A Winning Issue

It has already been well chronicled that gun control supporters fared well in the November 2 elections. As the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence pointed out, candidates who endorse common-sense gun laws won Senate races from both sides of the aisle. Victorious on Tuesday were the following Democrats: Barbara Boxer in California; Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand in New York, Ron Wyden in Oregon; Barbara Mikulski in Maryland; Daniel Inouye in Hawaii; Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut, Michael Bennet in Colorado; and Chris Coons in Delaware. Then there is the incoming Republican Senator from Illinois, Mark Kirk, who currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Task Force on Illegal Guns in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Much was made of the fact that the National Rifle Association (NRA) endorsed many Blue Dog Democrats running for re-election in the House, but the support of the gun lobby did little to improve their fortunes. Of the 49 Democratic incumbents who lost in the November 2 elections, 29 (59%) had an A rating from the NRA, 27 were endorsed by the NRA (55%), and 25 (51%) received financial support from the NRA. On the flip side, only three of the 101 Democratic House incumbents who co-sponsored legislation to close the Gun Show Loophole (H.R. 2324) lost on Tuesday. The loophole allows private individuals to sell firearms at gun shows without conducting background checks on purchasers or maintaining records of sale.

One particularly interesting House race took place in Virginia’s 11^th Congressional District, where first-term Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly faced off against Keith Fimian, a local businessman. The 11^th is as “an odd-shaped Congressional District stretching from the rural Virginia horse country near Warrenton, then meandering east through the battlefields at Bull Run, and finally racing north headlong towards the uber-metropolian suburbs of Fairfax and Arlington. Nestled near the armpit of the District lies the impressive headquarters of the National Rifle Association.” In 2009, the 11^th supported the Republican slate, voting for Bob McDonnell as Governor, Bill Bolling as Lieutenant Governor, and Ken Cuccinelli as Attorney General.

The NRA’s endorsement in its home district went to Fimian. The gun issue did not figure large in the race, however, until Fimian made the following controversial comments:

I think that at Virginia Tech, if one of those kids in one of those classrooms was packing heat, I think that would not have happened … The perpetrator of that crime would have thought twice before walking into a classroom if he thought there was any chance of someone being armed and preventing him from doing that.

Gerry Connolly immediately bucked the “conventional wisdom” among Democrats in rural and conservative districts that the gun control issue is “untouchable” and “a loser.” James Walkinshaw, Connolly's campaign manager, told the press that “Keith Fimian's extreme position on guns and outrageous comments about the Virginia Tech tragedy serve to show yet again that he is too extreme for Northern Virginia. Fimian's opposition to closing the Gun Show Loophole, his callous lack of regard for the victims of the tragedy, and belief that guns should be allowed on our schools and college campuses are way out of the mainstream.”

Survivors of the shooting at Virginia Tech also took great offense to Fimian’s remarks. Omar Samaha, who lost his sister Reema during the tragedy, appeared in a television ad sponsored by Americans United for Safe Streets (AUSS). "Ask Keith Fimian why he's protecting criminals, instead of protecting us,” he implored his fellow Virginians. Retired Lt. Col. Peter Read, whose daughter Mary was also killed, accepted an apology from Fimian for his remarks, but noted, “He has yet to decide his answer on the simple question of whether he'll support background checks for every gun sold at a gun show. I need my representative in Congress to know the answer to that question.”

The pressure to clarify his stance on these issues became so intense that Fimian’s campaign literally began to run from questions.

Overcoming a massive wave that saw the Republicans gain 60+ seats in the House, Connolly prevailed in the 11^th on Election Day. He currently holds a 935-vote lead over Fimian, with only 300 ballots left to be counted. As one voter told The Connection Newspapers, “I heard some comments that one of the candidates made about Virginia Tech, and I decided to come out and vote for the other guy.”

Even the blog Red NoVA had strong words on the matter: “Keith’s comments saying that if a student was ‘packing heat’ there would have been fewer deaths were incredibly insensitive and damaging to his cause … To make matters worse, this entire drama unfolded on every network news station in the DC region.”

Time will tell if other Democrats in the Commonwealth and across the country catch on, but public safety was clearly a boon to the party in an otherwise disastrous 2010 election. Resources also make a difference—AUSS spent $450,000 on ads and mailers in the VA-11 race and it paid off. Far from a liability, strong support for policies to keep guns out of the hands of criminals is a career booster.

