The Gottlieb-Tartaro Report
Issue 043
July, 1998

 MORE BRADY LAW LIES

A recent edition of the Indianapolis Star/News reported, "Background checks for would-be gun owners might be stopping guns from getting into the wrong hands, but you might not be able to trust the government study that says so."

It was the first in a series of embarrassing revelations about the recent U.S. Justice Department announcement that some 69,000 handgun sales were stopped last year because of the Brady Act. Two Indianapolis newspapers, the Star and the News, found that those numbers were vastly overstated.

The Justice Department claimed that 1,085 handgun sales were blocked in 1997, usually because the person trying to buy the gun had a felony conviction. That claim is flatly false. The Indiana State Police say handgun sales were blocked exactly 82 times last year. The Justice Department figures for Indiana alone are exaggerated by more than a thousand imaginary blocked sales.

What’s behind this government deception? Certainly, the White House wants to cast the failed Brady Act in the best light possible, which would give them the motive to falsify such numbers. But just pulling numbers out of thin air would have been detected by even the most anti-gun newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.

So, the Justice Department counted the number of times that permits to carry a gun were turned down, NOT applications to buy a gun. Those are two totally different things. Getting a permit to carry a gun does not mean you are going to buy a gun. But such distinctions are likely to be overlooked by media that trust government reports without checking the facts.

Indiana’s State Police Firearms Division, which supplied the data to the Justice Department, told reporters about the claim of 1,085 sales stops, "There’s no way in the world it could be that high."

Then reports began to filter in from other states. Arizona had reportedly rejected 2,277 gun sales. But the real number was only 1,691. The inflated figure came from counting duplicate and incorrect applications.

The Brady’s Act’s proponents have continuously inflated the number of stopped sales since the law went into effect in 1994, according to University of Chicago law professor JOHN LOTT, who recently published a book on the Brady Act titled More Guns, Less Crime.

Prof. LOTT says that estimates of Brady Act gun permit stops is hotly debated — Some say as many as 100,000 a year, others say as few as 1,000. The Government Accounting Office, the watchdog of Congress, counted 60,000 stopped purchases in an early year of the Brady Act, but only 3,000 were due to a violent crime record. The rest were filing errors, failure to fill out the application correctly or other non-crime reasons.

Similar inflations have continued to plague the debate. The Indianapolis Star/News deserves credit for exposing the government’s self-congratulatory deception.

 

WHITE HOUSE WANTS WAITING PERIOD EXTENDED AFTER LAW EXPIRES

The CLINTON administration hopes to extend the five-day waiting period for handgun purchases beyond the Brady Act’s expiration in November. Presidential adviser RAHM EMANUEL announced the position on a recent edition of NBC’s "Meet the Press."

Under the Act, a nationwide instant check system is to replace the waiting period on Nov. 30 this year. The waiting period was enacted to weed out convicted felons and others who are barred from buying guns. However, the administration is now calling it a "cooling-off period" instead of a "waiting period."

EMANUEL said, "There is good common sense to the five-day cooling-off period." Twenty percent of guns used in murders are bought within the week of the murder and "we think the cooling-off period is very, very important" in stopping crimes of passion.

This new rationale has nothing to do with assuring the public that legally forbidden persons do not purchase handguns. It seeks to place prior restraint on every potential purchaser under the presumption that some of them are going to commit a crime with the handgun within a week of its purchase.

EMANUEL then trotted out the figures that in 1996, police checked the backgrounds of 2.6 million would-be handgun buyers, with 70,000 sales blocked because of felony records and other problems.

Perhaps the reason why the Justice Department released its phony exaggerated numbers when it did (see our Page 1 story) was to give some rationale for the administration’s new plan to extend the waiting period.

The plan to extend the 5-day waiting period certainly needs some props: there is no legal reason to extend it. The public purpose of keeping forbidden people from buying guns will be served by the mandated instant check system now being installed.

The CLINTON plan to extend the waiting period is just more anti-gun rhetoric that needs the label, "cooling-off period," as an appeal to emotion about possibly preventing conceivable crimes.

EMANUEL added that the administration’s top gun control goal this year is congressional passage of laws requiring child safety locks on all handguns and extension of the Brady Act to juveniles. The White House is also looking at legislation making parents responsible for gun crimes committed by their children.

 

BOLD RESPONSE TO SCHOOL SHOOTING SPREES

JOHN B. MICHNOVEZ, police chief of Granville, Massachusetts, thought the answer to school shootings across the U.S. should be a pistol shooting and handgun safety course in the town’s elementary school. Granville is so small its only school just teaches pre-school through the eighth grade.

