Mayors Chris Coleman of St. Paul and R. T. Rybak of Minneapolis, along with about 200 mayors of other U.S. cities, are trying to convince Congress that its restrictions on tracking guns used in crimes have seriously limited the ability of local police to do their work. They point out that the inability of local, state, and federal officials to exchange information led to the sale of semiautomatic weapons to the obviously disqualified young man who used them to murder 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech a few months ago.
And yet, even after that horrific event, we still don’t have laws in place that will help authorities protect people from gun crimes. A recent Star Tribune editorial says:
“The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 19-10 against repealing the so-called Tiahrt Amendment, the series of federal provisions, first passed in 2003, that deny police and prosecutors access to information about guns used in local crimes. The provisions also prevent local authorities from sharing information about how illegal guns move from state to state.
“As if that weren’t sufficient to hogtie law-enforcement officials, the Senate committee inserted new language threatening local cops with jail if they use federal gun-tracing data to track the general problem of illegal gun trafficking.”
Is that a) sickening; b) disgusting; c) stupid; d) unbelievable; e) shameful; f) all of the above? You know the answer.
Minneapolis police collected 1,200 illegal guns in 2006, but they weren’t allowed to try to discover where the guns came from. Tell me how that makes sense.
Our society has always recognized the appropriateness of restricting various individual “freedoms” in the interest of community living. We can’t drive 100 miles per hour; we can’t walk down the street naked; we can’t give or sell liquor to minors; we can’t play music at 200 decibels in our yards all night; and on and on. The National Rifle Association needs to get real and acknowledge that there are some rules and regulations that ought to apply to them, too.
It’s too bad that Andre the Giant died in 1993. If he were still here, we might consider hiring him to walk up and down the halls of Congress to bang members’ heads together. Then, he could head over to the White House and do the same. How else are we going to be able to knock some sense into our government leaders when it comes to the out-of-control influence of the National Rifle Association?
No, no, no. I’m not talking about restricting the right of any reader of this magazine to own any gun currently allowed by law. I’m not talking about limiting the number of guns one can own, or the right to turn one’s home into an armed fortress, or do anything else within current laws. What I am talking about is ending the insane practice of tying the hands of law officers when it comes to doing their jobs by tracking down those who violate society’s rules.
I’m not completely naïve. I understand the facts of political life. I realize that the reason the few little gun laws we have are constantly hanging by a thread is that the gun lobby is rich and passionate and utterly committed to eliminating any limitations whatsoever on the rights of gun owners. They consider even the teeniest effort to protect our society an infringement on the absolute, unfettered right to distribute guns, and the first gigantic step on the road to eliminating every gun in America.
But their absolutism is absolutely wrong. It’s wrong for the simple reason that we live not in isolation, not in hyperbaric chambers, and not in gated communities from which we never stray. No. We live in a world with others—others whose needs and tastes and mentalities are different from ours. And because of that, we have to make compromises and rules and accommodations so that society as a whole can exist in relative harmony and safety.
