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According to the national news media March 17, 2000 was a historic day because of the Smith & Wesson agreement. I concur. Last year the President of the United States was frustrated by the refusal of Congress to enact what he considers "reasonable" restrictions on the sale of firearms. The national media felt his pain. Those of us who took the time to look up the proposed legislation, of course, found the fine print the national media ignored. We wrote our representatives. When the pro-gun members of the House, including both Republicans and Democrats, proposed a more reasonable compromise, the President and the anti-gun members rejected it out of hand. So the President took another path. He threatened to bring the full weight of the Executive Branch to bear by filing massive lawsuits against manufacturers. Such lawsuits, when filed by cities, are regularly being tossed out of court. But even preparing to fight them costs tens of thousands of dollars, more than S&Ws total profit for the last decade. So Smith & Wesson, afraid for the survival of the company, cracked. It's easy to disagree with them from the safety of our armchairs, and the isolation of our Texas shooting ranges. But I submit that S&W is not the problem. Read their explanation, posted at http://www.smith-wesson.com/misc/breakingnews.html. A press release of the terms of the agreement is posted on the Housing and Urban Development website at http://www.hud.gov/pressrel/gunagree.html. It goes far beyond what the national media and the President are calling a "trigger lock" deal. In fact, it enacts all of the restrictions gun prohibitionists have been unsuccessful in pushing through Congress, and then some. The agreement includes new "safety and design standards" for all handguns. Some are silly, some are dangerous, and some may be impossible. And some of the most restrictive, for instance the minimum size restrictions aimed at handguns suitable for concealed carry, are not included in the HUD press release. The whole 13-page agreement, with S&W's comments, is at http://www.smith-wesson.com/misc/agreement.html. Manufacturers agree to sell firearms only to dealers and distributors that agree to a "code of conduct." This code implements gun show restrictions, extends the National "Instant" Check System waiting period to "as long as necessary," requires "certified" training for purchasers and "ATF-approved" training for employees, institutes a one-gun-per-two-weeks restriction, and prohibits unaccompanied children under 18 in gun stores or gun areas of stores. (Picture that at Gibson's, K-Mart, and Wal-Mart.) It mandates additional insurance, electronic inventory control, and a storage security plan. It bans the sale of "large capacity magazines" and "semiautomatic assault weapons." And a few more details. Under the agreement manufacturers must refuse to sell to dealers "If an authorized dealer or distributor has a disproportionate number of crime guns traced to it within three years of sale." Manufacturers will institute "ballistics imaging" of firearms within six months, participate in an electronic tracing system for "high-speed tracing of crime guns" (and all other firearms), support "legislative efforts to reduce firearm misuse and the development of authorized user technology," and pay for an "education trust fund" with 1% of their overall revenues. This is over and above the 2% of annual firearms revenues they must commit to the development of "authorized user" technology. The agreement is subject to the rulings of a five-member "Oversight Commission" on which manufacturers have exactly one member. The other four are appointed by those who sued the manufacturers, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The Oversight Commission is authorized to maintain copies of law enforcement sales records, have full access to all sales records, approve the content of the required training, determine which dealers will be suspended, write the formula for disproportionate number of crime guns and require record keeping to institute it, review the design and safety requirements, and oversee dealer operations. The good news is that each manufacturer will only have to pay $25,000 a year to fund the Commission and its staff. In the Old West when such organizations were set up to enforce extralegal requirements on others, they often called themselves "Vigilance Committees." Hence the common term for their members; "vigilantes." Military and police may be exempt: "If law enforcement agencies or the military certify the need, exceptions to these requirements may be made." I don't see any guarantee there, though, and manufacturing special guns with "exceptions" would drive up the cost of law enforcement firearms considerably. Interestingly, the law enforcement provision "requests" officers not to sell a firearm to a civilian, but states that they "remain entitled to dispose of it in any lawful manner." In one of the sillier provisions, "Manufacturers will not sell firearms that can readily be converted into fully automatic weapons or that are resistant to fingerprints." Of course, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms already must certify that firearm designs are not "readily convertible" before they can be manufactured or imported. And fingerprint resistance in firearms means that the gun won't rust, not that you can't pick up identifying patterns. Then there's the next-step loophole. "If other manufacturers enter agreements with more expansive design and distribution reforms, and those manufacturers, along with the manufacturer parties to this Agreement, account for fifty percent or more of United States handgun sales, the manufacturer parties to this Agreement will agree to abide by the same reforms." According to CNN, Bruce Reed, the president's senior domestic policy advisor, said of the S&W agreement "We consider it a floor, not a ceiling." Finally, there's enforcement. Smith & Wesson's "voluntary" agreement "will be entered into and enforceable as a court order and as a contract." To add to the pressure, HUD and the mayors of 29 cities announced the formation of "Communities for Safer Guns Coalition," which pledges to do business only with manufacturers who adopt the new safety standards. How cities buy guns is, of course, between the elected officials and their voters; but I wonder if these politicians equip their law enforcement with the gadget-laden "safe" guns being forced on the rest of us. It will also be interesting to see if the safety features of the Secret Service sidearms close to the First and Second Families are similarly enhanced. With the S&W agreement, a President of the United States bypassed the Legislative Branch to enact wide-ranging gun control. He wrote a court order without bothering to involve the Judicial Branch. Can anyone still spell "Separation of Powers?" If Congress and the Republican presidential candidates let him get away with it, they might as well close up shop and come home. The President can simply run the government using Executive Branch extortion. The national media got it right: March 17 was a historic day indeed.
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Larry Arnold
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