Gun swap helps but don't be fooled

Getting guns off the street is a good thing. That's what local law-enforcement agencies said they did Aug. 14 when they exchanged $50 gift cards and sneakers for 443 guns that were handed over by area residents.

To claim that 443 guns were taken off the street, as if so much crime paraphernalia had been rounded up, panders to the absurd notion that every gun is a street gun. If those guns really came from the street, there should have been 443 arrests. An investigation, at least. What were all those people doing with those street guns anyway?

What really happened was hundreds of responsible gun owners took advantage of a convenient means of unloading unwanted guns.

I have no quarrel with the accomplishments of the event. I take issue only with the mind-set evidenced by the claim that those guns came from the street -- the guns-equal-crime mentality. This is the same mind-set from which much of our anti-gun legislation is conceived.

It's such a clich -- guns don't commit crimes; people do -- that even I, as a gun owner, am tired of hearing it, but only because of what its repetitiveness means: For such a perfectly succinct statement of the obvious, so many people still don't get it.

Criminals do not obey gun laws. They will not register their guns. They will not obtain a license to carry a gun. They will not be stopped by signs prohibiting guns.

Criminals don't hand over their guns to law-enforcement officers either. A 12-year old wielding two plastic BB guns took $700 cash in a recent holdup. What self-respecting criminal is going to turn in a 9 mm for a pair of sneakers?

The only people affected by gun laws are the same ones who voluntarily give their unwanted guns to the police -- law-abiding people.

A parent possessing a concealed-weapons permit will never stop a school shooting because he or she will not have brought a weapon to the parent-teacher conference. The would-be criminal will not be so restrained by the law. He may, in fact, be emboldened by the sign in front of every school that essentially says, "Nobody here is armed."

The Aug. 14 event was only one responsible means of ridding unwanted guns. Responsible gun owners might also choose to sell their guns to a licensed gun dealer or to another law-abiding citizen. If I really wanted to step on some politically correct anti-gun toes, I could suggest the law-enforcement agencies involved in the gun-swap event do exactly that and apply the money to their operating budgets. But, I suppose that would return those guns from whence they came -- the street.

Responsibly disposing of unwanted guns is a good thing. Those citizens who took responsibility to keep their unwanted guns out of the wrong hands should be commended, as should those who organized and participated in the event to take them in. But, let's not be fooled by the anti-gun rhetoric: The street guns are still on the street.

By: Keith R. Waters, The Orlando Sentinel

Gun 'rights' vs. freedom

Supporters of the right to keep and bear arms have long recognized the value of firearms for the defense of life, liberty and property. But in Florida, a perverse conception of the 2nd Amendment has produced the opposite effect: The cause of gun rights is being used to attack property rights.

In 1987, Florida wisely affirmed personal freedom by letting law-abiding citizens get permits to carry concealed weapons. But this year, the legislature decided it was not enough to let licensees pack in public places. They also should be allowed to take their guns into private venues—even if the property owner objects.

The "take your guns to work" law says anyone with a conceal-carry permit has a legal right to keep his gun locked in his car in the company parking lot. Until recently, companies had the authority to make the rules on their own premises. But when it comes to guns, that freedom is defunct.

The National Rifle Association says any corporation that forbids firearms in its parking areas is violating the 2nd Amendment. That may sound like a promising argument, since the Supreme Court recently struck down a Washington handgun ban as an infringement on the constitutional guarantee. It's not.

Robert Levy, the Cato Institute lawyer who participated in the successful challenge of the Washington ordinance, says the Florida law "has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment." The Constitution, he notes, is a limit on government power, not a constraint on what private individuals or corporations may do.

A municipal government may not forbid guns to everyone on the territory under its control. But, as far as the Constitution is concerned, a private property owner certainly can.

A federal court recently upheld the law, but not because of the Bill of Rights. It said that "the constitutional right to bear arms restricts the actions of only the federal or state governments or their subdivisions, not private actors," and noted that the NRA "has been unable to cite any authority for its position."

So the law doesn't uphold gun rights. What it does do is infringe on property rights. The Florida Chamber of Commerce makes the obvious argument that there is no right "to have a gun in your car on someone else's property" (my emphasis). But the law tells company owners they have no control over workers who insist on bringing deadly weapons onto their premises.

Conceal-carry licensees complain that if they can't keep their guns in their cars, they will have no protection on their way to and from work. That's true. But what about employees who walk, bike or take the bus? Since the law doesn't give them the right to take their guns into the workplace, they have to leave them at home. Should the state force companies to let workers carry pistols into the factory, office or day-care center?

This is not a place where the government should substitute its judgment for that of the property owners. One lawyer told The Bradenton Herald, "I have clients that have to carry out terminations. Sometimes that termination is volatile. A lot of places have a policy where they walk the terminated employee to his car. What if you walk the guy to his car that has a gun? I wouldn't want to be that supervisor."

