Point of View Outlook August 2016

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Restoring CHRIST in the Culture

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Restoring CHRIST in the Culture

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August 2016

Background Checks

Much of the debate about the president’s new gun regulations centers on criminal background checks.

The president wants to expand background checks to just about anyone selling a gun...

4 Guns and Mass Shootings

In the wake of the worst mass shooting in America’s history, there have been many calling for more gun control. Hillary Clinton says that the shooting “reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets.” She wants to enact...

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Gun Control Rhetoric and Reality

Politicians who favor gun control make a number of pronouncements about the availability of guns that aren’t always accurate. And other politicians have sometimes enacted...

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B AC KG R O U N D C H E C K S MONTE VISTA, CO: Alan McFadden fills out a background check as Valley Guns owner Carlton Thomas looks on. / Getty Images

By Kerby Anderson

Much of the debate about the president’s new gun regulations centers on criminal background checks. The president wants to expand background checks to just about anyone selling a gun.

While the administration is doing this, it needs to fix some problems with the current system.

Dr. John Lott was on my radio program to talk about some simple and reasonable changes that must be made to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. He believes that these proposals would easily pass Congress.

First, we shouldn’t charge gun buyers for background checks. Most buyers and sellers don’t realize they are paying for this since they are included in the cost of the gun. If it is really true that background checks reduce crime, and everyone benefits, then why not pay for background checks out of general revenue?

The cost of background checks on private transfers adds at least $80 to the cost of transferring a gun in New York. The cost is $125 in the District of Columbia. These fees can put guns out of the reach of people who are the most likely victims of violent crimes: poor people living in high-crime, urban areas.

Second, we should fix the system that falsely flags law-abiding citizens. Virtually everyone who fails a check is legally eligible to buy a gun. You wouldn’t know this by listening to some of the presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton in the last Democratic presidential debate proclaimed that the Brady Act prohibited more than 2 million people from purchasing a gun. These were merely “initial denials.” Almost all turned out to be mistakes.

John Lott says there is a racial component to this. Various ethnic groups (Asians, Hispanics, Blacks) often have similar names. A law-abiding citizen is often flagged because he or she has a similar name to someone with a criminal record.

These are just a few of his proposals to improve a broken system that needs fixing. Congress and the president need to act.

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GUNS AND MASS SHOOTINGS

By Kerby Anderson

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MASS SHOOTINGS

“I don’t think it’s about more gun control. I grew up in the south with guns everywhere and we never shot anyone.

This is about people who aren’t taught the value of life.”

— SAMUEL L. JACKSON Actor / Film Producer

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In the wake of the worst mass shooting in America’s history, there have been many calling for more gun control. Hillary Clinton says that the shooting “reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets.” She wants to enact another assault weapons ban and then move forward in her administration to dismantle the Second Amendment.

During this campaign season we will hear lots of facts, figures, and statistics about guns. We will also hear lots of claims being made about what has been done in other countries and what could be done here in America. My goal is to provide some straight talk about guns and gun control so you can navigate through the claims and counter-claims you will hear.

IS GUN VIOLENCE ON THE INCREASE? There are about 280 million guns in America. That is nearly one gun per American adult. Put another way, more civilians own guns in America than anywhere else in the world. Yet our murder rate is significantly lower than in many countries.

One study by the Pew Research Center found that a majority of Americans believe gun violence is greater than ever. Actually, just the opposite is true. The Report explains that: “National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime.” Government statistics show that the rate of non-fatal violent gun crime victimization dropped 75 percent in the past 20 years. The gun homicide rate dropped 49 percent in that same period.

Most Americans are unaware of this drop in gun crime.

According to the Pew survey, 56 percent of Americans believe gun crime is worse than it was 20 years ago. If you add in those people who believe it has stayed the same, then you have 84 percent who believe it has either gone up or stayed the same. Only 12 percent have the correct view: that gun violence has decreased the last 20 years.

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MASS SHOOTINGS A R E M A S S S H O OT I N G S O N T H E INCREASE? For the last few decades we have heard of tragic stories of mass shootings in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, New York, and Virginia. It certainly seems like there has been an increase in these shootings.

It depends on how you ask the question. Mass shootings (defined as four or more fatalities) fluctuate from year to year but have not increased significantly. On the other hand, “random� mass shootings (which is what most people are thinking about when they ask the question) have indeed increased.

Press coverage also needs to be considered in answering any question about public shootings. Shootings that result in a number of deaths at once get lots of press coverage. But many other shootings also take place regularly in our major cities and almost never make national news (because fewer are killed at once). It is also true that potential shootings, which are foiled by an armed citizen or off duty police officer, do not get much press coverage.

CAN WE REDUCE THE NUMBER OF MASS S H O OT I N G S ?

