKS: NOT SO FAST
After fifteen months of generally poor performance in keeping prohibited persons from buying guns, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) totally stopped working for four days last month, downed by a computer glitch.
The headlines shouted, "FBI Computer Flaw Halts Gun Sales."
That was true enough. The FBI’s Interstate Identification Index, a database containing the criminal histories of 36 million people, crashed from internal problems, not hacking or external attack.
It was also true that gun dealers said they were forced to tell their customers to wait for their guns until the system came back up and the checks could be made.
But the news stories never mentioned a key fact about the law that mandated the FBI to set up the NICS system: the gun dealers didn’t have to stop selling guns.
Congress explicitly required that NICS be used ONLY if it is running and information is available.Gun law expert ALAN KORWIN said, "Congress recognized that (NICS) could stop gun sales altogether. The so-called ‘escape clause’ was deliberately put into the Brady law to allow gun sales if the national computer ever went down, or in case it was never actually built.
"I followed that legislation closely. It’s designed to help prevent federal agents from suspending the Bill of Rights and blaming it on a computer."
Since NICS went online, computer problems have shut down legitimate business at gun dealers at least 84 times, totalling more than eight full business days. The FBI said the shutdowns were all accidents and that they are not accountable.
But gun dealers so far have been reluctant to risk standing up for their rights, fearing for their livelihoods and licenses. Doing business without NICS, even though perfectly legal, would surely draw the wrath of federal officials.
However, those same federal officials have already drawn the wrath of the watchdog General Accounting Office (GAO), according to Sen. CRAIG THOMAS (R-WY).
GAO has completed its audit of the NICS system, as requested by Sen. THOMAS, and found significant problems with NICS during its first full year of operation:
• Of the 8.8 million checks performed, 1.2 million (28%) of all federal firearm checks were not instant. 81,006 checks resulted in denials; 13,989 were appealed; 2,710 appeals resulted in reversals and allowed the gun purchase.
• 1,505 individuals were wrongfully denied the opportunity to purchase firearms as a result of FBI examiner error or misidentification.
• 3,353 prohibited individuals have obtained firearms, but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) has only 110 of them under active criminal investigation — a mere 3.3 percent.
• NICS failed to meet its operating accountability standards 2/3 of the time between 11/30/98 and 11/30/99.
• NICS has been operational for 15 months, but it has not yet been certified as secure in accordance with the FBI’s own routine requirements for computer security.
The full GAO report may be found on the web at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/g100064.pdf
UPDATE: MIXED RESULTS IN ANTI-GUN LAWSUITS
ILLINOIS: A Chicago judge has dismissed part of an anti-gun lawsuit, saying gun makers have "no duty to control the distribution of their products."
Circuit Judge JENNIFER DUNCAN-BRICE dismissed the part of the lawsuit that claimed gun makers should be held liable for what is done with their products.
The decision came in a suit filed on behalf of the families of Chicago police officer MICHAEL CERIALE, who was killed during a drug surveillance, and two others who were shot to death.
Judge DUNCAN-BRICE wrote an 11-page opinion saying that gun maker Smith & Wesson and others "owed no duty to control the distribution of their products to the general public."
The plaintiffs claim the defendants, two dozen companies involved in the firearms industry, should be held responsible for negligently entrusting their guns to customers and creating a public nuisance.
The public nuisance part of the lawsuit will go forward.
A second public nuisance lawsuit against gun makers also is pending in Chicago courts, filed by the city of Chicago.
MICHIGAN: Circuit Judge JEANNE STEMPIEN has denied a motion brought by gun manufacturers and dealers to dismiss Wayne County’s lawsuit seeking $400 million in damages for not stopping gun sales in which buyers act as fronts for felons and juveniles.Detroit and Wayne County filed separate lawsuits last April. Wayne County filed after videotaping gun dealers allegedly selling firearms to felons and underage buyers during sting operations.
