What's Going On (at Gun Shows): The Heavy Hand of Reason

During the past year, there have been a number of groundbreaking investigations that have exposed the dangers of the “Gun Show Loophole.” The loophole allows unlicensed individuals to sell firearms from their “personal collections” at gun shows without conducting background checks or maintaining records of sale. The latest hotspot for gun show controversy is central Texas, where an effort by law enforcement to regulate criminal activity has run into resistance.

Federal agents from Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement (ICE) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) are partnering in an investigation that has uncovered dozens of cases of criminal activity occurring at gun shows throughout Texas. The Austin Police Department (APD) has assisted in this effort by arresting “prohibited persons (primarily convicted felons and illegal immigrants) that obtained firearms illegally at a local gun show.” “Virtually all” of these sales to prohibited purchasers were made by private citizens who are unlicensed sellers, both inside the shows and in the parking lots outside. Federal convictions have been obtained in a majority of cases.

Because of the recurring criminal activity at Texas Gun Shows events in North Lamar, the APD Nuisance Abatement Unit conducted a meeting with the property lessee for the shows (HEB Grocery), the building sub-lessee (Andrew Perkel, Austin Event Center) and the event promoter (Darwin Boedeker, Texas Gun Shows). At the meeting, ADP and ATF officials offered several recommendations to reduce illegal gun sales, including: 1) Allowing only licensed gun dealers at the shows; 2) Providing on-site security to prevent illegal sales in the parking lot, and; 3) Defining a process for non-licensed firearm sellers to participate to ensure that background checks are conducted. HEB Grocery agreed with these recommendations and instructed Perkel and Boedeker to implement them.

Boedeker complied with HEB’s request and put up a sign outlining the first two recommendations at the two-day gun show held on January 16-17. When police reported that a private gun sale to an illegal immigrant had nonetheless occurred that weekend, HEB Grocery announced that gun shows would not be hosted on their property until the issue was resolved.

Boedeker, outraged at the decision, began organizing a petition to the Texas Attorney General and stated, “All they are doing is keeping the honest man from being able to do what is afforded to him by the Constitution.” But he seemed to contradict himself in explaining what happened at the meeting. While on one hand Boedeker admitted, “[Law enforcement] made it a point to keep repeating themselves [to say] ‘these are just recommendations,’” on the other, he quoted them as saying, “You do what we say or we shut you down.”

Conspiracy theorist/radio host Alex Jones then interviewed Boedeker and helped him articulate his outrage further. Jones didn’t hesitate to take the opportunity to attack the Obama Administration, saying, “He’s got these armed thugs doing this. This is tyranny. This is the end of America.” His comments about ATF agents were even more offensive and recalled the National Rifle Association’s “jack-booted thugs” smear. “They are an absolutely wicked bunch of un-American trash,” said Jones.

The controversy over Texas Gun Shows recalls a 2004-2005 investigation of gun shows in Richmond, Virginia, that was conducted by the ATF. During that investigation, 56 arrests were made for the following violations of state and federal law: Making False Statements on ATF Form 4473, Felon in Possession of a Firearm, Straw Purchase of a Firearm, Possession of Marijuana, Possession of Cocaine, Felony Fugitive Apprehension, Misdemeanor Fugitive Apprehension, Carrying a Concealed Weapon and Grand Larceny—Theft of Firearm.

The promoter of the Richmond shows, Steve and Annette Elliot of C&E Gun Shows, nonetheless described the investigation as follows: “It's just a persecution thing. It's not really an attempt to solve crimes or stop them. It's their way of trying to get rid of gun shows.” ATF was then hauled in front of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security for a show trial. Chairman Howard Coble admonished, “it does appear that maybe the ATF activity may have risen to the threshold of being heavy-handed.” No action was taken against C&E Gun Shows. They continue to profit and have done nothing to modify their business practices to curb the criminal activity catalogued by ATF.

Were the actions of the APD and ATF in central Texas “heavy-handed”? Not by any reasonable American’s standard. For starters, Texas is the leading source state of guns being illegally trafficked to drug cartels into Mexico, and that is probably why so many illegal immigrants were arrested buying firearms at Texas Gun Shows events. Second, a 2009 survey by Republican pollster Frank Luntz showed that 69% of National Rifle Association (NRA) members and 85% of non-NRA gun owners support background checks for all firearm sales at gun shows. Finally, even the NRA was forced to admit that the “voluntary agreement concerning the transfer of firearms at the Austin gun show…was a self-imposed regulation, not a rule from the BATFE [popularly known as the ATF] or an ordinance of the City of Austin.”

It doesn’t take a law enforcement professional to realize there is a problem when criminals and illegal aliens (whom the NRA describe as “criminal aliens”) are openly buying firearms without undergoing background checks at gun shows. Hopefully, Texas officials will dispense with Alex Jones’ conspiracy theories and continue to act in the interest of public safety.

