Just sent this to the Seattle Times, in response to something I heard on the radio:
Editor:
I heard a report that Mayor Nickels was considering pushing for stronger gun controls, in the wake of a recent increase in violent deaths in Seattle.
It seems reasonable to make a link between urban density and handgun violence, as any big city resident can attest. The density is one obvious factor, but the ease of access to and concealment of handguns makes them more easily abused. It’s rare that someone commits mass murder with a knife or club, while gun-facilitated incidents are all too common.
I realize that for some, unrestricted handgun ownership is an article of faith, but I submit that it is out of place in a large urban area with a well-funded and disciplined public safety system. I think it’s a fair trade to delegate the job of public safety to trained professionals and make handguns much more stringently managed within densely populated areas. For those who feel they need a handgun as personal protection, licensing and training would be required.
The day I feel I can’t walk around in my own city without the means of killing someone, close at hand, is the day I move away.
Turns out this was the topic on KUOW’s weekday call-in program “The Conversation.” Some interesting comments, including a call from someone at Washington Ceasefire. They take a pragmatic stance on gun ownership, it seems, respecting the widely-held interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, but coming down very hard on gun shows as a loophole big enough to drive a Hummer through. There are 60 gun shows a month in Washington and at any of them, the only paperwork required is green, as in legal tender:
In its ongoing attempts to close the gunshow loophole here in Washington State, Washington Ceasefire has repeatedly made the point that gunshows allow terrorists ready access to assault weapon and powerful 50 caliber rifles. The latter weapons are capable of stopping tanks or shooting down a plane from over a mile away.
A recently unsealed indictment handed down by a federal grand jury in Miami, Florida adds a Columbian terrorist organization to the growing list of terror entities that have chosen the 50 caliber sniper rifle as its favorite weapon. The indictment was returned on January 3rd, 2006 and unsealed on January 26th. It charges ten foreign nationals with a variety of offenses including attempting to provide material support to a a foreign terrorist organization – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia or FARC.
According to the 17 count indictment, the defendants offered to help persons they believed to be members of FARC buy fifty 50 caliber rifles. A 2001 Violence Policy Center Study Voting from the Rooftops revealed how Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden’s terror network, purchased at least twenty five 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles in the US during the 1980’s and that an unknown number of guns were also purchased in the U.S. by the terrorist Irish Republican Army. A number of domestic terror and fringe organizations have also purchased the guns in varying quantities.
Gun shows provide an open invitation for terrorists. On almost any given weekend in this State, there are gun shows where semi-automatic assault weapons and 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles are sold without any background check at the point of purchase or any record keeping.
Osama bin Forgotten’s boys bought guns at these gun shows? Yeah, I feel safer.