New Day Dawning for Gun Violence Prevention
By Paul Helmke, Brady Campaign president
Last year at this time, I said that America was turning a corner on the gun issue, and the watershed events of 2008 confirmed that prediction.
The past year brought fundamental change to the way we understand and talk about gun violence prevention. The year also offered hope for the future, as the Brady Campaign endorsed – and our grassroots activists helped elect – Barack Obama as President of the United States, along with many other new officeholders who support taking steps to reduce gun violence.
Looking ahead to 2009, we are optimistic about making significant progress in our fight for common sense gun laws to help make our families and communities safer.
Reducing the toll of 100,000 Americans killed or wounded every year by gunfire – including 20,000 children and teens – is a concern of many of these new and returning officeholders. For the first time in decades, there is reason to hope that we can end the polarization in our politics that has kept us from enacting laws to reduce that terrible statistic, while also respecting Second Amendment rights as defined by the Supreme Court last summer.
President-elect Obama's statements were consistent – to gun owners, gun violence victims, and to all Americans – that he would uphold the Second Amendment and support common sense gun control laws that help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. We have no doubt that he will keep his promise. As then-Senator Obama said while accepting the Democratic nomination for President in Denver:
The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.
Looking back at 2008, the year began on a positive note on January 8 with President George W. Bush signing the first major new gun control law in a decade: the NICS Improvement Act. Passage of the Act was aided by the powerful testimony of families and survivors of the Virginia Tech massacre, as well as the persistent determination of members of Congress such as Representative Carolyn McCarthy and Senator Charles Schumer. This new law helps close a loophole in the Brady criminal background check system that allowed the Virginia Tech killer to buy the semi-automatic handguns he used in the worst mass shooting in modern American history.
While a few states have taken the lead to provide more records of prohibited purchasers to the Brady background check system since last January, too many states have not. Out of an estimated 2.6 million records of the dangerously mentally ill in this country, less than 20 percent have been provided to the Brady background check system so far. The 2009 legislative session offers states a new opportunity to do their part and make sure that dangerous people don't pass a Brady background check because of incomplete information, as the Virginia Tech killer did.
Last year's 110th session of Congress also bears some responsibility for this shortfall in records. Rather than appropriate funds for the NICS Improvement Act to help states forward more records of dangerous people to the system, Congress spent more time on second-guessing the gun ordinances of a local government instead. The Brady Campaign's U.S. Senate allies, however, successfully blocked efforts by some members of Congress to act as a super-City Council for the people of the District of Columbia.
In the spring of 2008, the nation marked the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. On April 16, the Brady Campaign joined surviving victims and families of those killed in that terrible shooting – as well as activists from ProtestEasyGuns.com (a grassroots anti-gun violence organization founded by Abigail Spangler) – to observe the day. Events were held in over 100 cities and towns across the country in public squares, college campuses and even in front of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on the evening of a debate between Senator Hillary Clinton and then-Senator Obama.
Activists gathered in groups of about 32 people, wore maroon and orange ribbons (Virginia Tech's colors) and rested on the ground in silent protest of the nation's weak gun laws, calling on their elected officials to close the gun show loophole. It was an amazing outpouring of grassroots support for stronger, common sense gun laws.
Powerful as that occasion was, an even more significant event for gun violence prevention advocates came in June when the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. This landmark opinion fundamentally changed the way most people should now think and talk about the gun control issue – though not in the way many observers expected. It must be said, however, that two weeks before the opinion was handed down, the Brady Campaign correctly predicted the outcome of the Heller decision and what that would mean, as events in the Autumn would soon confirm.
While we opposed the Court's decision to overrule 70 years of precedent and over 200 years of Second Amendment history, gun violence prevention advocates praised Section III of Justice Antonin Scalia's decision to find a wide variety of gun control regulations "presumptively lawful" under the Constitution. Such laws include restrictions against carrying concealed weapons, laws against gun possession by felons and the mentally ill, laws against taking guns into "sensitive places" such as schools and government buildings, and laws that restrict "dangerous and unusual" weapons. Indeed, Justice Scalia stated that his list of "presumptively lawful" regulations comprised only examples, and was "not exhaustive."
The fundamental outcome of the Heller decision is that the Supreme Court made it clear that gun violence prevention efforts and the Second Amendment are compatible. The practical effect of this approach is that it takes the extremes of the gun debate off the table. On one hand, total gun bans aren't even a theoretical option anymore – a result that doesn't affect our work because the Brady Campaign doesn't favor such a policy. On the other hand, the preference of some in the gun lobby for any gun, any place, at any time, with few or no restrictions, is also off the table – a result that ironically leaves the National Rifle Association's leadership in a political box.
