Goldfinger

Gold Finger:

The License to Carry a Gun

On an overcast Monday in March in 1981, six shots were fired from a Colt .22 caliber revolver, at an American president. Although after this attempt on a president s life, the immediate results were not as dramatic as in 1964, when President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed. This time, the president survived the attack on his life. However, more controversy has spawned from this incident not from the side of the President, but fourteen years later from President Reagan s press secretary, James Brady.

Brady was walking alongside the president, when John W. Hinkley Jr. shot at the president and Brady was hit in the head and was severely wounded (Brew, 23). Today Mr. Brady has overcome that incident that left him a quadriplegic, to become a leading advocate of gun control. He and his wife were leading supporters of the aptly named Brady Bill that posed a background check and a five day waiting period before a gun is to be sold, and restricts the sale of guns to felons ect This bill was passed despite heavy lobbying against the bill by the National Rifle Association, or the NRA.

The Brady Bill imposes a five day waiting period and background check before a handgun can be bought. The Brady Bill, imposed in February 1994, has been successful in the limited definition of what it was supposed to do. By federal estimates, the Brady Bill has kept 40,000 felons from getting handguns. In West Virginia, for example, we ve had at least 180 denials, and I think that no matter what, that s good, says Sargent Thomas Barrick, who oversees background checks for the state police (Lacayo, 47).

But, the Brady Bill does not do all that it was designed to do. The Bill restrict mentally ill people from getting handguns, but medical records are kept secret, and there is no way of telling who is getting the guns. Even with the limited purpose and reach of the bill, it was still called a major victory for gun control advocates.

However, in the 1994 elections, the NRA decided that things were going to change. They put on a massive campaign and spent $3.2 million on candidates on the federal and state levels that were favorable to their position. Out of these candidates, 80% went on to victory, restoring some of the lost power and influence to the PAC. One of the sweeping changes that has taken place since that election is that 15 states have lowered the standards once necessary to carry a concealed weapon. In order for citizens to be able to carry these weapons before the new laws were passed, they were required to be granted permission from local police chiefs, sheriffs, or judges desecration, and these were only cases where a documented death threat was present or that they worked in a dangerous job. Still, these cases were indeed rare. From 1974 to 1992, only one citizen permit was issued to incoming police commissioner Willie Williams by the Los Angles police department , before he was sworn in as an officer. In New York cab drivers have routinely been denied permits, but celebrities such as Donald Trump and William F. Buckley have succeeded in obtaining them (Whitkins, 58).

These new laws passed by the states make toting a concealed firearm more feasible. In the past carrying a handgun at all was legal in only twenty-seven states, and carrying a concealed handgun was not legal to the general public. Twenty-two states have written or passed new laws that make carrying a concealed weapon. Requirements for permits vary from state to state, ranging from completing a background check, filling out a form and waiting as long as it takes to return the permit, to completing ten to fifteen hours of training and instruction. However a majority of states do not require for anyone to show a compelling need to obtain a permit, as most state s laws were written, but applicants can still be denied.

Permits are not automatically accepted from anyone in society. Felons, people delinquent in child payments, and anyone with dishonorable discharges from the armed forces would be denied. But, the average citizen with a registered gun would be able to go and obtain a permit.

Opponents of the concealed weapons laws argue that allowing more private citizens to carry concealed guns is not a sensible response to the crime issue. Gun control advocates and many police chiefs say that carrying a gun may produce a false sense of security and we may relive the days of the Wild West. When you have a lot of people carrying guns, you re going to see a lot more disputes settled with guns, and that s clearly a risk to public safety, argues Robert Walker of Handgun Control Inc. (Witkin, 58) In essence, he as arguing that public safety would be risked by giving responsible citizens the means with which to protect themselves. Michael Gartner, who is a noted authority on the use of the English Language, is saying that we need to outlaw handguns. Mr. Gartner must have skipped his senior year of American Government in high school. One of the more important things taught there is the Constitution of the United States, and more precisely, the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment clearly states that:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Our forefathers thought that being able to keep and bear arms was important enough to put it ahead of the rights of the accused, the states rights, and the unenumeated rights. Gartner, the noted expert on the use of the English language, is not in any position to interpret the Constitution, or to propose any plan that would deny any citizen the right to own a gun.

