Has the Brady Gun Control Law Worked?

Free Congress Foundation
Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2000

An interview with Victoria Bingham of the Second Amendment Sisters, an
organization that supports the right to keep and bear arms.

?Why is there not more of an outcry? Why is it that the press seems to suppress
the constant, prolific accounts of people using handguns to defend themselves?
Why are the powers-that-be, if you will, trying so hard to make this an issue that will
take away the average American’s right to defend himself? And I ask the public, who
will defend you?” exhorted Endangered Liberties guest Victoria Bingham.

Host Paul Weyrich reported, “A study reported in the journal of the American
Medical Association concludes that the controversial Brady law restricting handgun
purchases had virtually no effect. While this is hardly a surprise to many Americans,
gun control activists have had some explaining to do. As expected, the study is
being called flawed and incomplete, but more objective observers say the facts are
harder to dispute.”

Host Lisa Dean stated, “Just looking to the study briefly, in their summary, the
journal of the American Medical Association concludes that the Brady Law says
implementation of the Brady act appears to have been associated with reductions in
the firearm suicide rates for persons age 55 years or older, but not with reductions
in homicide rates or overall suicide rates. So when people and groups such as the
NRA are saying that the data from this study proves that the Brady laws completely
flawed and ineffective that doesn’t seem to be consistent with the study. Can you
explain that?

Bingham said, “Well, let me say this – it’s not that the Brady law is completely
flawed. First of all, when it went into effect in January 1994, let’s come right out and
say the Brady Law demanded that there would be a five-day cooling off period and a
background check.

“Now in 1997 – I’m going have to go back a forth just a little bit – it was determined
that to make a federal mandate that background checks be included in the law was
unconstitutional. But you’ve seen that states have voluntarily continued to insist
upon the background checks. And again, I have no problem with background
checks. That’s why I believe the states in their wisdom have continued on a
voluntary basis to continue looking into someone’s background who?s looking to buy
a handgun.

“The other aspect of the law, though, the cooling off period, think is flawed. I think
that’s where you’re not really seeing any improvement in safety and prevention
statistics. There are really no sound statistics out that have indicated of the Brady
law has been beneficial, really. Whether or not people have stopped shooting
themselves because they’ve had a chance to think about it hasn’t been nailed down.

“The AMA has still not been able to show us that because people think about it
another five days that they haven’t used a weapon to kill themselves.

“First of all, if somebody wants to kill themselves … there’s plenty of other methods.
The one thing that I have seen as a concrete result of the Brady law’s
implementation, and this as a woman concerns me, is an absolute rise in rape and
aggravated assault rates. There are some statistics that put it at 3.6 percent and
another that says four percent but there has been a raise in these rates.”

Host Paul Weyrich asked Bingham, “On what basis?”

Bingham replied, “Well it’s very simple. Let’s say you’re a woman that finds herself
either being stalked, or has had an attempt in her neighborhood – someone has
either, let’s say, tried to assault her outside of her home. Or let’s say, for example,
an ex-lover suddenly is starting to stalk her or make phone calls. In this case, a
woman will want to go out- not all women – but some women answer this by trying
to go out and secure means of protection, because a lot of wise women understand
that you can not depend on a phone call to protect you when every moment is
critical. The five-day waiting period will put them at risk because sometimes that’s
all the assailant needs to complete his attack.?

Bingham noted, “What we’re failing to address nationwide is ? let me just blatantly
ask: why is it such a problem for people to address the defensive posture of
handguns? Why is it that they will take studies that are done by the Los Angeles
Times and a great deal of venerable polling groups that show that anywhere from
760,000 all the way to 3.6 million defensive acts yearly are promulgated with the use
of a handgun – people who are saving themselves.

“Now, of course, you know that they don’t good press – incidents like this – because
if someone doesn’t get killed there’s nothing to write about. You know, if you’re going
to pull out a gun – and it has been shown over and over again that you don’t even
have to pull the trigger. I mean, I’m inclined sometimes to think maybe I’ll just go get
a plastic gun and keep it somewhere – it’s the brandishing of a gun, more often than
not, that wards off an assailant. I mean, your average assailant also is interested in
self preservation.”

Host Lisa Dean said, “That’s interesting. Now the study again concentrated in the
conclusion on those people 55 years and older and how the Brady law has been
effective. And I wonder why that is. Do you have any idea, any opinion, as to why
concentrate or why people 55 years and older in that age group, why the Brady law
is effective?”

Bingham answered, “I’m almost afraid to answer that question because I could
probably come up with a couple of … hypothetical situations where, for some
reason, this age group prefers to use a gun when you’re talking about suicides. But
again, to put a blanket law across the population, which in order to prevent this
particular individual from killing himself in this manner as opposed to another, and to
lower the possibility of the general population being able to defend themselves, I find
that to be ludicrous.”

Weyrich commented, “In watching the Democratic convention last week, about
every other speaker referred to the decrease in crime and the Clinton administration
wanted to take great credit for it. Nobody, however, mentioned the concealed carry
laws which many states have passed, and which, I think is mostly responsible for
the decrease in crime. What do you think?”

Bingham replied, “I wholeheartedly agree with you. There are two things I’d like to
say about that. Back after the 1996 Democratic convention, Sarah Brady came out
with a statement that ‘look at how, thanks to the Brady law, we have prevented over
100,000 criminals and other such elements from procuring handguns.’ Well, first of
all the actual statistic is more like 3,000, not 600,000. But the interesting point is,
why is it that from the period of January, 1994, when it was implemented, all the way
to June ’97 – how is it that only four criminals who had applied to buy a handgun
went to jail?

“If this administration was truly interested in the safety of its people, why is it that
when we have laws in affect that say that if you attempt to purchase a handgun and
the background check turns up a criminal record, that is a federal offense and you
go to jail. Now, why is that out of this alleged 600,000 that only four people ever went
[to jail]? If they wanted to pull these people off of the street, that’s the perfect
opportunity to do so. So there’s already something to mull over.”