A War on Guns?

by Ryan Gorsche

Once, Tom Diaz was a card-carrying NRA member and a self-proclaimed gun nut. Now an agent for the Violence Policy Center, he went behind the veil in his book, Making a Killing, to prove that the firearms industry has been infesting America with a vicious “health hazard.” Diaz identifies the threat and demands that the government reform and regulate the industry for the nation’s very survival. Unfortunately for Diaz, his attempt to prove malfeasance on the part of gun manufacturers falls short of a credible case for expanded regulation of gun ownership, providing only the tired dogma and newspeak of gun control zealots.

While Diaz initially succeeds—for the first and last time—in informing readers that the gun industry is, in fact, a profit-driven industry (shocking!), his portrait of villainous firearms merchants aren’t really convincing, and the image emerges only through endless contradictions and distortion.

Diaz claims that the industry has been producing more powerful and lethal—in other words, more effective—firearms in an attempt to keep up with consumer demand. Diaz goes to great lengths to show that gun makers are just out to make a profit—a revelation that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who realizes that guns are a legal product like any other. Firearms made for self-defense are used to subdue an assailant; any company that produces a more effective gun is simply satisfying customer need by assuring that the gun will function as intended. In the end, Diaz doesn’t acknowledge a right to self-defense for average Americans, and he just plain doesn’t like guns.

As more evidence of the industry’s corruption, Diaz damns gun makers for such unscrupulous practices as advertising, competing between companies, creating what the market demands, and other standard commercial acts.

Diaz discusses what he considers to be an upgrade of firepower that has occurred within the last two decades. Over the years, there has been a change in the standard weaponry used by law enforcement officers, from the .38 revolver to the 9-mm semi-automatic pistol. The creation of these so called “wonder” weapons, such as semi-automatic 9-mm and large caliber guns, says Diaz, has flooded the market with more dangerous and powerful firearms, previously nonexistent. Diaz argues they provide no benefits, just added danger. And yet, what Diaz leaves out is the fact that the 9-mm shell, which is nearly identical to the .38 in power, was invented in 1895 by George Luger. It’s not generally considered new.

The .44 Magnum, the most commonly used of the “super” calibers, is, moreover, a shell bored for a revolver (a handgun Diaz finds acceptable), not a semi-automatic pistol.

Diaz charges that police agencies often upgrade their weapons unnecessarily, artificially sustaining the nasty gun sellers. He cites the statistic that the average gun battle in which an officer was slain lasted only 2.5 shots. Since 2.5 shots is less than the six shots in a revolver’s cylinder, Diaz claims, law enforcement upgrades are and were unneeded.

If the aim of law enforcement were dead police officers, Diaz might be correct. Of course, using cop killings as a benchmark for police upgrades is absurd, since the aim is to preserve the officer’s life and to apprehend the suspect—a goal that might be more often achieved if the officers had more effective weapons, and could fire more than 2.5 shots in a typical encounter.

A better standard might be cases in which the suspect was apprehended—after 2.5 shots or however many—but Diaz never considers those. He holds a truly bizarre model of law enforcement.

Diaz proclaims the FBI’s decision to upgrade from the 9-mm—after an infamous shootout—unnecessary. His evidence: during the shootout, one agent fatally shot a suspect in the chest with the issued 9-mm; therefore, Diaz concludes, the weapon is effective. Incidentally, after the man was shot it took nearly an hour and a half before he was incapacitated—and during that time he shot and killed two officers. It would appear to be a matter of common sense for the FBI to upgrade to better weapons, if only for the safety of their agents.

Diaz’s work is full of contradictions. On the one hand, he says the gun industry operates with no scrutiny from the government or itself, and that the product they sell is “shoddily made” and “dangerous to customers.” Later, Diaz praises guns for being one of the few products that are so well put together they can last a lifetime with only minimal care and that, therefore, there is no need for new firearms.

Diaz informs the reader that, “ironically,” imported guns are given a more thorough safety inspection than domestic firearms upon entry into American markets. In a later argument against retailers of firearms, however, Diaz warns consumers that they can “never be sure” about the quality of an imported firearm.

One German company, he explains, only keeps 20-25 percent of its product for German markets, and exports the rest to the United States. Diaz’s claim is that the Germans fear the proliferation of so dangerous a product, and therefore ship it elsewhere. But, considering the discrepancy in population between the German and American markets, a reasonable person might expect such a disparity in arms sales.

He further cites the influx of Chinese firearms into U.S. markets, noting irony in the fact that Chinese citizens cannot own firearms. Of course, Chinese citizens also can’t worship freely or criticize their government.

