NRA calls the shots (Gun-hating leftmedia agitprop alert!)

The SHT (that's "Sarasota Herald-Tribune") ^ | 2/23/2004 | Too cowardly to give their name

[Joe Brower]

NRA calls the shots
Gun lobby's success comes at law enforcement's expense
Sarasota-Herald Tribune
2/23/2004

So what does the National Rifle Association get when it sets up shop in the Oval Office, as a top NRA official promised during the 2000 presidential campaign? Apparently, whatever it wants, from the White House and from Congress.

While the NRA hasn't actually installed a desk next to the president's, the gun lobby is enjoying great success in Washington -- even when its proposals might aid criminals and criminally negligent dealers.

One NRA-backed measure was tacked onto an omnibus spending bill passed by Congress last month. That provision now prevents the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from releasing records tracking the source of guns used in crimes.

The Bush administration and gun groups say the change was needed to ensure that police investigations aren't compromised by the disclosure of the data and to protect gun dealers from unfair criticism, USA Today reported.

Opponents note that federal law already allows agencies to withhold data gathered for law-enforcement purposes and that releasing gun records is the best way to identify rogue gun dealers.

Americans for Gun Safety used the information, when it was still available, for a study that found that about one-fifth of the 373,006 guns traced to crimes between 1996 and 2000 were sold by just 120 gun dealers.

That's about 20 percent of guns used in crimes, traced to one-tenth of a percent of the nation's 105,048 licensed gun dealers. ATF data has shown that 1 percent of dealers supply almost 60 percent of the guns recovered in crimes.

Another NRA-backed proposal, passed by the House and heading for likely passage in the Senate, would essentially give gun manufacturers and dealers total immunity from lawsuits.

A coalition of police chiefs and other law-enforcement officials is lobbying the Senate to defeat the legislation.

"To give gun manufacturers and dealers immunity from lawsuits is crazy," said Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton in a recent New York Times article.

"If you give them immunity, what incentive do they have to make guns with safer designs, or what incentive do the handful of bad dealers have to follow the law when they sell guns?"

Gil Kelikowske, the police commissioner of Seattle, told The Times that giving dealers immunity would strip one of the only ways of holding the tiny fraction of corrupt gun dealers accountable.

Kelikowske said that when he was commissioner in Buffalo, the police department tried to shut down a dealer who sold most of the guns used in murders in the city. Weak federal laws have allowed the store to stay open, despite a decade of effort.

You know the NRA holds too much sway in D.C. when laws that benefit criminals are passed over the objections of the law-enforcement community.

[Joe Brower]

Looks like the editorial staff at the SHT is off their meds again. Looks like they've just received the latest talking-points fax from their cohorts at the Brady Campaign/AGS, and they almost fell over themselves in their rush to give it ink. Nothing new there, and wholly expected of this wholly-owned subsidiary of the New York Times. Gotta keep their taskmasters at the mothership happy, don't you know.

Some folks here that have to put up with this local rag would like any rebuttals, counterpoints, facts, etc. to use in order to formulate our letters to the editors on this latest salvo at our freedoms.

A few things I note right off:

1) The all-too-predictable protestations on behalf of public safety are in reality just the populist prattle of police chiefs, who are by-and-large merely politicians with badges, and by no means indicative of the sentiments of the rank and file. "Surrender your liberties, get nothing in return." Such a deal!

2) They cry about the NRA "working out of the oval office", although their sense of fair play (for lack of a better term) had no problem when the rabid anti-gunners worked out of Clinton's White House.

3) The NRA is the largest political lobby in Washington DC for a reason -- it's because the vast majority of Americans agree with it's positions and support it accordingly. Scream and rant all they want, this is the bottom line that the state-worshipping left just can't wrap it's brain around.

4) There is no national organization that provides more training and resources to law enforcement that the NRA. To rant about the NRA doing anything that would impinge on valid law-enforcement objectives is both ignorant and absurd.

Again, any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance,

[Joe Brower]

"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." -- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

[blackie]

Frank Lloyd Wright ~ Bump!

[Redbob]

Whiny loser alert!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

So what does the National Rifle Association get when it sets up shop in the Oval Office, as a top NRA official promised during the 2000 presidential campaign? Apparently, whatever it wants, from the White House and from Congress.

