Here's an idea... Let's enforce some laws.

The most recent issue of Guns and Ammo magazine ranks Massachusetts near the top of a list of states hostile to gun owners. Only New York and New Jersey are stricter.

It is reasonable to think that non-gun-owners would celebrate the Massachusetts ranking. And that gun owners might not. While that’s true, a recent survey suggests a surprising amount of agreement between these camps.

The survey of 2,100 people, conducted by the John Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research and reported in the American Journal of Public Health, tested support for 24 gun policies. Here is there overall finding: “Although there are important areas where Americans disagree on guns, large majorities of both gun owners and non–gun owners strongly support measures to strengthen US gun laws.”

The authors go on to describe that areas of most common support, that is, upon which both gun-owners and non-gun-owners agree. “Policies with high public support and minimal support gaps by gun ownership status included universal background checks, greater accountability for licensed gun dealers unable to account for their inventory, higher safety training standards for concealed carry permit holders, improved reporting of records related to mental illness for background checks, gun prohibitions for persons subject to temporary domestic violence restraining orders, and gun violence restraining orders.”

This is good news for policy makers as it indicates broad common ground for minimizing firearms deaths. The authors, however, with abundant understatement, sound a cautious note: “insufficient enforcement of and compliance with these laws limit their effects.”

It is this last bit that drives honest gun owners absolutely nuts.

Politicians, as is their wont, continue to press for new, more restrictive gun laws. In Massachusetts, Attorney General Maura Healey roils gun owners by reinterpreting laws previously passed by the legislature. In Rhode Island, Governor Gina Raimondo creates new gun restrictions by dictate without legislative action. It is not a comforting environment for gun owners.

The most common complaint you will hear from these folks is this: “Instead of a new law, why don’t you just enforce the ones that we already have?”

They have a point, and here is a good example.

In March of this year, John D. Williams of Madison, Maine, was arrested in Haverhill, Mass. According to The Eagle-Tribune (North Andover), “State troopers arrested a man from Maine for having a gun without a license after they came upon his stranded vehicle on the side of Interstate 495.”

Williams was charged with the following: possession of and carrying a firearm, improper storage of a firearm, possession of ammunition without a Firearms Identification Card, possession of a large capacity feeding device, and several traffic offenses. Williams was held on $10,000 bail.

Williams appeared before Judge Michael Patten who reduced his bail to $7,500 in spite of the gun charges and a long criminal history. Williams appealed his bail to the Essex superior Court and Judge Timothy Feeley further reduced it to $5,000. Williams paid the bail and was released.

On the very day that Williams was due back in a Massachusetts court, he was accused of shooting and killing Maine Sheriff’s Deputy Eugene Cole. Corporal Cole, a US Army veteran, left a wife and four adult children.

This is not an aberration. In a case from April of this year we lost a Cape Cod police officer.  The defendant, Thomas Lantanowich, “is well-known to Cape Cod Law Enforcement as a notorious and violent criminal with 111 prior criminal charges in Massachusetts and currently out on probation with several criminal cases pending” according to the Yarmouth Police Department. 

Officer Sean Gannon, his victim, was also a victim of our porous criminal justice system.

Massachusetts judges routinely issue mere slaps on the wrist for gun violations while politicians continue to clamor for more restrictive laws. Does anyone see the disconnect here?

This is one more thing on which gun owners and non-gun-owners may find common ground: Enforce existing laws and hold criminals accountable for their actions by imposing meaningful punishments.

Here’s what you can do. Read the news. Pay attention. Hold our politicians and judiciary accountable.

Change starts with you.