Why? After Heller, there is clearly a right to own a gun for self-defense in the home, while guns may still be regulated by our elected officials in order to protect public safety. Since the Supreme Court has affirmed the Constitutional right to own a gun while also affirming most restrictions on guns as "presumptively lawful," the doomsday scenarios advanced by the gun lobby of a slippery-slope to total gun confiscation are totally make-believe. The reality is that the Supreme Court's middle ground position is exactly where the American people are, and it has helped push the gun debate away from squabbling about 200-year-old history into practical discussions about how to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people today.
For example, a June 2008 CNN poll found that while 67% of Americans believe the Second Amendment guarantees each person the right to own a gun, 79% of Americans favor requiring gun owners to register their guns with the local government. That result tracks with polling of Election 2008 voters on behalf of the Brady Campaign by the Washington, DC public opinion firm Penn, Schoen & Berland. Voters in November supported common sense gun laws across partisan and ideological lines, and in all regions of the country. 83% of voters supported criminal background checks for all gun sales; 68% favored both gun registration and licensing; 65% favored banning military-style assault weapons; and 65% of voters favored requiring a five-day waiting period before purchasing a firearm. As Penn, Schoen & Berland concluded, "…sensible gun legislation provides a unique opportunity for the [Obama] Administration to build a bridge to moderate voters in both parties."
For these reasons, Election 2008 showed that winning the most significant Second Amendment case in American history actually makes it harder for the NRA bosses to terrify voters once again into believing that elected officials will somehow "take their guns away." Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox promised to spend $40 million in the election telling voters that Barack Obama was going to be "the most anti-gun President in American history" because he favored common sense gun policies. Most voters rejected the NRA's campaign as ridiculous, however, and instead listened to their own common sense, voting their hopes instead of their fears.
The National Rifle Association leadership took crushing losses on Election Day as a result. President-elect Obama defeated NRA-endorsed Senator John McCain in states from North Carolina to Nevada, New Hampshire to New Mexico, and dozens in between. President-elect Obama won 365 Electoral Votes, carrying my home state of Indiana – and even the NRA's home state of Virginia – for the first time any Democrat for president carried either state since Lyndon Johnson. NRA candidates lost not only the White House, but also eight competitive U.S. senate races – including New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon and very likely Minnesota – as well as over 20 competitive U.S. House races. No wonder the National Journal magazine rated the National Rifle Association among the "Bottom Five" least effective interest groups in the 2008 elections.
One of the reasons we won and the NRA bosses lost was because they were stuck in the old politics of division, portraying the gun issue as a false choice between the U.S. Constitution and gun violence prevention. Since the Supreme Court's landmark decision last June, however, it is clear that we can have both in this country. So today, with less than two weeks before President-elect Obama is inaugurated as America's 44th President, where does the gun violence prevention movement stand?
I believe our movement is in a stronger position to pass life-saving gun laws in 2009 and beyond, than at any time in decades. With Vice President-elect Joe Biden, White House Chief of Staff-designate Rahm Emmanuel, Attorney General-designate Eric Holder, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Homeland Security-designate Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Education-designate Arne Duncan, Secretary of Labor-designate Hilda Solis and other key Administration officials, gun violence prevention advocates are likely to have many friends in the Executive Branch of the Federal government for the first time in a long while. What's more, with over 10 new members of Congress endorsed by the Brady Campaign having just taken the oath of office, advocates can build on the successes of 2008 by working to create new problem-solving coalitions in 2009.
Make no mistake, however, there is much work to do. There are only a handful of national gun control laws on the books today, and even those have loopholes. To help keep guns away from dangerous people:
- We need to require Brady criminal background checks for all gun sales in this country, including at gun shows.
- We need to restrict access to military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
- We need to limit bulk sales of handguns to cut illegal gun trafficking.
- We need to crack down on the 1.2% of corrupt gun dealers who account for almost 60% of crime guns in America.
- We need to give law enforcement agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) the funding and staff they need to disrupt the illegal gun trade.
It really is a new day for the gun violence prevention movement in America. Yet if we are to build on the successes of 2008 and take advantage of the many new opportunities ahead in 2009, we will need your help.
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More people are killed by automobiles each year than by guns ! What do you propose you should do about that?
TRUE FACT: The state with the most gun control laws has a murder rate that is over four times higher than the state with the LEAST gun control.
Impossible you say? Well, the Brady Campaign Scorecard rates California highest at 79 for their many (over 20) state gun control laws. They score Utah the lowest as the only state to receive a zero score. The FBI Crime Report shows Utah has a murder rate of 1.3 per 100,000 compared to California's 5.3.