The more than 30 gun manufacturers and dealers sued in Wayne County’s action have said that suggesting they don’t take steps to prevent the criminal misuse of their products is off-base.
Three cities’ lawsuits have been dismissed and are under appeal.
Negotiations between gunmakers and 31 municipalities to settle the lawsuits are now on hold.
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES FIRE SALVOS AT GUN SUIT ISSUE
Republican GEORGE W. BUSH has said he would not support federal legislation allowing cities to sue gunmakers.
AL GORE, Democratic presidential rival, has said he would veto any bill prohibiting such lawsuits.
BUSH said such a law is "not good public policy."
GORE campaign spokesman DOUG HATTAWAY said, "It’s totally irresponsible to side with weapons manufacturers against concerned citizens in local communities."
As governor of Texas, BUSH signed a state law prohibiting cities and counties from directly suing gunmakers, requiring them to funnel any such litigation through the state’s attorney general, who would decide whether or not to proceed.
GORE has suggested that BUSH would be a puppet of the National Rifle Association.
BUSH campaign spokeswoman KAREN HUGHES said his objection to lawsuit legislation at the federal level is rooted in his long-standing opposition to measures that would undercut state’s rights.
"He would not support a federal law that would override state restrictions," said HUGHES.
Positions on gun control are becoming an increasingly central issue in deciding who will be the next President.
THE MILLION MOM MUSH
Maybe they needed more than packs of weeping white women led by snotty talk-show queen ROSIE O’DONNELL.
But, whatever the reason, the anti-gun "Million Mom March" on Washington D.C. last month fizzled miserably.
Instead of a million moms, headlines talked about "tens of thousands," not even "hundreds of thousands," much less "a million."
But it wasn’t just the numbers game they lost.
The credibility of the march itself went down in flames. One commentator called it "a million moms without a mind among them."
Not only were their gun control arguments weak and tired and unconvincing, the march itself drew some embarrassing attention.
Well, it wasn’t really a march, either. The low turnout should have been called the Mill-Around the Mall. The Mall is the grassy strip running down the midline of the nation’s capitol where they keep the Washington Monument and where the Million Mom Mill-Around really took place. And that was only to listen to ROSIE O’DONNELL spout drivel.
The first embarrassing revelation the mainstream media reported was that the protest had been organized by the sister-in-law of HILLARY CLINTON’s long-time lawyer pal and hatchet woman, surly SUSAN THOMASES.
And even that sister-in-law was not the "average mom" that the media portrayed during the runup to the big event. DONNA DEES-THOMASES supposedly conceived the Million Mom March "in her suburban New Jersey living room." She called a few friends, and they called a few friends, so the story went. NBC’s LISA MYERS said she was "a suburban mom, too busy with her two daughters and a part-time job to pay much attention to politics." (Wink, wink.)
Maybe they don’t have fact checkers at NBC, but Ms. DEES-THOMASES has been a staffer for two Democratic senators, RUSSELL LONG and BENNETT JOHNSTON. And she contributes to HILLARY CLINTON’s senatorial campaign. That’s politics. Partisan politics.
When the facts came out, it made it look like Democratic Party political manipulation, not grass roots activism.
Then, as soon as the ladies’ short hike on the Mall was over, the organizers announced that the march would become a Political Action Committee. Gee, what a surprise!
With the partisan political cat out of the bag, the gun control agenda items lost their glitter.
The "Wall of Death" gimmick used in the march, a sort of portable cardboard wailing wall that listed the names of gunshot victims, fell flat. Yes, the public felt sorry for the losses, but it somehow seemed contrived and artificial.
Even the sobbing women who came to the microphone to tell tales of loved ones lost to gunshots looked staged and scripted.
One skeptical critic, ANN COULTER, wrote in the Jewish World Review, "The last time liberal women got the idea to use their wombs as an argument for gun control, Representatives CAROLYN McCARTHY (D-NY), NITA M. LOWEY (D-NY), and ROSA DeLAURO (D-CT), were uttering such prattle as ‘women find they have a maternal instinct’ for gun control."
