The Violence Policy Center’s Josh Sugarmann (a good FOGG*) has made another appearance over at the Huffington Post, this time calling out a Georgia Congressman for trying to overturn a gun law that’s been keeping illegal dealers from selling state-to-state for years.
Georgia Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey briefly gained notoriety in 2004 when after a visit to Guantanamo Bay he issued a newsletter calling the detention center “professional, humane and innovative–a model for similar detention facilities.”
This Thursday, May 11, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security is scheduled to consider Gingrey’s latest exercise in sound judgment: a bill, H.R. 1384, to repeal the interstate ban on handgun sales, a law which has been on the books since 1968. Gingrey would also lift the federal law’s current restriction that prevents Federal Firearms License holders (FFLs) from operating at out-of-state gun shows, a provision aimed at prohibiting multi-state, roving “gun show dealers.”
These laws help prevent interstate gun trafficking by enhancing the ability of states to enforce their own restrictions on who may sell handguns, who may buy handguns, and what types of handguns may be sold. Gingrey’s bill comes at the same time that a growing chorus of big-city mayors are calling for increased efforts to beef up existing laws as they work to stop illegal interstate gun trafficking. Traffickers exploit weak state gun laws, primarily in the South, to supply guns to gangs and criminals in urban areas. But Gingrey’s bill would completely undermine states’ ability to control their own handgun market and oversee dealers who sell at gun shows.
The sworn enemy of Gingrey’s bill? Inconvenience. One can only imagine the strain of being on vacation in Pigeon Forge, TN, seeing a handgun you just have to have at a gun dealer, and then being forced–yes, by the government!–to have it shipped to a licensed dealer in your home state before you can legally take possession of it. And contrary to what some pro-gunners might hope, merely being able to buy a gun in a different state would not give you the ability to carry the gun in that city or state to protect yourself from the C.H.U.D.s.
HOW DARE the federal government create a law like this? Sure, it keeps illegal gun dealers from trading their guns to and from criminals in between states, and sure it’s worked for years and there’s no reason at all to get rid of it, but my gosh! It’s INCONVIENT for gun buyers to not have their guns immediately in their hands! They might have to– gasp– wait a few days.
Gingrey’s rationale is that his bill would simply extend to handguns the law that currently applies to shotguns and rifles. Yet the reason why federal law treats handguns differently is compelling. Small, easily hidden, and singularly deadly, handguns represent roughly one third of the firearms in circulation, yet they are associated with the vast majority of gun violence and gun crime. In 2004, handguns accounted for 78 percent of firearm homicides. Handguns are also by far the most prevalent weapon used to kill law enforcement officers. Sixty-nine percent of law enforcement officers slain in the line of duty from 1992 through 2002 were killed with handguns.
Representative Gingrey’s time might be be better spent worrying about the gun problem in his home state. Georgia ranks 15th in the nation in overall gun-related death, so much for the empty promise that “knowing and respecting guns” guarantees that they won’t end up killing you, with a rate of 13.51 per 100,000–much higher than the national average of 10.36 per hundred thousand. Meanwhile, Georgia supplies many of the guns that mayors in cities like Boston and New York are complaining about.
But to raise these facts would be, well, inconvenient.
Sugarmann’s dead on with this one. We’re having enough of a gun trafficking problem with the laws we already have on the books. There’s no need, inconvenience or not, to start removing laws that are in place to prevent interstate gun trafficking. Gingrey is showing his true colors here by espousing a law that would hurt his citizens more than it would help them (and vice versa for the gun lobby).