The principal, BOB THOMPSON, agreed with the idea, and sent a letter to parents, who also thought it was a good plan. They got TERYL A. DEEGAN, an NRA Pistol Shooting Instructor to give the class, starting with a lecture on the Second Amendment, then handling toy pistols to explain calibers and safety precautions. The proficiency test was held at an indoor shooting range, with a written test given at school. The kids loved it.

 

NEW JERSEY GUN GROUP DRAWS FIRE FROM COLT OVER ACCUSATIONS

Every now and then we circle the wagons and start shooting inside. The G-T Report is closely watching a dispute between the Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen (CNJS) and Colt’s Manufacturing Company, Inc, of Hartford, Connecticut, over some statements the coalition made that were critical of Colt.

The Coalition distributed a "Public Service Message" at the NRA Show in Philadelphia last month, along with a message posted all over the Internet, according to Colt.

The message accused Colt of supporting a mandate of the Smart Gun (it recognizes the proper owner and locks out all others) and of trigger locks, and then calls for a boycott of Colt products.

But the real heat centers around CNJS’s charge that Colt has been "Caught Red Handed Donating to Charles Schumer’s Campaign Fund." Schumer (D-NY) is an arch-enemy of gun owners, a congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives now running for the nomination as Democratic candidate trying to unseat Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-NY). He is running third in a field of three Democratic hopefuls.

Colt vigorously denies all charges and has demanded that CNJS retract their accusations and end their boycott or face legal action. Colt is prepared to bring a bevy of allegations against CNJS, including libel and slander, trade disparagement, and tortious interference with contractual relations.

Colt recently issued a press release rebutting CNJS’s charges one by one. Colt cited a Philadelphia Inquirer report quoting Ronald L. Stewart, Colt’s President and CEO as writing, "While technology such as this should not be mandated, it should be an option for the consumer."

The press release also noted that Colt had opposed legislation mandating a Smart Gun at a New Jersey hearing, and lobbied to defeat the bills. Similarly, Colt noted that it was on record as opposing trigger locks because they present a false sense of security to the consumer.

But Colt’s reply to the charges of contributing to an anti-gun candidate were not so on-target.

Colt’s news release stated, "Colt does not have a Political Action Committee. Colt does not contribute to any political campaign or political candidates. Mr. [Donald E.] Zilkha is not an employee of this company but is a non-employee Chairman of the Board. He is one of many owners and has other companies, including some in New York. He has contributed to a number of Republicans including Speaker Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole and George Bush."

Even though this statement makes it clear that Colt as a corporation did not contribute to anti-gun Rep. Charles Schumer’s election campaign, it has the ring of a "non-denial denial." It doesn’t say that Mr. Zilkha didn’t contribute to Schumer’s campaign (he did).

The average reader looking at this denial could come away with two pointed observations:

First, so what if Mr. Zilkha isn’t an employee? He’s Colt’s Chairman of the Board and as such is a corporate officer. Mr. Zilkha is also an owner of the holding company that owns Colt. Being an owner and corporate officer is a close tie, as far as most people are concerned.

Second, Mr. Zilkha has the right to contribute to any candidate he wishes, but isn’t it a little odd that an owner and corporate officer of a gun manufacturer would give money to a ferociously anti-gun candidate? This gives rise to the troublesome question of a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict, something the gun rights movement certainly doesn’t need.

Colt is a respected gun manufacturer and has been since 1836. It’s hard to imagine American history without Colt guns in it.

Likewise, the Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen is a respected gun-related organization. Perhaps they over-reacted to what they perceived as problems with Colt. We hope the two will settle their differences amicably.

But one of the questions CNJS raised hasn’t been answered: Why is an important gun manufacturing figure contributing to an anti-gun candidate?

 

LAPD HAULED INTO COURT OVER CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT DENIALS

As we reported last month, Los Angeles Police Chief BERNARD C. PARKS has cut the number of Los Angeles residents licensed to carry concealed firearms nearly in half. His action has outraged attorneys, business people and others who need self-protection. PARKS is an old-line Los Angeles Police Department staffer with all the old-line LAPD opposition to issuing concealed carry permits.

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) joined a legal action against the LAPD in 1994 and obtained a stipulated judgment setting forth procedures and standards for issuing CCW permits. As part of the judgment, attorney DON B. KATES appointed on behalf of SAF an appeal panel that has the power only of reviewing and recommending action on CCW denials.

The LAPD never complied with the judgment, and denied virtually all CCW applications. However, in most cases where the appeal panel said the license should be issued, LAPD issued it. The old chief, Willie Williams, accepted this rejection/appeal/issuance sequence as good public policy, but the new chief has drastically cut into the permits issued.