COULTER thought that was such nonsense she wrote, "somehow, merely the status of being a ‘mom’ is supposed to trump facts and linear thinking. That was the theme of the Million Mom March: I don’t need a brain — I’ve got a womb."
And sociologist CAMILLE PAGLIA snorted, "The Million Mom March: What a crock!"
Her take: "The problem with gun control laws is that they only work on already law-abiding citizens."
In perhaps the best summation of the fizzled event, PAGLIA wrote, "The Million Moms would do much more for this country is they would focus on the breakdown of the family and community ties that produce sociopaths like the goons who shoot up schools and day-care centers. It was parental irresponsibility and neglect, and not simply the availability of guns, that were ultimately at the root of the Columbine massacre, where home-barbecue propane tanks had been converted into bombs."
ROSIE THE ANTI-GUN HYPOCRITE
ROSIE O’DONNELL, the anti-gun TV talk-show host, has a bodyguard who has her Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbors up in arms — because he has applied for a concealed firearm permit.
The permit application — pending with the Greenwich Police Department — led to a rumor that the permit’s purpose would be to allow the bodyguard to legally carry a gun when accompanying O’DONNELL’s son to public school in September.
O’DONNELL denied that her bodyguard would carry the gun to school, leaving us to speculate where he would carry it.
She ducked any responsibility for the gun, saying the permit was requested by the security firm that employs her bodyguard, not her. She even ducked the bodyguard issue, saying he was arranged for by Warner Brothers on her behalf.
Of course, she would never ask for an armed guard.
Then ROSIE turned around and said she and her family do need protection because of threats made against her due to her anti-gun stands.
ROSIE was worried that all the publicity about her bodyguard’s gun, combined with the knowledge that he would be unarmed when accompanying her son to a local school, would make her family vulnerable.
Somehow the irony of a screeching anti-gun advocate worrying that an unarmed bodyguard might make her vulnerable is lost on ROSIE.
TOY GUNS MAKE HEADLINES
Washington, D.C. — You know things have gotten weird when police departments start gun buy-back programs for toy guns.
But that’s exactly what Washington, D.C. Police Chief CHARLES RAMSEY wants to do next.
This is the same top cop who recently wasted $350,000 of federal assistance and asset forfeiture money on buying mostly worthless firearms from people who aren’t likely the ones who have made the nation’s capital a crime capital.
RAMSEY even wants to buy back video games that show guns.
"We’re now going to take this to the next step," RAMSEY said. "The next one we do is with kids. Let’s see if we can send the same message to our young people as we do adults."
Folks on Washington streets see that message as: "Hey, this dumb cop is giving away money for your junk, so let’s rummage around and see what we can scavenge up for them."
RAMSEY says he wants to steer impressionable youngsters away from toys that might lead them to violent acts and a life of crime.
Do toys do that? Kids have been playing "cops and robbers" or "soldier" or "cowboys and injuns" for decades and some of them even become pacifists.
RAMSEY might get more results paying parents to take better care of their kids.
Ontario, Canada — We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto, we’re in Oakville, Ontario. That’s the Canadian city whose police are cracking down on the sale of toy guns.No kidding. We’re not making this up.
Police recently seized 3,200 plastic guns from a gift shop in Oakville.
Usually, plastic guns aren’t considered replicas, which are prohibited, but merely toys.
However, police say they were worried the toys could be mistaken for real guns. Police say they’re finding more and more of them on the streets, and they present a real dilemma for officers who can’t tell them from the real thing.
Wang Ko, who runs the Oakville store with his father, said he took the toy guns off the shelves after police told them of their concerns, but the cops came back with a warrant and took all the toy guns from the storage area.
Hmmm. Canada is beginning to look like a plastic police state, and it’s hard to tell it from the real thing.
MORE MILLION MOM MARCH MADNESS
The Senate is an institution where colleagues customarily refer to one another as "distinguished," or "my good friend."