What's Going On (at Gun Shows): Free Trade

Bullet Counter Points’ “What’s Going On (at Gun Shows)” series takes an inside look at what happens at the nation’s gun shows when no one’s looking. Our first blog highlighted a UC Davis researcher who photographed widespread illegal activity at gun shows in 19 different states. Next, we took a look at an undercover investigation by the city of New York that captured a host of illegal sales at gun shows on video.

Our latest entry involves two unconventional tales of free trade between the United States and Mexico.

On July 25, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents were conducting surveillance at a gun show at the Expo Center at Kansas City International Airport in Missouri. They spotted Myrna Guerra carrying a semiautomatic AR-15 assault rifle and taking a “circuitous route” to his car. After looking over his shoulder several times, Guerra placed the assault rifle in his trunk. He then re-entered the show and traded cash for another assault rifle with a second private seller. Guerra placed this weapon in his car and was stopped by Kansas City Police Department officers soon after he departed the show.

At this point, Guerra presented a fraudulent Missouri’s drivers license and social security number. After police confirmed this through a computer check, Guerra admitted that in fact he was not even an American citizen-but instead an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. He was immediately arrested, as his status as an undocumented person made it illegal for him to possess firearms under federal law. From his car, police confiscated the two AR-15 style rifles, two ammunition magazines, and gun show calendars from several states. After searching his home, authorities found an additional six ammunition magazines, nine handgun holders/cases, gun cleaning supplies, more gun show calendars, a western Union receipt for $4,000, and three Social Security Cards under a false identity.

In a recent plea agreement, Guerra admitted to buying and selling guns for the past six months at gun shows to earn extra money. He would purchase guns from private sellers at gun shows and sell them to an intermediary, who would then bring the guns into Mexico for resale to the country’s drug cartels. Private sellers were attractive to Guerra because they are not required by law to conduct background checks or maintain records of sale, a problem known as the Gun Show Loophole.

Guerra isn’t the only gun show visitor who saw the Mexican Drug War as a business opportunity, however.

On October 16, Alfred Dwight Watkins, a resident of Luling, Texas, was sentenced to ten months in federal prison for dealing firearms without a license. Watkins, formerly a federally licensed firearms dealer (FFL), had been selling guns at gun shows in Austin and San Antonio despite the fact that his license expired in 2003. He told authorities that he would tell customers that no paperwork was required to do business with him in order to “flip” more firearms. In March of this year, ATF agents searched Watkins’ residence and recovered 65 firearms-including a dozen assault rifles-and 59,000 rounds of ammunition.

Watkins admitted knowingly selling a firearm to a prohibited purchaser. He also admitted straw purchasing a firearm that was recovered three weeks later from Los Zetas, a prominent Mexican drug cartel.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report in June which stated: “While it is impossible to know how many firearms are illegally smuggled into Mexico in a given year, about 87 percent of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced in the last 5 years originated in the United States, according to data from Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). According to U.S. and Mexican government officials, these firearms have been increasingly more powerful and lethal in recent years. Many of these firearms come from gun shops and gun shows in Southwest border states.”

Unfortunately, the total lack of paperwork involved in these sales makes them nearly impossible to trace. As ATF agent Steve Foreman recently pointed out: [An unscrupulous private seller will] sell to anybody and everybody, trade up or trade down, he doesn’t care ... It’s actually a great business, if you don’t get caught.”

Thankfully, the “entrepreneurs” described in this blog weren’t so lucky.

Northern Exposure

Though gun control advocates typically focus on the harmful impact that weak laws have on American families, it is becoming increasingly clear that the ease of acquiring firearms in the U.S. has implications far outside our borders.

In June, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report which stated: “While it is impossible to know how many firearms are illegally smuggled into Mexico in a given year, about 87 percent of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced in the last 5 years originated in the United States, according to data from Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) … Many of these firearms come from gun shops and gun shows in Southwest border states.”

Understandably, this data has resulted in a national focus on Mexico as an example of how America’s loose laws lead to international firearms proliferation. A recent study in the journal Criminology and Criminal Justice, however, suggests that our neighbor to the north has also been profoundly affected by the trafficker-friendly environment in the United States. The findings of the study, entitled “The Illicit Firearms Trade in North America,” include the following:

• 181 handguns recovered in crime by the Toronto Police Service in 2006 were successfully traced to their first retail sale. Of those, 120 (two-thirds) were traced to the United States.
  
  
• Out of 705 crime guns traced by the Firearms Tracing and Enforcement Program in Ontario in 2007, 69% were traced to the U.S.
  
  
• In the first six months of 2008, the Tactical Analysis Unit of the Firearms Support Services Directorate of the Canadian Firearms Program seized 1,393 crime guns. For the less than half that could be traced, a large portion of the crime guns recovered in Canada can be traced to dealers in the U.S. (327 U.S. dealers versus 79 Canadian dealers). Of this U.S. total, Washington State had 45 dealers linked to a handgun, more than double that of any other state.
  
