Sen. Jack Reed: Enemy of the Second Amendment
by Larry Pratt

Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said: “The
greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of
zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

Well, amen! How true. And a current example that proves, with a
vengeance, what Brandeis feared, is a bill (S.2099) introduced by
U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) which would, among other things, tax
and register our handguns.

His legislation would treat handguns much as machine guns:
(1) require the registration of handguns in the National Firearms
Registration and Transfer record; (2) provide for the sharing of
registration information with Federal, State and local law
enforcement agencies; (3) provide for the imposition of the five
dollar transfer tax on handguns and a $50 tax on the making of each
handgun.

To be sure, Reed is well-meaning and zealous. But, in an interview
with the Rhode Island Democrat, it becomes obvious that when it
comes to “gun control” and the Second Amendment to our Constitution,
he is without understanding. And this is why he is so dangerous to
our liberties. Following are some excerpts from the interview with
Sen. Reed:

Q: What evidence would you cite that any gun control law has ever
worked?

A: “Well, I think some evidence is the original Federal laws that
regulate the registration of machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and
silencers. There’s not a proliferation of those weapons on our
streets, not anything compared to the handguns that are awash in
the United States.

“And there is no evidence that these weapons have been confiscated
arbitrarily. In fact, there are legitimate bona fide gun owners
that have these weapons and fire them regularly, as they are
registered. So, that’s an example of one that works. The Brady
background check is….”

Q: OK. But, let’s stop on this one. Is there a study you can refer
me to that shows the registration law you just mentioned actually
reduced crime?

A: “Uhhh, I think… we’ll certainly look for a study. But I would
guess this is more on the order of observation and what’s going
around. I mean, frankly, it is the rare exception when someone has
an automatic weapon, a machine-gun, really.”

Q: But, do you know of any evidence that this registration law you
mention has reduced machine-gun crime? I didn’t know there was a
lot of this.

A: “Well, back in 1930 was when the law was passed. This law has
been on the books for 60 years. I don’t think most people realize
that. They assume that there’s never been any registration of
weapons at the Federal level, that this is a bold and novel
approach when in fact Congress more than 60 years ago… simply
said, ‘This is a threat to the public safety and we’re going to
stop it.’”

Q: You don’t think Al Capone really obeyed that law do you?

A: “Uhhh, well, you know, if he didn’t he would have gone to jail
on that as well as tax evasion.”

Note: Several weeks after this interview, Reed’s office failed to
produce any evidence that the anti-machine gun law he mentions had
any impact on the crime rate.

Q: Brady. You were going to mention the Brady Law.

A: “I think the Brady bill has shown a reduction in… I don’t
know if you can make the correlation to a reduction in crime
[which has been reduced] because of difficult measures. But, what
Brady has uncovered is a number of felons who were trying to
purchase weapons… and they have been prevented from doing that.
In that sense, it’s been successful.”

Q: I press you on this gun control laws issue because my
pre-supposition is that behind all such laws is the desire to
reduce crime, reduce the illegal use of guns, right?

A: “The idea is to reduce violent gun crime.”

Q: Yeah, that’s what I mean.

A: “Yeah, yeah.”

Q: The Journal of the American Medical Association has recently
published a detailed study which shows there is no evidence the
Brady Law has had any effect on gun crime, on homicides. Are you
familiar with this study?

A: “I’ll become familiar with it. We’ve seen a decline in violent
crime….”

Q: Which started before Brady, actually.

A: “Yeah. And I would be the first to say that crime is not a
single factor phenomenon. It’s a whole bunch of things. But,
again, in trying to be not as analytical and scientific, but just
in terms of human behavior, the ease of obtaining weapons is such
that there’s a higher likelihood that something before, you know,
a scuffle between kids could escalate now to a shoot-out.

“A lot of this is anecdotal. But, up in Rhode Island, about a year
ago, two kids out rough-housing….”

Q: How old? What are you calling a kid?

A: “Sixteen or 17. They were rough-housing. Somebody’s pride was
injured… somebody in the crowd, because of the ease of getting
handguns, kid pulls a gun out and shoots seriously injuring one
individual. And then [the shooter] takes his own life.”

Q: I think anecdotes are important. They are real life. But, what
law would have stopped this?

A: “Well, I, you know….”

Q: I don’t think any law would have stopped that.

A: “Well, no, I think… if there is a registration law — if
someone gets a gun without registering it they’re a criminal by
definition.”

Q: But, criminals are not going to commit crimes with guns
registered in their own names.

A: “Well, but the point is, and one of the points of this
legislation (S. 2099) is that this will allow law enforcement
officials to better be able to trace weapons used by criminals in
crime.

“And I think the proto-typical person that we all want to see
exercise their rights as Americans to… and one right is to own
weapons — are homeowners, people who are recreational shooters or
hunters, those people will register their weapons, et cetera.