Under the new circumstances, gun rights attorneys put together a huge contempt of court motion against the LAPD, citing 24 different categories of violation in scores of cases. The Los Angeles Superior Court judge hearing the case rejected 20 of the issues saying that there was insufficient paperwork underlying the claims. So the lawyers went back and added hundreds of pages more evidence. The judge reviewed the augmented motion and she issued all 24 citations against the city.

The LAPD’s only response was to argue that a contempt citation cannot be used to enforce the judgment.

In a memo to SAF, attorney DON KATES described a recent court hearing on the motion to hold Chief PARKS in contempt for failure to comply with the provisions of the settlement agreement, especially issuance of licenses.

The lawyers and 35 or more interested parties and witnesses appeared, as did the press. The judge who had signed the order recused herself, stating that her son had made an application for a license and had been denied.

This threw the lawyers into consternation. They had all these witnesses and a huge file, 4 inches thick. But the presiding judge was able to get a new judge in short order. The new judge asked everyone to come back after lunch, by which time he had examined the file.

Attorney KATES wrote in a memo to SAF, "Frankly, I thought it would be a disaster, given the short time the judge had and how politically hot the case was." After seeing how the judge dealt with the hearing, KATES decided about the judge, "Anyway, he does not appear to be in awe of police chiefs or frightened of politically hot issues."

The judge immediately took up LAPD’s principal defense, consisting of the claim that the 1994 stipulated judgment was just a judgment for declaratory relief, not an injunction, so no contempt sanction was available. The judge rejected that. He said that while contempt might be too drastic a sanction, there was authority to impose it for a violation of this order, if the plaintiffs could prove the violation.

Given the little time he had to review the record, the judge indicated he was not in a position to decide whether violations had occurred.

The City Attorney admitted LAPD had failed to give out copies of the guidelines to license applications. In fact, it had been giving out the information that no one would get a license and some inaccurate guidelines. The City Attorney promised that new forms for giving out the guidelines would be ready by mid-July.

The judge made some remarks that KATES interpreted this way: "By the next hearing, the city had better either: a) have submitted proof that the contempt charge is spurious; or b) admitted error and given some convincing assurance that it will begin complying. If the city fails to do one or the other, a contempt order could result.

The G-T Report will keep you informed on progress.

 

GUNS IN HOLLYWOOD: OUT OF THE CLOSET

ATTENTION G-T readers: This was a very successful internet prank worthy of reprinting. There is no show on ABC called, "HELEN."

CHARLTON HESTON, new president of the National Rifle Association, recently said, "In Hollywood there are more gun owners in the closet than homosexuals."

Looks like he’s right. HELEN LaCORCIA, star of the hit ABC sitcom "Helen," made a surprise announcement that took Hollywood insiders by surprise, admitting that she has for many years been the owner of a handgun.

"It’s time to come clean," Ms. LaCORCIA told writer GARY KRIST, patting a holster strapped stylishly under her left shoulder. "If Hollywood and the rest of America can’t accept me for what I am, it’s their problem, not mine."

KRIST wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times, not known for its sympathy toward gun owners.

It was at a hastily called press conference that LaCORCIA appeared, wrote KRIST, drawing her Sig Sauer 9-millimeter semiautomatic and brandishing it in front of the cameras. "And yes, it’s loaded," she said. "Deal with it."

LaCORCIA later made an unscheduled appearance on "OPRAH," elaborating on her revelation. "Hollywood has been hypocritical on this issue for year," she said. "Everyone knows that the industry is full of weapons enthusiasts, but no one wants to admit it. They’re all afraid that nobody will cast them if word gets around that they’re packing heat."

Asked if her television character will also be coming out as a gun owner, the comedian said, "Absolutely. In fact, we’ve already scripted an episode in which HELEN meets someone -- someone special -- who takes her to a firing range and persuades her to fire off a couple practice rounds. She’s converted immediately."

LaCORCIA added, "We’re hoping to get Quentin Tarantino for the part."

GRAYDON MENAKER, media critic for Guns & Ammo magazine, saw the turn in the show as a milestone. "Sure, we’ve had plenty of sitcoms with pistol-packing sidekicks and best friends. But this is the first time we’ll be seeing a fully armed major character in a top-rated comedy series. It’s historic."

Others weren’t so sure. Television executives in particular were more cautious. "The audience for shows like "HELEN" tends to be a lot more pacifist than we realize," said LES GOREHAM, vice president for product placement at CBS. "Our friends at ABC are in uncharted waters here."