Given that crimes by permit holders are exceedingly rare, the employers who want to ban guns may be running from shadows. But decisions about their safety, and that of their customers and employees, should be theirs to make.

For some people, being temporarily deprived of a firearm creates great anxiety. But for those with a strong aversion to guns, working at a company that allows weapons in cars has the same effect. In a free society, both sets of employees can solve the problem with a simple expedient: exercising their liberty to find a company whose policies suit their preferences.

For the NRA to demand that guns be allowed in every company lot is just as oppressive as it would be for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence to insist they be prohibited in every company lot. When gun-rights advocates oppose the use of government power to suppress firearms, they are advancing freedom. When they use government power to dictate to private companies, they are harming it.

By: Steve Chapman, The Chicago Tribune

NYC, foes split over effect of gun shop lawsuits

NEW YORK - Managers at the Bob Moates Sport Shop were spoiling for a fight when they found out New York City was suing the Virginia store over the way it sold firearms.

Workers hung Mayor Michael Bloomberg's photo on a shotgun rack over the words "our worst enemy." The Midlothian, Va., shop, decorated with Confederate flags, mockingly held a "Bloomberg Gun Giveaway" to finance its legal defense. One manager called the mayor "an idiot."

Two years later, the case will have a much more subdued ending next week.

The business is poised to become the latest in a string of firearms dealers that have settled lawsuits accusing them of contributing to street crime in New York by making it easy for customers to get around rules intended to keep guns off the black market.

New York sued 27 shops in five states in 2006, claiming they had collectively sold hundreds of guns that wound up in criminals' hands in New York.

The case was viewed as Bloomberg's attempt to send a message about lax enforcement of U.S. gun control laws, especially in states where it is relatively easy to buy a handgun.

Several shopkeepers initially promised a fierce fight, but those prospects have withered in the past two years.

Of the 27 dealers who were sued, four simply closed down or sold to new owners, saying the fight wasn't worth the cost.

Another dealer had his license revoked by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms revoked for record-keeping violations. One stopped contesting the city's case after being charged in federal court with knowingly selling a weapon to a convicted felon during an unrelated ATF sting.

Three persuaded the city to drop them as defendants after producing records indicating that relatively few crime guns had been traced to their stores in recent years.

Almost all the rest entered into settlement agreements, taking deals in which they would pay no money damages, but would have a court-appointed monitor supervise their sales practices for three years. Many said the cost of contesting the city in court was too high.

Moates' withdrawal would leave just a single merchant still vowing to fight.

Jay Wallace, the owner of the Adventure Outdoors sporting goods store in Smyrna, Ga., has countersued Bloomberg and other city officials for libel in Georgia, saying they wrongly branded him as a rogue gun dealer. That case is pending.

His store also remains as a defendant in the city's lawsuit. Wallace recently beat a strategic retreat in the case, opting not to contest it at this stage in the hopes of speeding an appeal to a court more favorable to the gun industry. But he said he has no intention of quitting until his reputation is restored.

"What if somebody got up and said you were a murderer?" Wallace asked. "Would you settle with them? Would you say, 'That's OK?"'

With other legal action relating to the case winding down, New York officials have claimed a measure of victory.

Since agreeing to have their business practices monitored, few of those stores have been linked to new crime guns, the city said.

"Our innovative litigation was aimed at holding accountable the small percentage of gun dealers who break the law _ and it has worked," said John Feinblatt, Bloomberg's top aide on criminal justice issues.

Gun-rights groups are skeptical.

"What these lawsuits have accomplished is basically nothing," said National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.

He said almost all the sued dealers were law-abiding to begin with and were "beaten into submission" by the city's well-financed legal effort.

The city's claim to have seen a reduction in crime guns produced by the stores may be premature.

According to federal gun tracing data, firearms used in crimes committed in New York usually take several years to wind their way to the street from the stores where they were originally bought.

An ATF report published earlier this year indicated that the five states in which stores were sued _ Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia and South Carolina _ had been the source of fewer guns used in New York City street crime over the past year, but there was also an overall reduction in the number of guns seized in the city.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said it still isn't too early to pronounce New York's legal campaign a success.

"It pointed out how easy it is for people to get dangerous guns in this country. It pointed out how guns are trafficked nationwide, and that we need a nationwide response," he said.

He said it had also shown that gun merchants patronized by criminals "can do things to clean up their act."

Lawyers for the Bob Moates Sport Shop and the city declined to comment on the pending settlement this week, saying some details were still being worked out, but both said the store had agreed to change some sales practices.

Unlike its co-defendants, it will not be subject to court supervision _ a minor victory, perhaps, for one of the businesses that complained the loudest at the start of the case.

By: David B. Caruso, Associated Press