Guns.
There are few topics more hotly debated in this country, from our constitutional right to bear arms to the wrongs committed by some while bearing those arms.
The overwhelming majority of gun owners are responsible, careful and law-abiding people. The criminal actions of the active minority are fueling the debate, pitting our rights against their wrongs.
In the sorrow and shadow of the Orlando nightclub shooting, there is a renewed effort to revive federal legislation that would require gun buyers to be checked against the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s terrorist watch list. It’s an idea supported by both Democrats and Republicans, although their approaches are different and there is no compromise in sight.
The Dems support checking against names on the list, giving the U.S. attorney general authority to block sales on a case-by-case basis. The Rs support blocking sales only when the government can prove a person either already has committed or “will commit” an act of terrorism.
Of course, that wouldn’t have stopped the Orlando massacre because Omar Mateen wasn’t currently on a watch list. It wouldn’t have stopped the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., either. Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were not on the watch list and the guns used in the killings were legally purchased.
That doesn’t mean checking gun buyers against a watch list isn’t a good idea, if Congress could ever agree on how it will work, but the process will not identify all threats.
And, to be frank, if states cannot figure out how to implement cross-checking of felons against hunting licenses — even though each state manages these public records — how can we realistically expect the far more massive federal government to create an efficient and fair system of checking all gun buyers against an evolving terrorist watch list?
A decade ago, an Associated Press investigation found that tens of thousands of felons across the country who are banned from possessing guns, and by extension hunting licenses, are still easily able to get those licenses because there are few restrictions and no cross-checks. According to its report, only Rhode Island and Maine keep felons from getting hunting licenses.
But that’s not really true.
Maine law does bar felons from getting hunting licenses, but there is no mechanism in place to implement the law. Felons are — feel free to chortle here — on the honor system to stop themselves from applying for a hunting license.
Some felons will hunt with bows, but state officials across the country acknowledge the vast majority are hunting with guns they’re not supposed to have.
Take brothers Andrew and Stephen Bean of Paris, for example.
Felons both, they have also been regular long gun hunters who have applied for and routinely received hunting licenses almost every year since 1997.
Both were charged in March with being felons in possession of a firearm.
Last November, Andrew Bean was in possession of a Maverick 12-gauge shotgun; his brother had a .270-caliber Winchester bolt-action rifle. These are no-frills guns, but neither man is legally allowed to have them. And, yet they did. Both held hunting licenses at the time, and were known to have been hunting on a neighbor’s property.
Both men have since pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to the charges, and are now awaiting sentencing. Each face up to 10 years in federal prison.
Clearly, the idea that we hold felons on their honor not to apply for hunting permits or own guns doesn’t work.
In the now 10-year-old AP report on felons’ access to hunting permits, then Lt. Rich Mann of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife explained that license dealers have no way of checking criminal convictions to identify felons, so licenses are issued. Thousands of them.
“If someone wants to play with the system and beat you at it, they will,” Mann said.
And they will.
They’re crooks.
To expect terrorists to play by the rules is equally absurd.
So, rather than the immediate dissection and discussion of whether to check gun buyers against the watch list, perhaps time in Congress would be better spent resurrecting the proven 1994 assault weapons ban.
Had a ban been in place, Omar Mateen may not have been able to purchase a Sig Sauer .223-caliber semiautomatic rifle in Florida.
Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik may not have been able to possess two same-caliber semiautomatic modified rifles in California.
And 63 people might still be alive.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