The Strong Link in the Chain

“The record is clear: Gun control primarily impacts upon upstanding citizens, not criminals,” the National Rifle Association (NRA) states on its website. Ignoring both national and international data on gun death and homicide, the gun lobby claims that gun control has no positive effect whatsoever. A recent high-profile tragedy, however, illustrates how dangerous individuals can be effectively prevented from acquiring firearms by strong gun laws.

On March 4, California resident John Patrick Bedell, 36, opened fire on two police officers at the entrance of the Pentagon. He was armed with two semiautomatic 9mm handguns despite a history of mental illness and early warnings from family members that he might pose a danger to himself and others. The officers were wounded and, returning fire, killed Bedell.

Bedell’s early adulthood was marked by promise and potential. He was an intelligent young man who was close to receiving a degree in electrical engineering from San Jose State University. Approximately ten years ago, however, he began to spiral into mental illness. Doctors diagnosed him as bipolar and manic-depressive, and Bedell began to self-medicate by growing and smoking marijuana that may have enhanced the symptoms of his disorder. His family states that despite their attempts to keep him in treatment, he was eventually consumed by conspiracy theories and virulently anti-government beliefs.

Eventually these extreme beliefs led to violent thoughts. Jeffrey Bedell stated that his brother had attempted to purchase a firearm in Rancho Cordova, California, in January. The purchase was denied because he failed to pass the required background check as a result of his mental health history.

Under federal law, anyone that has been adjudicated as a “mental defective” or involuntarily committed to a mental institution is prohibited from purchasing firearms. California provides additional restrictions under state law that give it the most effective gun control regime in the country, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. As a “Point of Contact” state, California searches not only the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) for disqualifying records, but also a database maintained by the California Department of Justice. This database contains records from the California Department of Mental Health, which is required by state law to forward them. California has submitted more mental health records to NICS than any other state, more than 200,000 in total. The Golden State also requires background checks on all gun sales, whether they are made by Federally Licensed Firearms Dealers (FFLs) or private individuals.

After he was prevented from buying a handgun in California, Bedell still had the option to buy firearms in neighboring states with far weaker gun laws. It appears that at least one of Bedell’s handguns was obtained through an unregulated private sale in Nevada. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) traced the Sturm, Ruger & Co. 9mm used by Bedell to a Las Vegas gun show 19 days after he failed his background check in Rancho Cordova.

The Ruger’s trail originated with the Memphis Police Department in Tennessee. The department seized the handgun five years ago from a felon during a traffic stop and traded it to a licensed gun dealer in Georgia. The Ruger then turned up at a Las Vegas gun show earlier this year, where it was transferred through a private party sale. Authorities say this individual then sold the handgun to another private party, which may or may not have been Bedell. At that point the trail goes cold, because although Las Vegas County requires handgun registration, it is the only county in Nevada that does. Wherever and whenever Bedell obtained his handguns, he did so without undergoing a background check or filling out any paperwork.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca summed up the problem accurately: “The key is anyone can leave California and buy a gun anywhere else that doesn’t have strong gun laws. Whether you’re mentally ill or stable, either way, guns are easily accessible because states have different policies.” Translation: A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

The next time the gun lobby tells us that gun control is doomed to fail because criminals don’t obey laws, we should remember that states like California don’t give them a choice in the matter. If the Golden State was the model for the other 49 states, deranged individuals like John Patrick Bedell would be significantly hindered in their quest for lethal firepower.

Microstamping Proves its Worth...Again

For years, law enforcement has been stymied by an inability to draw significant leads from ballistic evidence recovered at crime scenes. When a crime gun is not physically recovered at a crime scene, investigators receive return hits from bullet and cartridge evidence entered into the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network only 1.5% of the time. In many cases, these “hits” are only matches to cartridges found at other crimes scenes—letting investigators know that the firearm has been used in another crime without actually identifying the weapon. The national “clearance” rate for homicide cases in 2005 was only 62%.

Thankfully, “microstamping” technology has been developed to address this problem. Microstamping utilizes lasers to make precise, microscopic engravings on the internal mechanisms of a handgun, such as the breech face and firing pin. As the gun is fired, information identifying the make, model and serial number of the gun is stamped onto the cartridge as alphanumeric and geometric codes. The technology allows law enforcement to trace firearms directly through cartridge casings found at crime scenes, without any need to recover the crime gun itself.

Seeking to avoid reform at all costs, the gun lobby has repeatedly attacked microstamping technology as unproven and unreliable. A recent test of the technology, however, has once again discredited that claim.

Microstamping’s co-inventors, Todd Lizotte and Orest Ohar, presented a research paper at the SPIE Optics & Technology Conference in San Diego in August 2008 covering the testing of a .45 Cal Colt 1991 A1 Commander semiautomatic pistol. This represented the first peer-reviewed publication of fully optimized and current state-of-the-art microstamping technology as applied to firearms.