So I can carry wherever I want and start buying M-16's?

[blackie]

The Second Amendment...
America's Original Homeland Security!

[Redbob]

"Americans for Gun Safety used the information, when it was still available, for a study that found that about one-fifth of the 373,006 guns traced to crimes between 1996 and 2000 were sold by just 120 gun dealers."

Precisely why information like this should be withheld from groups like Monster.com's "Americans for Gun Safety" - there's lies, there's damn lies, and there's distortion of statistics (to paraphrase Samuel Clemens).

a) 20% of traces were to just 120 dealers possibly because those 120 dealers sold 20% of all guns.
b)Recovered stolen firearms ALSO generate traces, but it certainly doesn't mean those guns were used in crimes.

[Grut]

You know the NRA holds too much sway in D.C. when laws that benefit criminals are passed over the objections of the law-enforcement community.

Your letter-writers might want to point out that exactly the same thing could be said about the ACLU; are the editors of the Sarasota-Herald Tribune therefore against the ACLU?

[Blood of Tyrants]

what incentive do the handful of bad dealers have to follow the law when they sell guns?

Once again we have the irrational belief that it is the trial lawyers who keep us safe and not morality or fear of prosecution.

[Shooter 2.5]

Only hits count. Only results count.
NRA bump.

[Blood of Tyrants]

P.S. Aren't the police chiefs who endorse this admitting that they aren't doing their jobs and arresting dealers who are breaking the law?

[eskimo]

America's Original Homeland Security!

The only Homeland Security of merit for more than two centuries.

[NRA2BFree]

"To give gun manufacturers and dealers immunity from lawsuits is crazy," said Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton in a recent New York Times article.

"If you give them immunity, what incentive do they have to make guns with safer designs, or what incentive do the handful of bad dealers have to follow the law when they sell guns?"

What an idiot. How do you make a gun safer? Issue "pretend" bullets.

IF his thinking is right, then we need to hold the glass company responsible for the whiskey that was in their bottle, consumed by a person, who got drunk and caused a crash into a car that killed 3 people. OR perhaps, the steel maker who's steel was used to build the car that the drunk drove in the crash that killed those 3 people. It's absurd! I'm sure I made just about as much sense as the good chief did. lol...

[Sender]

Chief Babble, when corrected that the new law would NOT limit lawsuits against dealers or manufacturers who have violated ANY LAW, whined that lawsuits against gun dealers and manufacturers should not have any prerequisite of violating any law. In other words, he wants to enact activist legislation by threatening financial ruin through the court system.

I wonder how these "chiefs" would feel if they were personally sued by every motorist who wound up in an auto accident? After all, isn't it the police department's job to keep drivers safe? Maybe after a few million dollars spent defending against this silliness, they would get it.

[JimRed]

ATF data has shown that 1 percent of dealers supply almost 60 percent of the guns recovered in crimes.

Every one of them in a "blue" zone, I'll bet...

[King Prout]

um.
you, SHT idiots, a question: exactly what percentage of the firearms injuries and fatalities which have occurred over the last, oh... 100 years were directly due to a mechanical failure of the firearm to function as it was designed to function?
What percentage were "user error"?
Guns are safe as houses.
People, on the other hand... well, the NRA training programs do a pretty good job making them operate safely, but you leftist whackjobs could be made "safe" only by a good dose of death.

[Badray]

bttt

[coloradan]

"... what incentive do the handful of bad dealers have to follow the law when they sell guns?"

Um, the threat of federal prosecution, resulting in federal prison time, upon conviction?

If the gun grabbers didn't think this was incentive enough, then you have to wonder why they support these laws in the first place.

[TERMINATTOR]

The illegal BATFE's illegal use, of illegally obtained NICS(also illegal) info, obtained from dealers leads to confiscations, and wild statistical spin by pro-tryanny forces. Ban the BATFE and NICS, *again!

*again - They're already prohibited by the Constitution, as are search and seizure of dealer records (fishing expeditions) without a warrant.

A prudent firearms dealer would see the inherent danger of keeping lists of who bought what, and decline to do so. They clearly have that right under the Constitution. Will we EVER have an Attorney General who will enforce the Constitution and BOR? Hasn't happend yet to my knowledge!

Molon Labe!

[cruiserman]

I'd rather the GOA called the shots.