The Brady Bill, revisited

Great Debates
1

I was watching the news last night when the topic of the sniper came up. Immediately, I started paying some real attention, because not only is it tragic and disturbing, it’s a hot button issue for the gun debate.

So I’m listening, and the topic of ballistic fingerprinting came up. As usual, I rolled my eyes. I think it’s a waste of money, time, and resources, although I am not closed to debate on that yet. Anyway, I listened to the talking head (who was a law enforcement officer) for a while, and while he was talking about how long it would be before there would be some results after implementation of this program, he said something that left me dumbfounded.

Apparently, according to the most recent statistics compiled by the BATF, the average age of a gun used in the commission of a crime is five to six years old.

Now, I’m not sure, but the implications of that statement are pretty obvious to me. What it means to me is that the Brady Bill is worthless. If that statistic is in fact true (although I have made an honest effort to confirm and have been unable to, so it may not be), what is the justification for making people wait up to ten days to get a gun if they’re going to wait approximately 6 years to become a bloodthirsty murderer? I understand that the waiting period provision has given way to the instant check, but other states have taken the opportunity to create their own waiting periods, and it all stems from Brady. In addition, I keep hearing about “assault” weapons, which the Brady Bill specifically addressed 8 years ago. What constitutes an assault weapon? Anything? Everything? I thought they were all banned in 1994, yet people still speak of these guns as abundant, their owners on the prowl for someone to kill.

So the crown jewel, the mother of all gun laws, the Brady Bill, has been brought back into focus, at least for me, hence the question:

The Brady Bill: Why did it pass against all logic and statistical evidence, and why does any part of it continue to be Law?

Thoughts?

2

In answer to your question:
[Teary Eyed Talking Head]Because of the children! Why won’t you think of the children?[/TETH]

3

Wait a minute.

You say that on the average, the guns used are five to six years old… an d from this, you conclude that the Brady bill is utterly worthless? That it has no value whatsoever? That it won’t stop even a single crime?

No offense, but… I don’t think that conclusion logically follows.

4

One reason it takes so long for guns to be used in crimes is because many guns used in crimes are stolen guns. So the gun may have been sitting in the rightful owners home for 5 years, stolen during a burglary, found it’s way onto the streets, then finally used in a crime.

The Brady Bill did not address “assualt weapons”, a seperate law did that, the Omnibus crime control act of 1994 I believe it was called. If you read the provisions of it you would realize that the people that wrote it knew absolutely nothing about guns. One of the things that made a gun an “assualt weapon” was a flash suppressor for God’s sake. I guess the word “suppressor” made them think it was a silencer, which it is not.

Many manufacturers, like Colt and Bushmaster, simply removed the flash suppressor from their AR-15’s, and -poof-, the gun was no longer, by law, an assualt weapon. even though it could still shoot 50 rounds or more without reloading.

Intratec, the company that makes the “evil”:rolleyes: Tec-9 assualt weapon, simply removed the threaded barrel replaced it with a non threaded barrel, and -poof- it’s no longer, by law, an assualt weapon. Even though you can still buy 32 round magazines for it.

the assualt weapon ban was absurd. assualt weapons are still
available in both "pre"ban and “post” ban models. I know, I’m selling several on Gunbroker.com right now.

5

I don’t speak from the OP, but I conclude that the Brady Bill is utterly worthless by virtue of the fact that it has done no good whatsoever.

6

If the idea of a waiting period is as a ‘cooling off period’ to keep people from buying a gun and immediately commiting a crime with it, why does it apply to people who already own lots of guns?

The term “assault weapon” can mean whatever the user wants it to mean, really.

It does have an arbitrary meaning in the context of a particular law, meaning that there are various different meanings in each state as well as at the federal level. The trouble is that these descriptions were mostly made up out of thin air by people who don’t know much about firearms, so they are confusing and contradictory, often depending on superficial aspects of a firearm such as appearance, date of manufacture or importation, country of origin, what accessories are currently attached to it etc., not to any functional characteristics.

Many people also use the term to mean any gun that is similar to the ones described in these laws, but does not quite fall under the laws.

7

Good point, SPOOF.

I think most existing gun regulation is counter-productive. These regulations inconvenience honest gun owners. These regulations cost money to enforce. But they do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Criminals who want guns will always get them, regardless of the law.

8

And how do you know that? You say that it “has done no good whatsoever.” Can you really claim that it has not prevented even a single crime? And if so, how did you determine this to be so?

Remember, I’m not claiming that the bill HAS done any good. I’m merely questioning the assumption that it has done “no good whatsoever.”