Political candidates will be offering various solutions to the problem of mass shooting during this election year. It is worth looking at research studies that have attempted to find any possible solutions.

One long-term study (that was peer-reviewed and published in an academic journal) examined the public policies on public

A candlelight vigil following the shootings on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va., on April 17, 2007 Charles Dharpak: Matt Gentry/The Roanoke Times; Casey Templeton / AP / GPB News / NPR

Children are led by police from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., after the shooting on Dec. 14, 2012. Shannon Hicks / Newtown Bee, AP

A victim is wheeled away after the mass shooting in San Bernadino.

Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

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On April 20, 1999, two teens went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide. The crime was the worst high school shooting in U.S. history and prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety

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MASS SHOOTINGS shootings. Professor John Lott (who has been a guest on Point of View) and William Landes found a common theme in the mass shootings. They almost always occur in gun-free zone (school, post office, movie theater, night club) where the killers know that guns are banned and nearly everyone will be unarmed.

They examined many of the policies that have been put forward to deal with gun violence: waiting periods, background checks, increased penalties for a crime with a gun, and the death penalty. None of these policies had an effect on the incidence or the casualties from mass shootings. Only one public policy made a difference: concealed-carry laws.

In addition to his statistical data, John Lott also has some anecdotal observations. For example, one of the shooters in the Columbine tragedy actually lobbied Colorado politicians to prevent concealed-carry laws from going into effect. And it is worth mentioning that their attack on the high school occurred on the day a concealed-carry law went into effect.

W H AT C A N W E L E A R N F R O M OT H E R CO U N T R I E S ?

A few political leaders believe we should follow the example of Australia. President Obama suggested that the law in Australia could be a model for America.

Unfortunately, most news outlets only mention that Australia had a gun buyback program but don’t mention that essentially the program really was a program for gun confiscation.

Looking at other countries, we can also see an interesting pattern. For example, gun ownership in Switzerland is three times higher than gun ownership in Germany. The Swiss have lower murder rates.

We also see a similar pattern in our own country.

The rate of gun ownership is higher in rural area than in urban areas. The murder rate is higher in urban areas.

Whites have a much higher gun ownership rate than blacks, yet blacks have a higher murder rate than whites.

Guns are not the problem. People are the problem.

Actually the human heart is the problem. Taking guns away from law-abiding citizens is not the solution to the problem of gun violence in general and mass shootings in particular.

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GUN CONTROL RHETORIC AND REALITY

GUN CONTROL

Rhetoric and Reality

By Kerby Anderson

“I have a very strict gun control policy. If there is a gun around, I WANT TO BE IN CONTROL OF IT.” —

C L I N T E A S T W OO D

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Politicians who favor gun control make a number of pronouncements about the availability of guns that aren’t always accurate. And other politicians have sometimes enacted sneaky policies to control guns and ammunition.

Hillary Clinton, along with many other gun control advocates, want to reinstitute a ban on assault weapons. It is worth looking back at what took place when her husband and Congress passed the 1994 assault weapons ban.

The assault weapon ban restricted access to certain semiautomatic rifles (like an AR15 rifle) and limited the capacity of gun magazines to 10 rounds of ammunition. Some politicians want to go beyond that to limit additional weapons and place various restrictions that will most likely affect law-abiding citizens but not criminals who will find other ways to obtain weapons.

After the ban expired ten years later, it was hard to point to any appreciable difference the law made on violence in America.

Proponents of gun control will continue to call for various restrictions, but the evidence that it reduces murder or assault is not there, especially when we are looking at the public shootings that have occurred over the last few decades.

In order to pass more restrictive laws on guns, advocates of gun control have changed their rhetoric. They now call for “common sense gun-safety laws.” No doubt that is a focus-grouptested-phrase that confuses people not familiar with the gun debate. Gun-safety laws sound like a call for safeties on guns, making gunlocks available to gun owners, and many other common sense procedures. Actually, it is merely a new way to prevent American citizens from having access to firearms.

GUN CONTROL

Rhetoric and Reality

“We did have an assault weapons ban for ten years. I think it should be reinstated.

Let’s keep weapons of war off our streets like the one that was used in Orlando.”

— HILLARY CLINTON

For years we have heard gun control advocates claims that there is a “gun show loophole.” In fact, you will hear the president and many members of Congress say that approximately 40 percent of all gun purchases are conducted through private sales at gun shows and are not subject to a criminal background check. One police chief raised concern by saying: “Allowing 40 percent of those acquiring guns to bypass background check is like allowing 40 percent of airline passengers to board a plane without going through airport security.”

If there is a loophole, I think we can all agree that we should close it. However, John G. Malcolm at the Heritage Foundation

explains that the claim of 40 percent isn’t even close to accurate.

