Apoplexy or solutions?

The United States Code

It was a huge disappointment to the president – he termed it “shameful”. Expanded background checks, arguably the mildest of planned gun control measures, failed in the Senate last week. Illustrating how difficult national gun legislation is to achieve, the bipartisan group of senators voting down the bill included a contingent of rural state Democrats.

Liberals were apoplectic that these senators chose to represent the wishes of their constituents rather than those of President Obama, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Conservatives were relieved that they had dodged a bullet, viewing the bill as an incremental assault on Second Amendment rights. According to Vice President Joe Biden, President Obama vowed to implement new executive actions on gun control quite soon. This stirred constitutionalists, always sensitive to whiffs of executive overreach.

What to do… what to do?

Here’s an idea. There are over 12,000 words of the United States Code dealing with unlawful acts related to firearms possession. This is settled law – it’s already on the books! If only we were to enforce these laws, imagine the enormous reduction in gun violence we could achieve.

Here are some examples, with the USC citation and related prison sentence provided.

18 USC § 922 (g)  - 10 years in federal prison

Unlawful to possess a firearm or ammunition by one who is a felon, fugitive, drug user, adjudicated as mentally defective, illegally in the United States, subject of a restraining order, or convicted of domestic abuse.

18 USC § 922 (j)  - 10 years in federal prison

Unlawful to receive, possess, conceal, store, barter, sell, or dispose of  stolen firearm or ammunition.

18 USC § 924 (b)  - 10 years in federal prison

For shipping, transporting, or receipt of a firearm in connection with a federal crime of violence or drug trafficking.

18 USC § 924 (a)(1)(A)  - 5 to 30 years in federal prison, consecutive mandatory minimum sentences

For carrying, using, or possessing a firearm in connection with a federal crime of violence or drug trafficking

18 USC § 924 (j)  - death penalty or up to life in prison

Committing a murder while possessing a firearm or while trafficking drugs

There are many more firearm-related prohibitions, all with severe penalties. What would be the effect if these laws were assiduously enforced?

Well, we know the inverse. Chicago, with the toughest gun control laws in the nation, racked up 522 murders last year. Yet the Department of Justice prosecuted only 52 gun crimes, the lowest rate in the nation. So it’s evident, as well at intuitive, that fewer prosecutions don’t lead to favorable results.

The problem of gun violence in this country, statistically, is urban. Yet the administration has been focusing their collective effort on the rest of us. It is to this that the right objects. Why not ramp up federal prosecution of existing laws, no senate vote required, no constitutional objections, and see what happens?

Here’s why it won’t happen:

      1. Increasing the incarceration rate for gun crimes will further burden the federal prison budget, and, more importantly; 

      2. The majority of urban crime is committed by minorities on minorities. The PC police would not permit an unrepresentational increase in the minority prison population.

But if we’re serious about saving just one child, here is one: Hadiya Pendleton. Previously covered by this column, Hadiya was senselessly murdered in Chicago by two reputed gang members, guilty of all of the above USC provisions and more. Both President and First Lady Michelle Obama have invoked Hadiya’s name in their quest to crack down on gun ownership in Kingfield, Maine, and Eudora, Kansas.

Perhaps the president and his attorney general should look first to the cities, and put their focus on vigorously prosecuting the laws that we already have. Call your elected representatives and ask them, "why not?"

Saving only one life

"The Life Line," Winslow Homer, 1884

Vice President Joe Biden, appointed by President Barack Obama to oversee a commission on gun policy following the horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14^th, has established his criteria for making legislation.

“If our actions result in saving only one life, they’re worth taking,” Biden proclaimed at a meeting of victims and gun control proponents at the White House on January 9^th.

Let’s stop and consider this. According to the Vice President, the saving of one life is justification for taking legislative action which may affect the constitutional liberties of millions of Americans. Not to say that this is undesirable, but let’s consider a few scenarios.

On Monday January 7^th, a California mother was taken into custody for the death of her 2-year-old step-daughter. Proximate cause? According to police, she forced the child to ingest chili powder. Who knew that chili powder is poisonous to young children? The possession of chili powder should be immediately banned. After all, who actually needs chili powder? “If our actions result in saving only one life, they’re worth taking.”

In late March, 2011, a Georgia woman was killed by an injection of silicon intended to augment the allure of her buttocks. Morris Garner, a transgender, cross-dressing, unlicensed cosmetologist who formerly served in the military discovered that body-augmenting procedures might be profitable. So he hooked up with the unfortunate victim on the Internet. His lack of a license did not deter her, but led unfortunately to her death. Silicon injections for cosmetic purposes should be immediately banned. After all, who actually needs to have augmented buttocks? “If our actions result in saving only one life, they’re worth taking.”

Toledo, Ohio, August, 2011.  A 62-year-old women died from asphyxiation after falling head-first into her city issued recycling bin. It is likely that Sheila Decoster was trying to dispose of a small bag of recyclables but fell into the bin and perished from “positional asphyxia”. Clearly, these recycling bins are far more dangerous than we have been told. They should be promptly banned. “If our actions result in saving only one life, they’re worth taking.”

A recent Huffington Post article reports that 178 children have been killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and other countries. That's nearly nine Sandy Hooks. Do we hear a cry from the administration to curtail these strikes? “If our actions result in saving only one life, they’re worth taking.”

Not to make Mr. Biden sound foolish, but he is. Pandering to emotion to force political change is the worst kind of demagoguery. Legislation need be formed rationally, coolly, logically. Costs and benefits, rights and responsibilities must be carefully considered and balanced. We, the governed, deserve the benefit of the big picture, not the hormone rush of high emotion.