Brady would like to dismantle individual ownership of guns . Example: they campaign for renewal of the assault weapons ban despite knowing that ALL rifles account for less than two percent of gun crimes. They know and understand that a law against a subgroup of rifles will not make a dent in crime but it is easy to sell fear of semi-automatic guns. They also know additional gun control will lead to more death (i.e. Chicago).
The six states with the lowest murder rates in the U.S. have all adopted a policy of "Shall Issue" concealed carry.
For more on this topic, read John Lott's book "More Guns, Less Crime". And I am..... E. Zach Lee-Wright
E Zach Lee-Wright
Well I think that Obama has his work cut out for him with other things for a while anyhow.
However the second amendment says that all citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. It does not exclude people not of sound mind or perfect background. The Heller case pointed out it was an individual right not that of a militia.
I would have no issues with him increasing penalties of criminals that use firearms to commit crimes to be more sever then someone committing a crime without using a gun. I do not think that most criminals will go through legal channels to purchase guns anyhow so placing any restrictions on the purchase of guns is actually counter productive to the citizen who wishes to be able to protect themselves from the criminals. Besides If a person commits a crime that holds a possible penalty of over 2 years which includes many misdemeanors current federal law will not allow them to own a gun and that turns into a lifelong loss of their civil rights.
Personally I think that concealed carry permits should be required to be honored by all states and provinces just like drivers licenses are currently.
As far as "assault weapons" go it seems to me that most people do not even know how to define the term. In most cases they do not know the difference between semi automatic and automatic. I would like to point out that there are several weapons that are being targeted as assault weapons among them the AR15 and AK47 which are currently available in many states that do not support the assault weapons ban. However these are not fully automatic weapons being purchased they are semi automatic versions of the firearms. In order to own or possess a fully automatic weapon in this country you need to be a Federal Firearms Dealer but also have a class 3 tax stamp as well.
The Paul Helmkes and Sarah Bradys are completely delusional, or lying. You are 53 times more likely to die in an automobile accident that from a firearm ( www.gunfacts.info ). You're twice as likely to die from a fall on stairs. If saving lives REALLY is THE issue, why not go for the most bang for the buck?
With that said, gun control has been forced on the citizens of various countries for years. Just in the last century, MILLIONS were killed by their governments ( http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm #chart) after various gun control schemes were enacted.
Peace, Through Superior Firepower
Helmke desperately needs to believe the climate has changed because his tenure with the Brady Bunch has so far been ignominious and flaccid in the extreme.
He couldn't be more wrong about everything. In the first place, the Second Amendment is going to be in the hands of the Supreme Court for years now, and if liberals want to keep propping up unconstitutional legislation the NRA (a grass roots group of 3 to 4 million Americans, not a handful of "bosses") is going to keep taking these anti-Bill-of-Rights regulations to the Court to be ruled moot.
The trouble with people like Helmke is that they always claim to want "common sense" laws to "keep guns away from dangerous people" as he says above. The infamous "wrong hands."
But they continually write bills to take guns away from EVERYONE -- and that is NEVER going to pass muster with the Bill of Rights, because ALL Americans DO NOT have "the wrong hands."
Shortly before the Obama election, the ball was kicked into the Supreme Court's laps, and thank God for that favor, because it's clear that the Heller decision will get further definition and it's just as clear that that further clarity will not favor anti-Bill-of-Rights seditionists who want to perpetrate their dangerous "America as it SHOULD be" nonsense against our nation's long-cherished gun rights.
Helmke only wished the NRA was a handful of CEOs, like the oil, bank and auto lobbies. The NRA is an organization of millions of Americans who expect the leadership to do whatever is necessary to defend Article II, which by the way rubs shoulders with its equal, the First Amendment.
Until Helmke is willing to grant that freedom of speech, expression and assembly should be controlled in "common sense" ways, he'll never get why he can't infringe rights that clearly state they must not be infringed.
Helmke's just another delusional leftist who can't stand an America whose core values affirm and guarantee its people's continued natural, inalienable, uninfringeable right to the arms of their choice. As Scalia put it in the Heller decision, just because we now use M-16s doesn't mean anyone, particularly the Supreme Court, may infringe, let alone cancel, Americans' fundamental, individual, constitutional right to keep & bear arms.
The research by PSBResearch needs to be addressed:
First of all, the only sampled 200 people. I'm no Statistician, but I recall that a minimum of 1200-1500 people need to be polled in order for the margin of error to be acceptable ( > .05). Also, there is no way of knowing who was sampled. We do know that half of the people polled were from "New Blue States" (which consists of only 8 states). I doubt anyone from Texas, Wyoming or Montana were polled. An interesting question that PSBResearch should have included is "Do you feel you have a good understanding of firearms." I would bet the majority would answer 'no'. Anyone who is educated about firearms understands that Helmke's plan would not stop crime. Why would an Assault weapons ban work THIS TIME, when it failed under Clinton. Even if it did work, “Assault weapons” are used in less than 1% of violent crime. My last beef with PSBResearch is that it is a business entity designed "to give our clients the strategic insights they need to beat the competition." The quote was taken directly from their website...in other words, if you pay them, they'll come up with whatever you want them too.