Opponents were their usual sarcastic selves. ADELAIDE TIFT of Americans Against the Propagation of Firearms said, "These are supposed to be family shows. Next we’ll have the Nanny toting a .22-caliber Beretta. Or Frazier with an Uzi in his briefcase. And where will it end? ‘Third Glock From the Sun’?"

It’s the regular viewers of "HELEN" who will make the final decision. Writer GARY KRIST interviewed MALIA, a self-described munitions performance artist from New York. "I’m proud of her," said MALIA. "It’s about time someone stood up and showed the world that owning a handgun doesn’t make us any different from anyone else. I had actually lost interest in the show recently, but now I’ll be glued to my set every week."

Another longtime fan expressed reservations. "I guess I’ll still watch it," said Jennifer of Chicago, who has watched the show since its premiere. "As long as the writers don’t get too trigger-happy, you know? I watch "HELEN" to have a few laughs, not to be lectured at about the social acceptability of possessing weapons."

Looking suddenly embarrassed, she quickly added, "Not that there’s anything wrong with that."

GARY KRIST ended his op-ed piece with that telling close.

Maybe things are changing for the better.

 

CONGRESS HEARS HUNTING TESTIMONY BY PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED YOUTH

JACK FASCIANA, a 14-year-old victim of a neuromuscular disease, early onset torsion dystonia, recently testified in support of the Disabled Sportsmen’s Access Act, H.R. 2760. The boy’s disease robs its victims of their ability to perform routine tasks such as lifting an arm, opening and closing a hand, or bending a knee to walk.

FASCIANA is unable to play sports such as soccer or basketball, but he can still hunt. He told the House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans, "Federal lands are part of America’s heritage and part of its living legacy to all its citizens, including disabled sportsmen. H.R. 2760 allows a partnership between the Department of Defense and the private sector so that they can join forces to make these federal lands accessible to people like me."

The bill would give handicapped sportsmen access of land managed by the Department of Defense by enabling it to accept donations from the private sector for construction of fishing piers, duck blinds, and anything else that would enhance opportunities for the handicapped to hunt and fish on military installations. The DOD manages 25 million acres of land, an area roughly the size of Virginia.

Young FASCIANA told the subcommittee, "Safari Club International, which has been a leader in providing opportunities to disabled hunters, is an example of a private sector organization that will be an effective partner."

JACK FASCIANA is the recipient of the Safari Club International’s first Special Young Hunter award. The Club is a non-profit organization dedicated to conservation of wildlife, education of the public and protection of hunters’ rights. It has 170 chapters, 30,000 members and one million affiliated hunters on six continents.

 

NATION’S MAYORS MEETING URGED TO QUIT "SLOGANEERING"

"Drop the sloganeering, forget the 10 second sound bites, and stop the political posturing."

That was the advice to the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting last month given by RICHARD J. FELDMAN, executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council (ASSC), an industry group representing firearm manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

FELDMAN told the mayors that while "there are issues which may divide us, we must not allow those points on which we disagree to prevent us from achieving the goals on which we do agree" - solving the problems of firearms violence and juvenile crime, for example.

"Those of us in the firearm business share the same concerns as all Americans for ourselves, our families and our loved ones to be safe and secure from violence," said FELDMAN. "And, we have an even heightened concern when our products are misused either criminally or negligently because we are wrongfully being accused as the cause of that violence."

It was ASSC and 15 firearm manufacturers that announced last October in a Rose Garden ceremony with President CLINTON that the industry would begin voluntarily providing firearm safety locking devices with their products. That meeting has stirred intense controversy among gun owners, manufacturers that did not participate, and those who participated but felt the media misrepresented their statements.

 

SYLVESTER STALLONE URGES REPEAL OF SECOND AMENDMENT

Action movie star SYLVESTER STALLONE, who now lives in England, said on a recent segment of the syndicated Access Hollywood television show that the Second Amendment has to be abandoned: "It has to be stopped, and someone really has to go on the line, a certain dauntless political figure, and say, it’s ending, it’s over, all bets are off. It’s not 200 years ago, we don’t need this anymore, and the rest of the world doesn’t have it. Why should we?"

 

AROUND THE STATES

Florida: HB 3713, legislation which extends the term of validity for a Florida carry license from 3 to 5 years (without any increase in cost) became law without Governor LAWTON CHILES’s signature.