“But, frankly, if a police officer comes across a crime scene, and
there is a weapon, he now has a much faster and better way to
trace that weapon. Oh, and by the way, if he observes someone who
is involved in some type of criminal activity or probable cause to
suspect, and the weapon is not registered, that person is guilty
of another crime.”

Q: But, if we agree, as we did earlier, that gun-control laws are
supposed to stop crime, your supposed benefits of registration
come after a crime is committed. So what? So what if you find out
who a gun is registered to? I know of no evidence that
registration has prevented crime. Do you?

A: “The point is to have a system in which police can trace
weapons more quickly, that criminals… this raises the barrier
for them to get weapons. And then you have to make an assessment
whether that’s high enough to deter all gun crime. Frankly, it
would be naive to say that. But, I….”

Q: But, when has a registration law ever reduced violent gun
crime?

A: “Well, I would say the law we have on the books now on
registration has significantly limited access by criminals and
other people to machine guns, silencers, and sawed-off shotguns
without effecting the rights of law-abiding Americans to own these
weapons. This might be the only correlation you can safely make.

“Here’s the scenario (re: S. 2099): This law passes and some
law-abiding American registers their handgun at home. There’s a
domestic dispute and someone uses the weapon to hurt someone else.

“You would ask, ‘Has this law stopped crime?’ And I’d agree the
gun-crime was not stopped. But what it might have stopped… or at
least impeded… is someone stealing that gun and selling it to
somebody else and no one knowing any the wiser about it. Or
someone breaking in and taking the gun, et cetera. So, I mean, you
know….”

Q: But, why would your registration law stop a thief from breaking
in and stealing a gun since the gun would not be registered in the
name of the thief? Why would a thief care about this?

A: “I think they’d care just like someone who goes in and steals a
car that is registered. There’s a record of who owns that car and
they ain’t the one who owns it.”

Q: But, why would a criminal care if the gun he steals is
registered to someone else?

A: “[The gun] would be less easily disposable if there is a
registration system.”

Q: But would a criminal really commit a crime with a gun
registered in his own name?

A: “Uh, but that might be another disincentive to committing the
crime. I mean, you have this theory that hardened criminals are
going to get weapons any way they can.”

Q: Sure.

A: “Kill anybody they can, etc. And they’ll never take into
consideration what the law is.”

Q: Right. And that’s why they are criminals! Because they don’t
care what the law says!

A: “No, they do in fact consider how to get around the laws, how
to break them without getting caught. And frankly [registration]
is another way, like giving the police authority to register
automobiles and more of an ability to trace stolen vehicles and a
sense that people don’t just casually borrow cars because, you
know, it could have been their’s. No one knows.”

Q: Your car-gun registration analogy is interesting. But, I wonder
if registration has actually deterred car theft since within hours
after many cars are stolen they are chopped up and sold for parts
and/or they are on a boat being shipped to Brazil.

A: “But, I think your premise is that no gun-control laws have
ever had any effect on crime or the level of violence in the
country.”

Q: Exactly. But, the burden of proof is on those who argue that
gun-control laws have been effective.

A: “The burden of proof is on those who say we should do nothing
when 30,000 Americans die annually by gunfire… and in every
other industrial society in the world where they have much more
stringent gun-control laws you do not have this phenomenon of gun
violence.”

Q: Do you agree that under the Second Amendment individuals have
the right to keep and bear arms?

A: “In what, I mean… subject to regulation, yeah. Frankly, I
think there’s a very strong argument that the Amendment as
originally constituted had to do about the arming of militias.
But, at this point in time, I think practice and custom and the
history of the country suggests that access to weapons by
individuals is something that would be Constitutionally protected.
The question is: ‘How can we regulate that access?’”

Q: What would you say to someone who would say that what you are
advocating [in S. 2099] are the kinds of infringement the Second
Amendment prohibits? Aren’t registration of and taxing of guns an
infringement on the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms?

A: “I would say no, not at all. In fact, history suggests that we
do it all the time. We’ve been….”

Q: Well, there’s no doubt Congress has been violating our
Constitutional rights for a long time!

A: “I would suspect also that the courts have looked at this
question and consistently upheld these firearms laws, particularly
the registration law.”

See what I mean? Sen. Jack Reed is without understanding. He has no
evidence that any “gun control” laws have ever worked. He’s
obviously not familiar with the most detailed study which shows that
Brady has been a flop. Nor is he familiar with the rise in violent
crime in England following its gun ban.

He’s introducing a law which clearly “infringes” on our rights under
the Second Amendment. But, he denies that taxing and registering are
infringements! The Senator is precisely the kind of person Associate
Justice Brandeis warned us about.

— GOA —

[Larry Pratt is Executive Director of Gun Owners of America located
at 8001 Forbes Place, Springfield, VA 22151 and at
http://www.gunowners.org on the web.]