  

The study’s authors found, “among all data sources, the majority of the successfully traced handguns recovered in crime in Canada are found to originate in the United States and we know of no evidence that would lead one to believe that other countries are a major source of smuggled handguns.”

Criminals and traffickers look south because guns are not easy to come by in Canada. Since 1930, Canadians have been required to show “just cause” to own a handgun, and all firearms must be registered with the government. Guns are particularly easy to acquire in the United States (through straw purchases and unregulated private sales), however, and “long, undefended borders between Canada and the United States, in particular, present a challenge for customs officials who must balance the demands for free flow of goods and people with security needs.”

“The main mechanisms by which weapons are illegally trafficked from one country to another are concealment, false declaration and falsification of documents and mail order,” the study observes. “The networks for smuggling guns are diffuse and range from individuals concealing a few guns in their car to large-scale commercial operations … Mail is another means of illegal importation and one that is often difficult to detect.”

Not surprisingly, the study’s recommendations for curbing the flow of firearms into Canada begin with reforms in the United States. Such reforms would include, “improvements to regulations of firearms (for example regulating transactions at gun shows…as they do in California), better enforcement of existing regulations that prohibit straw purchases and illicit sales at gun shows, and enhanced investigations of smuggling operations.”

The authors also call for freer access to information about trafficked guns. “A firmer factual base...could be established if data from criminal investigations and gun tracing were released for research purposes,” the study finds. “A broader inquiry is warranted: the stakes are very high for developing effective strategies for limiting the illicit movements of guns.” The absence of this “factual base” has been aggravated by the Tiahrt Amendments, which restrict the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to release crime gun trace data, as well as require the destruction of approved criminal background check records after 24 hours.

Toothless U.S. gun laws endanger not only Americans, but the entire continent. With all the recent concern about American guns feeding a war against the government in Mexico, it is long past time to consider the harm being done north of the border.

"More Guns, Less Crime" - International Style

Can the United States enhance international stability by dramatically increasing its arms exports to outside nations? The Bush Administration certainly seems to think so. Recent reports indicate that in this fiscal year alone, the Department of Defense has agreed to transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion just three years ago. These are heady numbers, even for the number one exporter of arms in the world.

Even more notable than the sheer quantity of weapons being transferred is the roster of arms recipients. There are some usual suspects on the list; traditional U.S. allies like Egypt, Israel, and our NATO partners. Other recipients are better acquainted with ethnic strife and conflict than stability and democracy, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, and Pakistan. Bruce S. Lemkin, the Air Force Deputy Undersecretary, has stated that, “This is not about being gunrunners. This is about building a more secure world.” But some Members of Congress are fearful of a “spiraling arms race that in the end could decrease stability.”

One of the concerns is that the U.S. does not have a very good track record in accounting for inventories of transferred arms. Recently, the American military lost track of approximately 190,000 pistols and automatic rifles that were transferred to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005. A recent report by Amnesty International notes that these small arms transfers were marked by a “poorly managed and unaccountable process” that led “to diversions of supplies to armed groups and illicit markets.”

Travis Sharp, a Military Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, also worries that in a world of tremulous alliances, the U.S. could end up looking down the barrel of its own weapons—as we have in the past in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In Sharp’s words: “Once you sell arms to another country, you lose control over how they are used, and the weapons, unfortunately, don’t have an expiration date.” Lemkin, however, seemed dismissive of such fears, stating, “Would you rather they bought the weapons and aircraft from other countries? Because they will.”

That rhetoric will sound familiar to gun violence prevention advocates—similar language is often employed by the gun lobby to justify weak regulations that allow criminals easy access to firearms. The “logic” is that there are already too many guns in circulation in America anyway, and criminals will get their hands on them no matter what you do, so why bother putting any obstacles in their path that could interfere with the shopping habits of law-abiding gun owners?

Sadly, this philosophy has been embraced by the Bush administration. The U.S. has been a non-participant in recent negotiations aimed at curbing the illegal international trade in small arms. After intense lobbying by pro-gun groups, including the National Rifle Association, the U.S. government virtually boycotted a recent United Nations meeting that sought to address this issue through work on a Global Arms Trade Treaty.

Is the United States shirking its responsibilities as a model of democracy and the world’s number one exporter of arms to ensure that its weapons do not end up in the hands of human rights violators? According to researcher Helen Hughes, “Governments can either carry on ignoring the horrific consequences of irresponsible international arms transfers or they can meet their obligations in an arms trade treaty with a ‘golden rule’ on human rights that will actually help save people’s lives.”

We certainly hope the next administration will choose the latter course, for the betterment of all mankind.