But a recent Senate vote to commend the Million Mom March stirred simmering grievances that turned the traditionally cordial body into a tense battleground.
The vote, urged by Senate Democrats to force Republican senators to go on the record on gun control, was purely symbolic and would produce no new law.
Sen BARBARA BOXER, (D-CA) said, "We have a war at home and we have to have the courage to stand up and say ‘enough is enough.’ Let’s commend the Million Mom March."
The issue was raised on an unrelated spending bill and also included a recommendation that Senate-passed gun control legislation finally see some action. The gun control bill has been stalled for months without progress in a House-Senate conference committee.Sen. LARRY CRAIG (R-ID), annoyed that important bills were having to wait for a mere gesture, said, "It’s strange that we find ourselves with such passion about something that won’t count. It is not substantive law. It is not intended to be. It is intended to make a political point."
When Majority Leader TRENT LOTT (R-MS) tried to speed things up on the symbolic vote, Sen. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), Minority Leader snapped, "No majority leader in history has attempted to constrain debate as aggressively as Sen. LOTT has chosen to do."
Unlimited debate is a long tradition in the Senate, unlike the House of Representatives, where the rules strictly limit what amendments can be proposed and how long lawmakers may speak.
LOTT said he felt "personally maligned, and I don’t appreciate it. I’m getting real tired of people questioning my commitment to the Senate."
The nonbinding vote was taken and the measure passed by 50-49.
MUCH MORE MILLION MOM MARCH MADNESS
Sen. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, flanked by women from the Million Mom March, recently said that "if car drivers are licensed, gun owners should be," and introduced S. 2525, a bill that would require gun purchases to be recorded and gun owners to be licensed.
The bill echoes President CLINTON’s call for gun licensing in his State of the Union message this year.
To get a license, an applicant would have to go to a licensed firearms dealer, pass a written firearms safety test, and undergo a background check to eliminate disqualified purchasers such as convicted felons and the mentally ill.
It would apply to purchases of handguns and semiautomatic firearms that take detachable ammunition clips. Most hunting rifles and shotguns would be exempt.
The bill is not considered politically viable, but puts the idea on the table.
GROUP OPPOSES PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF "POLITICALLY CORRECT" GUN COMPANIES
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has announced its opposition to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) effort to get local officials to sign on to their "Communities for Safer Guns Coalition."
The HUD program would give preferential treatment to gun companies that meet the coalition’s terms.
ALEC’s Criminal Justice Task Force adopted a resolution stating that giving firearms contract preferences to gun companies that adhere to a particular political philosophy threatens public safety, and illustrates a deliberate attempt to circumvent both open bid laws and the legislative process.
The resolution concludes that ALEC "hereby opposes the efforts of those federal, state, and local elected and appointed officials who are openly encouraging a circumvention of the legislative process to establish further controls on firearms; opposes any attempts to violate state firearms preemption laws and the competitive bidding process; and strongly opposes any effort that compromises law enforcement officer safety or the public’s safety."
ALEC is the nation’s largest bipartisan individual membership association of state legislators, with nearly 2,400 members nationwide.
STUDY FINDS GUN-LOCKUP LAWS HARMFUL
Laws that punish parents for failing to lock guns away from children cause more violence than they prevent, a new statistical study concludes.
The study prepared for The Journal of Law & Economics said that "child access-prevention" laws, which are on the books in 17 states, have failed to reduce accidental firearm deaths and suicides involving children.
Worse, the laws cause crime rates to increase because self-defense firearms are harder to grab quickly, said JOHN LOTT, Jr., a senior research scholar at Yale Law School, and JOHN WHITLEY of the University of Chicago.
The two authors said, "The only consistent impact of safe storage is to raise rape, robbery and burglary rates, and the effects are very large."
In 1996, they estimate, 15 states with such laws suffered a combined increase of about 3,800 more rapes, at least 21,000 more burglaries and a least 49,700 more robberies than they would have had without the laws.