9

Waiting periods came about long before Brady, California’s dates back to sometime in the 1970s (it went up to 15 days for a while, IIRC it’s currently at 10 days) for example and a good chunk (I’m not sure if it’s most) of the state waiting periods were around before '93. I think it’s rather misleading to talk about the Brady law if you want to discuss waiting periods, since Brady hasn’t required one for close to four years, many states have no waiting period laws and many of those that do had the laws long before Brady. Especially since you’re using ‘waiting periods do no good’ as an argument against the Brady Bill, which doesn’t mandate a waiting period.

Similarly, the Brady law has nothing to do with banning “Assault Weapons”; the 1994 Omnibus Crime Control Act is the one that provided us with the “Assault Weapon” and “High Capacity” magazine bans.

Furthermore, even if we ignore the fact that you’re not really discussing the Brady law, your argument on the age of guns is flawed. The fact that the average age of a gun used in a crime is 5-6 years doesn’t mean that waiting periods do no good. If half of all guns were brand new and half were a decade or more old, then those new guns would still factor in. Similarly, a gun that is 5-6 years old but bought used from a dealer would still be a new purchase despite the age of the gun.

(A better approach to discussing waiting periods would be to look at how many people used a newly purchased gun to commit a crime within the waiting period either before the waiting period was law or in areas without a waiting period. From the complete lack of evidence provided by waiting period supporters, I have deduced that the number is zero or practically zero.)

10

The Brady law had NOTHING to do with assault weapons?

I beg to differ. Check out Section 401, Part 32a.

The words “semiautomatic assault weapon” are explicitly mentioned.

However, Riboflavin, your argument is otherwise well reasoned, and it gave me a perspective I hadn’t had before, most especially on the “average” age of a gun used in a crime. I’d like to see the hard numbers on that just to see exactly how it breaks down.

In any event, I still can’t imagine how any of the provisions in the Brady Bill has done anything to prevent violent crime. All it seemingly does is take interesting, collectible guns out of the hands of responsible gun owners who would never use them for criminal acts and insure that the criminals have the use of all of them.

11

That’s right, the Bill known as the Brady Bill which later passed into law does not mention ‘assault weapons’ anywhere in it. The text you’re pulling from combatsimulations.com appears to be the text of a bill that never passed into law, it’s certainly not the Brady Law or what was covered by the original Brady Bill. If you look at the provisions earlier in that bill you quoted, it mentions some requirements much stricter than anything existing today.

If you jump back on Combat simulations and try to find the Brady Law text through the site, they give a correct link to http://www.uh.edu/~dbarclay/rm/brady.htm , which is the actual Brady Bill/Law text.

12

Thanks. The one I linked to, incidentally, was text that I also saw on Sarah Brady’s website and a few others, so you can understand my confusion.

13

Well, gun and total homicide rates are decreasing. Just using easily available numbers - from just 1999 to 2000 homicides among children are down: 16% in 1-4 yo; 29% in 5-9 yo; 11% in 15-19 yo. Is this due to Brady? Who knows? Lots of other factors too. A good economy. Fewer teen aged males. Truth be told, Brady can only do so much. More good would be done by monitoring the resale of weapons associated with homicide (handguns and those referred to as “assault weapons”) and holding those involved in their illegal resale as culpable in the crimes committed with the weapons. With very serious consequences. Required proper storage and required reports if a gun is “stolen” with investigation of the circumstances. I don’t care if owning a gun is a “right” or not; it is an awesome responsibility. One that is too often not lived up to.

14

I’m not quite sure how Brady could be responsible for the drop, since the drop in violent crime rates started a good 2 years before the Brady Bill entered the house. It’s a pretty safe bet that, whatever effects the Brady Bill has, it doesn’t have magical time travel powers.

Like shall-issue concealed carry, which also became more common in the '90s and was conspiquously absent from your list?

So, you advocate some kind of additional monitoring, what sort of monitoring are you talking about?

“Assault Weapons” are only associated with homicide in Brady Bunch propaganda. Aside from providing a concrete definition of what you mean by ‘assault weapon’, could you provide some kind of cite (other than the Brady Bunch whining ‘these are the weapon of choice of criminals’) for your assertion that some flavor of semi-automatic rifles (or whatever you mean by ‘assault weapon’) are associated with homicide in some kind of statistical sense?

Or, perhaps, just bother prosecuting those involved in illegal resale under existing law? Why throw more laws at the problem when the justice system appears unable to actually prosecute all of the gun-related crimes they have now?

Let me guess - “proper storage” means “can’t have it useable for self-defense”? If not, what do you mean by “proper storage”?

Yes, it would be nice if police in larger cities actually investigated all burgalries - I’ve had friends who lost a lot of stuff and had a hard time getting a police report filed, much less getting an investigation done. I’m glad to see that you are so interested in having the police return stolen firearms to their rightful owners - that is going to be the ideal end result of this ‘investigation’, right?