During the stress test, Lizotte and Ohar fired 1,500 rounds from the Colt handgun. This firearm was purchased as a used model and equipped with microstamping technology. Using simple Optical Microscopy, Lizotte and Ohar achieved identifiable marks from the Colt’s expended cartridges over 95% of the time. The rounds were fired consecutively and each cartridge was collected and meticulously catalogued, allowing future researchers to review the evidence for themselves.

This followed a previous test in May 2007 that demonstrated the endurance and durability of the technology. During that test, Lizotte and Ohar fired over 2,500 rounds from a microstamped Smith and Wesson .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun using five different brands of ammunition. Microstamped markings from the firing pin were transferred successfully 97% of the time using both Optical Microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy. Additionally, breech face markings transferred to cartridge casings 96% of the time.

These tests demonstrate the viability of microstamping under even the most extreme conditions, but very rarely are handguns fired thousands of times before being used in crimes. A 2000 ATF study found that semiautomatic handguns have the shortest median “time-to-crime” of any firearm type, 4.5 years. This marks the length of time from a firearm’s first retail sale to its recovery by law enforcement as a crime gun. Furthermore, Joe Vince, a former Chief of ATF’s Crime Gun Analysis Branch, has noted that crime guns are frequently recovered with fewer than 20 rounds fired.

In October 2007, California became the first state to enact a microstamping law for semiautomatic handguns. Several other states, and the District of Columbia, are now considering microstamping legislation, and microstamping bills have been introduced at the federal level in both the House of Representatives and Senate. Lizotte and Ohar are also promoting the technology’s application for border security (more than 90% of illegal firearms seized in Mexico come from the United States) and counterinsurgency/counterterrorism in war zones.

For more information, visit the Microstamping Technology Exchange blog and read CSGV’s “Microstamping Technology: Precise and Proven” memo.

The Unstudied Study

In September, three researchers from the University of Maryland and University of Michigan released a study that examined eleven years of data on the date and location of “every” gun show in the states of California and Texas, the nation’s two most populous states. They combined this with information on the date, location, and cause of every death occurring in these same two states during the same period. They then attempted to determine if the gun shows had an effect on gun-related deaths, with “two important caveats.” They only examined deaths that occurred within 25 miles of the gun shows, and in the four weeks immediately following their conclusion.

They concluded that the results of their study “suggest that gun shows do not increase the number of homicides or suicides and that the absence of gun show regulations does not increase the number of gun-related deaths as proponents of these regulations suggest.” The inference was that the 87% of Americans who want to close the Gun Show Loophole—which allows private individuals to sell guns at these events without conducting background checks on purchasers–are misguided.

The National Rifle Association was ecstatic, and claimed that the study “obliterates Anti-Gunners’ claims” that gun shows are “totally unregulated arms bazaars.”

The NRA’s victory dance might have been a tad premature, however. Just last week, researchers from five universities across America sent the study’s authors a formal and public letter. They had examined the study’s methodology and found it deeply flawed. Two of their main criticisms were as follows:

The geographic and time restrictions in the study reflected a poor understanding of illegal gun markets. The study only looked at gun-related deaths within a 25-mile radius of a gun show, despite evidence that a large portion of crime guns recovered are purchased either out-of-state (19.3% and 27.7%, respectively, for Texas and California in 2007) or in-state but not in the immediate vicinity (For Dallas and Los Angeles in 2000, only half of traced crime guns were recovered within 25 miles of their point of initial sale). Furthermore, the study only looked at gun-related deaths in the four weeks immediately following a gun show. In Texas and California, however, the average time from a gun’s sale to its recovery following use in crime was 9.8 and 12.9 years, respectively, in 2007.

The study failed to account for every gun show in California and Texas. The study used just one publication, the Gun and Knife Show Calendar, to identify gun shows in the two states. Additional listings in publications like the Big Show Journal, however, indicate that the study’s authors failed to identify roughly 20% of the gun shows that occurred in California and Texas during the study period.

The NRA might have also missed a story that came out of Texas just two weeks ago. Gregorio Martinez, a convicted felon, was arrested at the Bell County Gun Show in Texas after attempting to purchase an AK-47 assault rifle. Criminals don’t shop at gun shows? Martinez didn’t get the gun lobby memo. Nor did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which has confirmed that gun shows are the second leading source of illegally diverted firearms in the United States (behind only corrupt federally licensed dealers).