Diaz might prefer that system, though, since he evinces a mistrust of average citizens throughout his book. He has some difficulty distinguishing between criminals and law-abiding citizens and often conflates gunrunners and honest businessmen. He often discusses “retailers” who import and sell illegal firearms. Diaz also remains obstinate that no private sale of a firearm—especially at a gun show—can ever be justifiable.

Some gun control advocates have asserted that upwards of 70 percent of the guns used in crimes come from gun shows. The anti-gun group Handgun Control, Inc. claims that “25-50 percent of the vendors at most gun shows are unlicensed dealers.”

Yet empirical studies have shown that gun shows are not a significant source of guns used in crime. A 1997 report by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics on federal firearms offenders reported that only 1.7 percent of crime guns are acquired at shows. A report issued by Handgun Control itself found that only two of 48 major city police chiefs said that gun show sales were an important problem in their city.

What’s more, the allegation that a quarter to half of the vendors at gun shows are unlicensed dealers is true only if one includes vendors selling merchandise other than guns, such as clothing, holsters, books, knives, and so on.

Most firearms for sale at gun shows, of course, are from federally licensed dealers. “Despite what some media commentators have claimed,” notes David Kopel, Research Director at Colorado’s Independence Institute, “existing gun laws apply just as much to gun shows as they do to any other place where guns are sold. Ever since 1938, persons engaged in the business of selling firearms have been required to obtain a federal firearms license. If a dealer sells a gun from a storefront, from a room in his home, or from a table at a gun show, the rules are exactly the same: he must call the FBI and get authorization for the sale, after the FBI runs its ‘instant’ background check (which often takes days to complete). As a result, firearms are the most severely regulated consumer product in the U.S.—the only product for which FBI permission is required for every single sale.”

Still, Diaz remains hysterically troubled by gun shows. Why? During a recent gun show he attended, he noticed, “for whatever reason, Nazi memorabilia is often…displayed at gun shows.” Clearly, all gun owners must be fascists if someone hocked old Nazi belt buckles at some gun show.

Diaz ends his book by offering “well-planned” solutions for inoculating the country against the gun industry’s poison. His plans actually prove what gun rights advocates have been saying for years: America does not need new laws; it needs robust enforcement of laws already in effect.

First, Diaz proposes the well known—but poorly planned—idea of a national database of all firearms. He discusses the need for ATF agents to know where every gun is located and who owns the weapons. Currently, Diaz reluctantly concedes, such information (collected from consumers upon the purchase of a gun) is disclosed to the ATF after a crime is committed with the firearm. If no crime is committed, purchaser information remains undisclosed. In other words, when a crime is committed, the proper information is given to law enforcement, but the information of law-abiding citizens remains secret.

A national database of gun owners would be a costly undertaking that serves little purpose, except to compromise citizens’ privacy, and would do nothing to assist in solving crimes.

When such databases were created in other countries, such as Australia, they were later used as a map to revoke gun ownership a few years later.

Diaz also advocates reform of import laws and the creation of new laws regarding federal licensing of firearms dealers. Existing laws already regulate sales and imports of firearms, however, and, for every criminal gunrunner who evades them, there are countless retailers who follow the rules. Even with the addition of new laws, retailers will continue following them while gunrunners will not. Vigorous prosecution is the only sensible solution.

For some reason, however, enforcement of gun laws is in decline. From 1992 to 1998, the number of referrals to federal prosecutors from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for prosecution of federal law violations fell from 9,885 to 5,510—a 44 percent drop. Federal firearms law infringement cases sent to federal, state, and local prosecutors decreased 46.5 percent, from 12,084 to 6,470.

Diaz demands, however, not that the government enforce existing law, but that Washington act to phase handguns entirely out of production—and eventually confiscate all handguns, from both criminals and law-abiding citizens alike. According to Diaz, after all, firearms are a serious public health hazard, and must be effectively eliminated—just like the government did with drugs.

As with drugs, of course, guns wouldn’t disappear, and a lucrative black market would emerge, with all the assorted violence that the black market for drugs has spawned. If Diaz expects criminals to care that handguns are illegal, he’s just being silly. Criminals don’t obey laws; that’s what makes them criminals. And so Diaz leaves good citizens unarmed against outlaws.

He thinks all gun owners are ignorant “hotheads looking for trouble,” anyway.

Diaz concludes his book by stating that Americans want a safe and civil society—something with which no one would disagree. Such a society, however, is realized by arresting criminals, not by compromising Americans’ rights of self-defense and freedom.

Even if Diaz were granted his druthers, and guns were banned, criminals would still exist. And they’d be much safer.