Gun control advocates such as DOUGLAS WEIL, research director of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, say the study is statistically flawed and also reflect the biases of JOHN LOTT, a persistent critic of firearms regulation.
OFFICIALS REBUFF NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL
Following Smith & Wesson’s recent signing of President CLINTON’s "Code of Conduct" agreement, New York state Attorney General ELLIOT SPITZER sent a letter to elected officials nationwide asking them to encourage their law enforcement agencies to award contracts only to companies that signed the agreement.
Arkansas Governor MIKE HUCKABEE and Alabama Attorney General BILL PRYOR sent SPITZER scathing letters declining the invitation.
Gov. HUCKABEE wrote, "If I believed the safety of my constituents were truly the issue, I would be much more considerate of your request. But we are not living in a country flooded with "unsafe" guns. It is their illegal use that endangers us — and that must be addressed through vigorous criminal prosecution."Providing for gun safety locks is one thing and, in truth, only a small part of your ‘Code of Conduct.’ However, dictating how many guns a purchaser is allowed to take home on one day, banning sales at gun shows and prohibiting a minor from even entering a gun store without a parent or guardian are parts of a political agenda, not a push for ‘gun safety.’ Coupling the safety issue with a strict regulation of business practices is merely a maneuver to advance a decidedly political agenda under the guise of ‘public safety.’
"I will not seek the capitulation of firearm manufacturers through the use of asinine lawsuits or the doling out of taxpayer-funded government contracts. I regret that you feel either of these tactics to be worthwhile endeavors."
Attorney General PRYOR refused point by point: "First, your letter seems to invite law enforcement officials to ignore or deliberately violate federal and state competitive bid laws..."Second, your suggestion raises concerns about constitutional prohibitions against exclusive franchises and monopolies...
"Third, in a poor state like Alabama, law enforcement agencies and citizens have interests and needs perhaps different from those of a wealthy state like New York. It is essential to public safety in Alabama that law enforcement agencies and law-abiding citizens have access to quality firearms at reasonable prices...
"Fourth, your suggestion raises important separation of power and public policy issues...
"I hope and trust that you will receive these concerns in the spirit in which they are offered — the good faith promotion of the rule of law, the aggressive reduction of crime by well-equipped law enforcement agencies, and the preservation of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and the defense of a free society."
GUN NEWS TICKER: SHORT TAKES ON GUNS
• When Sen. CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY) recently told a news conference he would like to see anti-gun U.S. Attorney General JANET RENO appointed to the Supreme Court. RENO replied, "I was touched that Senator SCHUMER said that, but I think I want to go home to Florida." RENO suffers from debilitating Parkinson’s disease, which would be a factor in nominating her for a Supreme Court appointment.
• Brazilian army and police officers recently ceremoniously crushed 18,462 illegal guns with a steamroller in a park in Sao Paulo. Some of the guns had been seized from criminals, while others were turned in during anti-gun campaigns. Brazilians own an estimated 8 million guns, of which only 2 million are legally registered.
• A 17-year-old Japanese youth armed with a 16-inch knife hijacked a bus and stabbed three women passengers, one fatally, during a five-hour police chase near Hiroshima. Police negotiated with the teen-age killer as he held the knife to the throat of a 6-year-old girl who was traveling alone. In anti-gun Japan, guns don’t kill people, knives do.
• JAMELLE JAMES, a Michigan man, was charged with involuntary manslaughter after a stolen handgun in his possession was allegedly found under a blanket by a 6-year-old boy who took it to school and shot his classmate KAYLA ROLLAND to death. JAMES agreed to a plea bargain by pleading guilty to a charge of knowingly possessing a stolen shotgun found at his house. In exchange, the assistant U.S. Attorney will drop charges of possession of the stolen handgun and unlawful use of marijuana while in possession of firearms. The manslaughter charge stands. The boy’s father is in jail awaiting trial for breaking parole. The boy’s mother pleaded guilty to neglect charges, giving up her three children to a county court.