Advocates of liberalizing the concealed weapons laws sharply disagree. They counter that people willing to undergo a background check and take a safety course are most likely to use guns responsibly, and they cite academic sources — some of them disputed — that report that American citizens successfully defended themselves with guns more than two million times a year and that criminals do fear an armed citizenry (Witkin, 59). The only state that has produced any evidence to support this claim is Florida, which changed their concealed weapons laws in 1987. From October 1987 to September 1994, 250,381 permits had been issued to citizens. Only 18 of those permit have been revoked and 43 have been suspended because of their holders committed crimes with their firearms.

In Dade County, where 21,092 permits had been issued as of August 1992 (latest data available), Metro-Dade police tracked a total of 63 incidents involving permit holders in the five years after the law went into effect; 25 involved arrests. Thirteen of the 63 incidents involved a crime with a firearm; at least 8 others appeared to involve arguments that escalated to the point where someone pulled a gun. But in 12 incidents, citizens successfully defended themselves against crime, and no one was killed in any of the 63 incidents (Witkin, 59).

This evidence from Florida shows that over five years citizens carrying concealed weapons did not start gunfights on city streets. The dire predictions of wholesale slaughter didn t materialize, admitted George Aylesworth of the Metro-Dade Police Department. Examining the evidence, it is clear that with only 63 incidents out of the 21,000 permits, and Florida s homicide rate has dropped 29% since concealed weapons laws have been relaxed (Time, 29). So the citizens did benefit from the new law. Take, for instance, Suzanna Gratia, who watched helplessly as a deranged gunman executed twenty-three people, including her parents, at a cafeteria in Killeen, Texas in 1991. At that time, Texas heavily restricted concealed weapons permits, and outlawed the carrying handguns of any kind. During the attack Gratia s own .38 caliber handgun was in the trunk of her car, obeying current Texas law. She later said it was the stupidest mistake of my entire life. (Time, 28) This does not mean that Gratia, or anyone with a permit to carry a concealed weapon, would be able to pick off the gunman at 100 yards or even 10 feet, but even with the possibility of one person with a gun in that Luby s might have deterred that gunman.

Any law that is made in this country is only as effective as the number of people that will follow it. Gun control may never work because somewhere, there is going to be a black market for banned assault rifles, and not everyone will race out to get a permit for the pistol in their jacket pocket. They (people who do not obey the gun control laws) don t go to the store, because the waiting period for on illegal gun is about five minutes–or as long as it takes to open up a trunk (Lacayo, 48). The only people that are getting hurt by the gun control laws are the law abiding citizens of this country. They should have the right to protect themselves against populace that chooses not to obey the laws. It is impossible for police to protect everyone all the time. It they can t do it, we ought to be able to be able to protect ourselves, says Texas State Representative Ron Wilson… (Witkin, 59) If more states that ease concealed weapons laws return results similar to results from Florida, the negative sentiment towards guns may decrease and be replaced with support.

Sources Cited

Bernstein, Sid (March 2, 1992). Change the Constitution. Advertising Age (pp. 12-13).

Brew, Douglas (April 13, 1981). Six Shots at a Nation s Heart. Time (pp. 20-28).

Lacayo, Richard (February 20, 1995). A Small-Bore Success. Time (pp. 47-49).

Snyder, Jeffrey (Fall 1993). A Nation of Cowards. The Public Interest (pp. 40-56).

Van Biema, David (March 27, 1995). License to Conceal. Time (pp. 26-30).

Witkin, Gordon (November 28, 1994). New Support for Concealed Weapons: Fear of Crime Inspires Liberalized Laws. U.S. News and World Report (pp. 56-58).

Witkin, Gordon and Katia Hetter (May 22, 1995). The Fight to Bear Arms. U.S. News and World Report (pp. 28-34).