It’s as much a responsibility as owning a car, and roughly 3 times as many people die from automobiles every year as die from guns.

15

Granted. I change my comments to say “It has done no significant good whatsoever.” I’m just going by an older thread on the subject: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=33114&highlight=Brady+Bill

16

I agree about responsibility. Owning / using either a car or a gun is a big responsibility. I’d say that we (the US) do not seem to be doing that terrific a job of seeing to it that people are well prepared to handle either guns or cars responsibly.

Re guns, my question is this. Without infringing on the right to bear arms, how can we see to it that anyone who chooses to own a gun has had adequate instruction in safe, responsible gun ownership?

17

There appear to be several problems with the OP. First, we have no idea who was the source for the “fact” regarding the age of firearms used in crimes, nor whether this was based on opinion or empirical data. We have no idea whether this statistic is current, dated, or a composite over some time period. These facts alone make it exceptionally hard to relate to the Brady Bill.

Secondly, the federal waiting period as part of the Brady Bill expired in 1998. This makes it hard for it to have any effect. It seems odd that those knowledgeable about guns and gun purchases within this thread neglected to mention this little fact.

Finally, ignoring these elements, and simply considering the Brady Bill in relationship to the age of guns committed in a crime, wouldn’t a greater age of guns in crimes support rather than contradict the efficacy of the Brady Bill? Consider this: perhaps those interested in using a gun in a crime tried to purchase a new weapon and were prohibited from doing so because of the Brady Bill background check. They were then forced to go to a
gun show and buy an older weapon with which to commit their crime. I have no idea of the availability of data to evaluate this hypothesis, but it seems a plausable contradictory explanation of the assertion in the OP.

Riboflavin, you very sagely recommend an empirical strategy to address this issue, and then spout nonsense about the lack of findings based on such methodology supporting a conclusion that waiting periods are not helpful. Is there any way to conduct the study you suggest? Wouldn’t it mean closer tracking of guns, gun owners, and crimes? Who has that data?
Do you want to answer the question? I suspect you don’t.

Finally, Airman Doors, you have to change your sig line - The Steelers are 4-3, and are definitely not the Ravens!

18

If the gun control crowd can’t come up with a shred of evidence that waiting periods do any good whatsoever, how exactly is it “nonsense” to conclude that waiting periods don’t actually do any good?

Yes, you’d have to go in and look at police reports, then compile the information off of them into the study. As long as you don’t get someone as poorly equipped for the task as Michael Bellesilles, who somehow cited records destroyed in a fire before he was born, it would not be any more difficult than other study on the incidence of crime.

No, the 1968 GCA provides law enforcement all of the tools they need to track which dealer a firearm was sold from and when.

Police departments, the same people who have most of the raw data on crimes committed. Look, if you have some specific questions on what would be difficult about this sort of study then I could address that, but I’m not going to play a guessing game where I try and guess what you’re talking about and you berate me for putting words in your mouth if I guess wrong.

Oh yeah, that’s rich coming from one of the gun control crowd. It’s true, I’m somewhat hesitant to reply to messages from GCers, especially ones with only 9 posts to their name, because of how commonly they commit drive-bys, because they tend not to answer questions themselves, and because they toss around asinine comments (such as yours above) and then whine like babies when they’re responded to in kind. OTOH, I try to act as though each new GCer is willing to actually engage in debate, despite what experience shows, even when they open up with absurdities like your post, and specifically insulting nonsense like your comment.

19

Hentor… (BTW, welcome to the boards) If I may, unfortunately some of us kind of segue into a new thread with some of the old threads in mind. You seem to have some good points, so please stick around. There have been a large number of threads in GD (and the Pit) re gun control or lack thereof, so do a search and check some of them out. You might save yourself some time (and some grief) if you can come up with some new angle for the GC (gun control) crowd. FTR, for me, gc means hitting what you aim at…

20

Thanks for the welcome. I understand your point about prior threads, and I apologize if I am treading old ground. However, a couple of things. First, my points were in direct response to the OP and the following comments, so I am not sure if you are saying that the OP and replies are tired, and are recommending that I just ignore it. Secondly, and this is meant with no disrespect, but I find that the board is generally so slow, and I
am able to access it so infrequently, even on a fast LAN connection, that searching old posts would prevent me from actually contributing anything.

** Riboflavin**, if you are worried that I am just driving by, then why respond? As you have no time for that, I have no time for those who would make an assertion based on a lack of information one way or the other. I may have only been here for 9 posts (which should be irrelevant to the points I might make) but I already know you. I have talked to you before in other venues. You have no interest in proposing an argument and defending it. You have no time for logic or data. You simply make vehement statements, as if shouting into the virtual world will compel others to believe you.