Like everyone else, I was stunned by the events in Roseburg, Oregon, last week. Nice town, friendly people and apparently at least one nut full of hate. And as is always predictable, the usual people, including our president, immediately called for more gun laws even before knowing what happened. Of course they only want common-sense gun laws, they say, like they have in Australia.
I guess confiscation is a common-sense gun law.
I suppose that makes sense because none of the things they’ve proposed, even if passed into law, would have stopped any of the senseless mass murders. So while the president blames the NRA or the Republicans, (and passing blame is all he seems good at) I haven’t heard him asked or offer what he’d propose that would have made a difference?
Or why, as president, with full Democratic control of congress, when he could have passed any gun legislation he wanted, he didn’t?
While all murder is tragic, and senseless, there is something else he isn’t talking about: the daily gun violence in Chicago and other Democratic controlled, gun regulated, urban areas. Worse, under this president, his Justice Department is prosecuting 25 percent fewer gun crimes referred by law enforcement, according to a July 23 story in the Washington Times.
But wait, there’s more.
In a Forbes story from March 26, 2013, about Chicago, it was dead last then in federal prosecutions of gun crimes. (Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse)
I’m not sure about you, but prosecuting people who illegally possess or use guns seems like the most common sense kind of thing they could do and they don’t need any new laws to do it.
That information, which seems relevant, doesn’t get any coverage and is even hard to find.
One other statistic I read in an article in Politifact: In testimony presented by U.S. Attorney Timothy Heaphy to a Senate committee looking into such things, he testified in 2010, of the 80,191 denied applications, only 44 prosecutions were initiated. If you’ve bought a gun since the instant checks program started, you know they warn you before they submit your application you could be committing a crime if you shouldn’t have a gun.
But it looks like even if you do, they won’t prosecute.
All this tells me is people like the president are not after the crooks, gang bangers or drug dealers. They’re after the law abiding because, guess what, the law abiding are the only ones who are going to follow the law. Otherwise they can’t be called law abiding and for many of us, that’s important.
I think at this point there are a good many of common-sense things that could be done, which could really have an impact and require no new laws at all.
It might help to take down the “gun free zone” signs that have been proven untrue; unfortunately, in these kinds of cases a nut did have a gun, and he was the only one who did.
Maybe there is more that could be done to deal with mental health, but getting someone who appears to need help isn’t easy or inexpensive. Even if they do get help, that doesn’t mean it will stop. Some people are broken, full of hate, or both.
So maybe the next time our president or Harry Reid suggest they need new common-sense legislation, someone with a pen will ask them about enforcement of current laws. Why don’t they use the ones they have now?
Why don’t they charge every gun crime, use every sentencing enhancement and tool to get as long a federal prison sentence as possible, now, and no plea deal.
Why President Obama doesn’t just use that pen and phone he’s so proud of to make that happen?
Common sense suggests it might really do some good.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis, and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@yahoo.com.