• Rep. JOHN HOSTETTLER (R-IN) has inserted language into the Defense Department authorization bill forbidding the administration from requiring the department to buy Smith & Wesson guns. House Republicans are trying to prevent the government from favoring the company with new gun contracts in preference to others who have not signed President CLINTON’s restrictive firearms pact, which was signed by Smith & Wesson.
• Housing and Urban Development Secretary ANDREW CUOMO recently announced that officials from 411 governments have now joined the "Communities for Safer Guns Coalition." To join the coalition, officials must sign a pledge to give favored treatment in government purchases to gun manufacturers that have adopted a set of new rules that go beyond the requirements of law. CUOMO said, "The Million Mom March showed us that ordinary Americans across this country want swift and sure government action to protect our families from gun violence."
• The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (CPHV) has contributed $30,000 to help get an initiative on the Oregon election ballot in November to require criminal background checks at gun shows, SARAH BRADY has announced. Initiative backers have until July 7, 2000, to turn in the 67,000 valid signatures needed to qualify the "Gun Violence Prevention Act" to be listed on the November ballot. The signature gathering effort was delayed for four months while gun rights advocates challenged the measure in court. Backers have gathered about 20,000 signatures since the court allowed the measure to be circulated. Oregon and Colorado are seeking to qualify gun show initiatives for the ballot this year.
• Alabama lawmakers have approved a bill that would end the 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases in the state. State Senator JACK BIDDLE (R-Gardendale) said he expects Gov. DON SIEGELMAN to sign the measure. If approved, the law would also bar Alabama cities and counties from creating new firearms regulations that are more restrictive than the state’s
• The Chicago Police Board has voted to fire a former Gun Registration Unit commanding officer accused of altering records to help her son possess a gun she believed he had inherited from his father. The civilian board voted unanimously to terminate Lt. MELVA BRADFORD for a series of alleged wrongdoings that stemmed from her son’s interest in having a gun he claimed had belonged to his father, a deceased Chicago police officer. The son testified he actually bought it from a suburban gun shop.
OKAY, CRIME STOPPERS, TOP THIS ONE
We’ve all heard some good crime prevention stories, but this one catches our fancy.
Not long ago in Spring Hill, Florida, 53-year-old homemaker Sandra Suter, a grandmother of two, was standing in the checkout line at the local Wal-Mart.
Hearing a disturbance, she turned to see several store employees wrestling with a man who was trying to steal something.
"Drop the knife! Drop the knife!" one of the employees yelled at the man, who was holding a new VCR under one arm while waving a small blade with the other hand.
The man, later identified as Willie J. Redding, had not, it seems, offered to pay for the VCR as he left the store.
When alert Wal-Mart workers saw him and tried to retrieve store property, Mr. Redding dropped the VCR and lunged with the knife, cutting two employees.
Mrs. Suter immediately stepped out of the line and rushed to the scuffle.
"I have a concealed weapons permit," she announced to Mr. Redding as he fought with the employees.
From her purse she whipped out a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun and held the firearm in front of Mr. Redding’s face.
"Either drop the knife, or I’ll shoot you," she said calmly.
Mr. Redding was astonished.
He just stood there still holding the knife.
Mrs. Suter repeated, "I said, either drop the knife, or I’ll shoot you."
She pushed the gun closer to Mr. Redding’s face for emphasis.
After a few tense moments, Mr. Redding got the message.
He dropped the knife and surrendered to store security officers.
Mr. Redding, 50, now faces a charge of armed robbery and two counts of battery.
He was taken to Hernando County Jail, where he was booked and released on $3,000 bail.
He is no stranger to the justice system, having previous convictions for selling drugs and dealing in stolen property.
Mrs. Suter’s husband and grown children are calling her a hero, but she laughs at the label.
"I just did what I thought was right."
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