I understand some "common sense" gun laws, but I don't think the Brady Campaign does. If they truly wanted only 'common sense' gun laws (and support gun rights as they claim), you think out of the 20,000 laws on the books, and of the thousands more that have been proposed, they would have stood out against at least ONE. The fact remains that if it restricts gun ownership, they are for it. It could be a law that states "any person whom has received a parking ticket shall not own any gun made prior to 1832. Nor shall said person purchase any firearm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and/or the same day of the week in which he received said parking violation" and they would support it for "the safety of our nation."
If the Brady Campaign truly had a leg to stand on, they would use true experiments that could be peer reviewed showing the dangers of firearms. The fact is all of those studies favor gun ownership. In stead, the have to manipulate facts, rely on anecdotal or case evidence to scare others into thinking only more laws will prevent violence and murder (which I thought were already illegal.) Only the uninformed can take away gun rights thinking they are protecting the public.
Pass an new ban on semi-automatic rifles of the sort you envision and have stated publicly that should ban several classes of heretofore legal weapons, and watch what happens.
Pass another law authorizing the federal seizure of total control over ALL private transfers of arms (the deliberately misnamed lie called the "gun show loophole"), and watch what happens.
"The time has come, the walrus said to talk of many things," like armed civil disobedience to the collectivist pukes such as Helmke who wish to seize more of our traditional, natural and God-given liberty and property rights.
For 75 years we've been pushed back from the free exercise of our right to arms. Each time, we went, grumbling. This time, Helmke, we will NOT back up. This time you will have to come and get us. This time, we will fight.
In the interim between the last time you felt this cocky, the election of Bill Clinton, and now, two things have happened -- Waco and Bill Clinton's adoption of rules of engagement for the Serbians that made the politicians, media and ideological support structure of the Milosevic regime legitimate targets of war. We have studied both. So should you, before you take this nation to the brink of civil war.
Be careful what you wish for, Helmke, you (and we) may get it.
Mike Vanderboegh
Pinson, AL
sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com
It's about control.
It's not about Gun Rights.
It's about rights.
It is my opinion that the brady campaign is determined to start a new revolution, by forcing the 80,000,000+ law abiding gun owners to protect their rights to keep and bear arms. This must be their plan since obviously criminals do not abide by any laws currently in force, hence any new law they help get pushed through, will also have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the criminals, only on the law abiding gun owners. American gun owners know this, and they are tired of having their rights trampled. Law abiding gun owners in the USA have had it with the lies that the brady campaign repeatedly tells to help get their laws passed. Law abiding gun owners didn't vote for Obama for him to turn around and thank them by trashing their rights, and if he does I guarantee you that it will cost him re-election. The brady campaign wont admit it but it is a fact that there are millions of people in this country who are licensed to carry a concealed handgun, and everywhere that laws have been passed allowing this, the violent crime rate has DROPPED, not increased as they would have everybody believe. If the brady campaign was interested in reducing gun violence in this country, instead of hassling law abiding gun owners, they would be gong after tougher laws for the criminals who are perpetrating the gun violence against unarmed victims. There are stories everyday in this country where the criminals have been stopped by law abiding gun owners, many times by individuals who are licensed to carry concealed handguns, because we are there ready to defend ourselves and other people around us too. Police cannot protect you, they only show up after you have been victimized or killed, to clean up the mess and write a report. The brady campaign should change their slogan to "The Criminal's Voice in the legislature". Criminals are all for gun control because the more people who are disarmed, means the lesser the chance that they will be stopped. Criminals avoid victimizing people who can defend themselves or may actually hurt or kill their attacker. Another thing that is caused by ridiculous gun laws, that the brady campaign calls "sensible gun laws", is it turns law abiding citizens into criminals, because they refuse to abide by these ridiculous laws, and become victims, as the brady campaign desires. If they are going to continue to pass ridiculous gun laws, then they better get to building a whole bunch of prisons because there is a huge group of gun owners in this country that are going to refuse to abide by these laws, and will need a place to stay as they arrested for breaking them. Meanwhile the gun violence will continue unabated and increase as more unarmed victims become prey.
To “insure domestic tranquility,” a goal of our Constitution as stated in its preamble, we need to enact and enforce legislation to keep arms out of the hands of the irresponsible.