Is it time yet for sane gun advocates to separate from the total crazies? (Plus Tom Tomorrow on the Texas textbook follies)

You may recall that one of the fables and delusions the Texas Board of Ed is insisting publishers include in the new historical fictions to be sold for use in its schools is an appreciation of the role of the NRA.

"Our coalition of mayors understands that we can do more to preserve the freedom of law-abiding citizens to own guns, while still keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and terrorists. It's not surprising that the NRA's members and other gun owners share our sensible approach. Since we began this coalition, we've said all along: Americans share an enormous amount of common ground on the issue of guns. This poll provides the irrefutable proof, and we hope it will serve as a wake-up call to Congress."

-- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, last November on the release of a poll showing that "NRA members and other gun owners support sensible measures to keep guns out of the hands of criminals"

by Ken

As regular readers know, I'm not a big fan of Mayor Bloomberg, but when he's right, he's right. At the time of the poll, which by the way was taken by star Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the architect of the organized pushbacks against both health care reform and financial services reform, the other MAIG co-chair, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, commented:

This poll underscores what Mayors Against Illegal Guns has been saying all along. Our work to create sensible laws that combat illegal guns is not guided by partisan politics or special interests. It's guided by common sense and a commitment to making America's streets safer. While the NRA continues to pour countless dollars into misrepresenting our agenda, this poll demonstrates that their own members support many of the core initiatives of our coalition.

MAIG began with 15 members in April 2006 and now has over 500. MAIG (and NRA) member Mayor Mary Lou Hildreth of Keystone Heights, Florida, said, "This poll shows that when it comes to ensuring that all guns sold at gun shows are subject to a background check, the vast majority of NRA members agree with America's mayors."

So far, at least, it appears that the Obama administration is even more fraidy-scared of the NRA than it is of the medical-industrial complex. But maybe, if Congress is of a mind to do some actual work, that could change. Not even if a lot of people were to holler and scream? Luckily I've got a friend, one of the people I most respect in the political world, who's gotten involved in the issue, and he fed me some great sources on the subject, in accord my fervent belief in the Infotainment News Media philosophy of news gathering, where you plant yourself on your duff and wait for the stories to come to you. (Heck, it's a step up from right-wing "journalism," where you make up the story and then squeeze quotes out of every con man and phony you know, no matter what you have to pay them.)

Last week the Charlotte (WV) Gazette editorialized:

Almost any criminal, psycho, drunk, wife-basher, drug addict or other prohibited person can buy a pistol illegally at a gun show - no questions asked. Test after test has found that many gun show dealers, licensed or unlicensed, sell deadly weapons to practically anyone with money, evading federal laws that forbid sales to the unfit.

After 32 people were killed in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, a victim's brother went to gun shows and bought a trunkload of weapons, without background screening. His expose was filmed and broadcast by ABC News.

University of California students visited 78 gun shows in 19 states, secretly snapping photos as dealers sold them pistols without performing background checks. The university report was titled: "Inside Gun Shows: What Goes On When Everybody Thinks Nobody's Watching."

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan coalition, likewise documented unlawful pistol sales at shows.

Last fall, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg revealed a "sting." His office sent 40 private agents to seven gun shows in three states. The agents told dealers they wanted to buy pistols for others who couldn't pass background checks. Secret videos were taken. Sixteen of 17 licensed dealers failed the integrity test, and 19 of 30 private sellers did likewise.

What got the Gazette on the subject was the response of the West Virginia state legislature: "In the last hours of the 2010 regular session, lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill - that could protect the crooked gun dealers, and jail those who expose them." The law does nothing to prevent illegal sales, but makes it a felony to "entice" either a licensed dealer or a private seller into an illegal sale, and while law-enforcement officers are exempted, non-official persons attempting the kind of research set out above clearly could be charged with felonies.

As if the gun-show loophole wasn't worrying enough on its own, there's an additional wrinkle in that more and more guns are being pumped into the "system" by police departments, eager to scrape up some cash from guns confiscated in arrests. The International Association of Chiefs of Police has endorsed the practice of destroying such guns, but in fact a growing number of U.S. states have been passing laws banning the destruction of guns unless they're defective, thereby requiring police departments to put their confiscated weapons back into circulation.

Amazingly, the AP reported last week that both the shotgun used in the January 4 Las Vegas courthouse shootup and one of the guns used by the March 4 Pentagon shooter have been traced back to the Memphis Police Department. No one is saying that the police sold the weapons to the ultimate shooters. They just found their way via the usual gun-sales back channels.

AP reporter Devlin Barrett managed to find an ex-police chief (of Alma, Colorado) who defends the practice:

Maybe if they put the money they made selling the guns into training those officers better, they'd be better off. Nobody ever, ever questions selling a car that was used in a crime. I am sad that officers were shot, but I don't care where the guns came from. To say we need to chase guns is not the issue, we need to chase people.

Oh wait, did I mention that the speaker, Rich Wyatt, now operates a gun store?

The dark reality that the gun loons don't like to talk about is what a big business guns are. What we're getting here is, of course, the brilliant if sub-imbecilic crock of doody concocted by the NRA to turn the U.S. into its private Murder Inc.: Guns don't kill; people kill.

I find it ironic that ex-Chief Wyatt uses the analogy of automobiles, apparently not up to the challenge of grasping any difference between guns and cars. What's ironic? Just try using the automobile analogy to a gun loon with the suggestion that we should require registration of all guns just the way we do with cars. (My old political guru Milt Shook once set out a policy on gun ownership with registration, using the automobile analogy, which was so clear and sensible, it took my breath away.)

Oh, don't worry, Mayors Against Illegal Guns aren't so foolish as to be advocating a step as radical, if obviously sensible, as gun registration. They know full well the political impossibility of going up against the pro-violence goons of the NRA. But there are an awful lot of steps that can be taken, both through existing law and through tightening those laws and closing loopholes. MAIG hasn't had much luck in getting the attention of the administration, though.

Even the dim bulbs on the Washington Post editorial board grasp that there are relatively simple steps that can and need to be taken. An editorial just this past Saturday drew two lessons from the journy made by that Ruger handgun from Memphis to the Pentagon:

First, it is absurd for police departments to put guns back into circulation. The possibility of making a little bit of money from the sale of illegal weapons or swapping them for guns more suitable for law enforcement is not worth the cost in lives and safety. Police departments should put a halt to this practice; legally confiscated guns should be destroyed after they are no longer needed as evidence -- a measure endorsed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Second, there are steps the Obama administration could take immediately to reduce the danger to law enforcement officers and other law-abiding citizens. Legislation is needed to close the gun-show loophole to require background checks for all purchasers.

But the 500-strong, bipartisan coalition Mayors Against Illegal Guns has outlined 40 steps that the Obama administration could take on its own to get illegal guns off the streets. The FBI should alert local officials when a would-be purchaser has failed a background check; such an alert would put local law enforcement officials on notice that a "prohibited purchaser" with a disqualifying criminal history or an outstanding domestic violence warrant is trying to obtain a weapon.