Let’s start with basic information. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System requires that all federal firearms licensees conduct a background check for all firearms transactions, even if they sell the firearm at a gun show. What about the other private sales at gun shows?

The 40 percent figure comes from a report by the National Institute of Justice based on a telephone survey of a small sample size of people who acquired firearms in 1993 and 1994. The first thing to mention is that the survey was taken the year before the criminal background check system went into effect.

Of the participants, 35.7 percent said they didn’t or “probably” didn’t obtain their gun from a licensed firearms dealer. Because the margin of error was +/- 6 percentage points, it was rounded up to 40 percent. It could just as easily have been rounded down below 30 percent. If you then subtract the people who said they got their gun as a gift, inheritance, or prize, the number drops to 26.4

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Luke Lichterman was one of many gun sellers who felt the effects of Operation Choke Point, launched by the DOJ in 2013 at the request of the White House, which lumps firearms dealers into so-called “high-risk industry for fraud” category like pornography. Even after the program ended, the NSSF has reported that gun retailers and manufacturers are still reporting what they say is discrimination.

percent. The survey goes on to explain that only 3.9 percent of firearms were purchased at gun shows.

Gun control advocates have also found sneaky ways to limit the sale of guns and ammunition. Kelsey Harkness, writing for The Daily Signal, says that firearms sellers say they are being choked off from payment processors like PayPal, Square, Stripe, and Spark Pay. Some processors publicly state their policy against gun sales, and it is quite possible that gun control advocates will work to get other payment processors to refuse to process gun purchases

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More recently she told the story of Luke Lichterman, owner of Hunting and Defense in North Carolina. He was denied access to a bank merely because he sells firearms. He blamed a little-known program called Operation Choke Point, which was launched a few years ago by the Department of Justice in an effort to fight fraud. It does so by choking off access to various bank services. Critics have said that the program not only hurts illegal businesses, but has also been used against legal industries (like gun sellers) that this administration doesn’t like.

Back in March, HomeTrust Bank told Lichterman that they would not allow him to open an automatic clearinghouse payment service for his online gun and tactical store. This was a surprise to him since he has personal account at HomeTrust Bank. It wasn’t until a banker discovered that he sold guns that they refused to offer him the services he needed for his business. After some publicity, the bank

GUN CONTROL

Rhetoric and Reality

eventually provided him with their services.

A year ago, it appeared that the administration was working to ban certain types of ammunition. As one spokesman for the NRA said: “The Obama Administration was unable to ban America’s most popular sporting rifle through the legislative process, so now its trying to ban commonly owned and used ammunition through regulation.”

Back in 1986, Congress passed the Law Enforcement Officer’s Protection Act. It was intended to protect police officers from “armor piercing” projectiles. The focus was on banning bullets that could be fired from a handgun. The authors of the bill realized that bullets fired from most common rifle cartridges could penetrate soft body armor. So Congress incorporated an exemption into the bill in order to protect ordinary rifle ammunition. The ATF argued that since these bullets can be used in semi-automatic handguns, they pose a threat to police and must be banned.

The lesson from all of these examples is that we need to pay attention to both the rhetoric and the reality of candidates and politicians who want to implement gun control in America.

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Volume 12 • August 2016 President / Publisher

Warren Kelley

Contributing Writers

Kerby Anderson

GUN-FREE ZONES Whenever there is a mass shooting we read headlines or hear commentators describe it as a random shooting. While it is true that many times the victims are chosen at random, the locations for their carnage are rarely random.

When Dr. John Lott was on my radio program I asked him about this. I had heard that the shooter at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater bypassed many other theaters and venues because those locations had security.

John Lott said the diary of the killer (James Holmes) explained his selection.

He decided not to attack the Denver airport because he wrote that it had “substantial security.” Then out of seven theaters within 20 minutes of the shooter’s apartments, Holmes went to the only theater that banned concealed handguns.

John Lott gave another example from the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. The shooter (Dylann Roof ) originally planned to go to the College of Charleston. But he changed his plans after realizing the school had armed guards. While drinking at someone’s house, Roof blurted out his plan to carry out a mass shooting at the College of Charleston. The person who heard the comment said: “I don’t think the church was his primary target because he told us he was going for the school.” The person at the party concluded that because Roof couldn’t get into the school, he settled for the church.

If gun-free zones seem to make people more vulnerable to shooters, is there anything that might reduce the likelihood of a mass shooting? John Lott and Bill Landes in a scholarly research paper gathered more than twenty years of data on mass public shootings. They studied the impact of guncontrol laws. None of these laws had an impact on shootings except one.

They concluded that “the only law that had a statistically significant impact on mass public shootings was the passage of right-to-carry laws.”

Our elected officials need so consider these facts if they really want to keep people in their communities safe.

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