Massachusetts: H 5636, formerly H 5622, passed the full House. It now heads to the Senate for concurrence. H 5636 contains many anti-gun provisions, including language giving Chiefs of Police more authority in denying licenses and even gives them the ability to set whatever restrictions and boundaries they see fit on where you may carry or transport your firearms. Most drastically, you would have no grounds on which to appeal, since H 5636 gives them the sole discretion to decide, and if you are found violating restrictions you could face stiff fines or prison.

Michigan: House Bills 5551-5557 were reported out of the House Oversight and Ethics Committee. They now move to the House floor for consideration. These bills replace the current discriminatory concealed carry system with a much for fair system of issuance.

Minnesota: At the Republican State Convention in Minneapolis, pro-gun St. Paul Mayor NORM COLEMAN was nominated as the Republican candidate for governor. Mayor COLEMAN is campaigning on Second Amendment rights and is a strong supporter of the right to carry.

South Carolina: H 4631, a proposal mandating the use of trigger locks on firearms, was defeated in the Senate.

Wisconsin: AB 308, the range protection bill, was signed by Governor Thompson. Wisconsin now becomes the 34th state to have this type of measure on the books.

 

NATIONAL GUN RIGHTS REPORT

U.S. House of Representatives: The House Subcommittee on Crime passed H.R. 218, Rep. RANDY CUNNINGHAM’s (R-CA) bill that would allow current and former law enforcement officers to carry firearms for personal protection nationwide. The Subcommittee also attached to this legislation an amendment offered by Rep. BILL McCOLLUM (R-FL), the subcommittee chairman, which provides a reciprocal mechanism for right to carry permit holders to carry in other right to carry states. H.R. 218 passed on a 7-2 vote. The bill now goes to the full House Judiciary Committee.

U.S. Representative BOB BARR (R-GA) introduced a bill, H.R. 3949, that prohibits a tax on the right to keep and bear arms by prohibiting fees to be charged for the background check that will go into effect in November in compliance with the Brady Act. Rep. BARR’s bill also requires the destruction of all personal identity information and records on approved firearms transfers.

U.S. Senate: Senator TED STEVENS (R-AK) introduced legislation similar to Rep. BOB BARR’s, S. 2128, which prohibits the FBI from charging gun owners for using NICS, the national instant check system.

U.S. Supreme Court: The Supreme Court ruled that people can be found guilty of "wilfully" selling guns without a license even if there’s no proof they knew about the licensing requirement. The ruling upheld a New York man’s federal conviction. The court said one provision of the federal Firearms Owners Protection Act requires prosecutors to prove only that defendants knew they were selling guns illegally. The 1986 law bans the selling of guns by anyone who does not have a federal license to do so.

U.S. Forest Service: The Tucson Rod & Gun Club may soon get a new shooting range in the Coronado National Forest to replace one shut down by USFS agents. Rep. JIM KOLBE (R-AZ) convinced Agriculture Secretary DAN GLICKMAN to order the USFS to find an alternative site by mid-November.

 

HONEST COP: POLICE CHIEF FINES HIMSELF

With all the dirty-cop movies filling the movie and television screens in the past few years, it’s refreshing to learn of a cop so honest he turns himself in and fines himself.

Maybe they’ll make a movie about him, but somehow we doubt it.

Such a man is THOMAS O’BRIEN, police chief of Scotch Plains in northeastern New Jersey.

He has an unblemished record over 34 years and has been police chief for the past two years.

Last month he went shopping for some new clothes in the department store in the neighboring town of Wachtung.

In a dressing room, he laid his service revolver on a bench while he tried on his selections.

They weren’t what he was looking for.

He stepped out of the dressing room to look for more clothes.

A few minutes later, while O’BRIEN was sorting through the racks, another shopper, a man in his early 30s, entered the same dressing room.

The shopper saw the gun and picked it up, thinking it was a toy. Toys are to play with, so the shopper squeezed the trigger.

Bang!

A very real bullet splattered into the dressing room wall. Fortunately, that’s where it stopped without injuring anybody.

Chief O’BRIEN instantly realized what had happened and rushed back to the dressing room to retrieve his weapon.

The shopper was only too glad to surrender the "toy."

Chief O’BRIEN reported the incident himself and subjected himself to prosecutors for violating police department guidelines and investigation of misconduct.

When the legal system looked up the appropriate penalty, Chief O’BRIEN agreed to pay a fine of seven days’ pay, $1,500, for violating police department guidelines.

"He basically fined himself," Scotch Plains Deputy Mayor WILLIAM McCLINTOCK said.

He said O’BRIEN was not suspended because of his perfect record.

"We still think he’s a good cop," McCLINTOCK said.

O’BRIEN was cleared of misconduct by prosecutors.

We think he’s a good cop, too.

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