This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 30, 2013 - WASHINGTON – While conservative Republican senators grilled gun-control advocates at a hearing Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk staked a claim as a GOP moderate on the issue by introducing a bipartisan bill to make gun trafficking a federal crime.
Kirk, R-Ill., joined with U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., in sponsoring the Gun Trafficking Prevention Act, which aims to make it tougher for criminals to get illegal guns through third parties. It was the first bipartisan gun-safety measure of the new Congress.
“Gun trafficking is allowing gangs and violence to flourish in Chicago,” said Kirk, pointing out that illegally trafficked guns were involved in many of the 500 killings in Chicago last year as a result of gang violence. “We must put a stop to this cycle.”
A trafficking bill with similar aims is being sponsored by U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill, who told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday that such “straw purchasing” had made Chicago “awash in guns.” Durbin told the tragic story of an honor student, Hadiya Pendleton, who had marched in last week’s inaugural parade.
“Yesterday, in a rain storm after school, she raced to a shelter where a gunman came in and shot her,” Durbin said. “The confiscation of guns per capita in Chicago is six times the number of New York city. We have guns everywhere, and some believe the solution to this is more guns. I disagree.”
Earlier in the Judiciary hearing, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords gave a brief but emotional statement urging senators to take action to limit gun violence.
“We must do something. It will be hard, but the time is now. You must act,” said Giffords, who still struggles to speak fluently after being shot in the head at a public meeting two years ago in Tucson, Ariz., at which several others were killed. “Be bold, be courageous; Americans are counting on you.”
Durbin apologized to Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, that it had taken so long since the Tucson shooting to spur Congress and the White House into getting serious about gun control. “I’m sorry it has taken two years to convene this hearing, but it took Newtown to finally bring us to our senses and to open this national conversation,” Durbin said.
Kelly and Giffords have set up a new advocacy group for gun safety, Americans for Responsible Solutions. Describing Giffords’ permanent injuries – which include speech impairment, partial blindness and difficult in walking – Kelly said both of them, as gun owners, believe strongly in the Second Amendment right to own firearms.
But Kelly told the Judiciary committee that they have become convinced -- in part, as a result of the Tucson shooting -- that more stringent gun laws are needed because Americans “are not taking responsibility for the gun rights our founders conferred upon us.”
But Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, argued that some of the major gun laws that have been introduced in Congress – including a bill sponsored by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Cal., and cosponsored by Durbin, to ban assault weapons – would “only serve to burden the law-abiding” gun owners. He said such laws “have failed in the past and will fail in the future.”
Instead, LaPierre and several GOP senators on the committee urged sharper and more consistent prosecution of gun laws already on the books, as well as armed guards in schools who could head off potential mass shooters.
Another opponent of stricter gun laws was David Kopel, an adjunct law professor at Denver University who told the panel that universal background checks on gun purchasers would be problematic because they “can only be enforceable if there is universal gun registration.” That, in turn, would open the door for potential gun confiscation, he said.
But Baltimore County Police Chief Jim Johnson supported more stringent gun-control laws. He said background checks are effective, and extending them “to all firearm purchasers can be easily implemented – and should be, without delay.”
Kirk bill targets trafficking in illegal guns
Kirk’s decision to sponsor the gun trafficking bill jointly with Gillibrand was significant because he is viewed as one of the few Senate Republicans who might take a middle-ground stance on gun legislation that will be hotly debated in the coming months.
Several Democrats from mostly rural states – including freshman Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind. – have expressed doubts about the efficacy of reinstating the ban on assault weapons, which expired in 2004. Even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has avoided taking a stand on that and some other gun control issues.
The Gillibrand/Kirk bill is supported by theBrady Campaign to Limit Gun Violence, which cites trafficking as a serious problem.
“Almost 60 percent of the nation’s crime guns come from only 1 percent of gun dealers,” said the Brady analysis. “Our weak gun laws make it too easy for corrupt gun dealers to supply gun traffickers with an unlimited numbers of handguns and military-style assault weapons for the criminal market.”
The Gillibrand/Kirk Gun Trafficking Prevention Act would grant more power to local, state, and federal law enforcement to investigate and prosecute gun traffickers and their entire criminal networks, including gangs, cartels and organized crime rings. (Click here to watch a video from Kirk's office about the issue.) The legislation would make it illegal to:
- Sell or otherwise transfer two or more firearms to someone whom the seller knows, or has reasonable cause to know, is prohibited by federal or state laws from owning a firearm.
- Buy two or more firearms if the recipient knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, that it would violate federal or state laws.
- Provide false information (a “straw purchase”) on a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives form that applied to their firearms transaction.
The bill establishes harsh penalties, including a maximum prison penalty of 20 years for violating those laws, and calls on sentencing commissions to increase the penalties for trafficking when committed by or in concert with members of gangs, cartels, organized crime rings.
A big target of the legislation is gangs, which studies indicate are responsible for nearly half of the violent crimes committed nationwide. They often rely on middlemen with no criminal record to buy guns through a process called “straw purchasing” from a licensed gun dealer. The guns are often trafficked across state lines – not currently a federal crime.
“The absence of any federal law defining gun trafficking in this country is shocking,” said Gillibrand. “It is time to give law enforcement the tools they need to keep illegal guns off the streets and out of the hands of dangerous people.”
A bill introduced last week by Durbin and Judiciary Committee chairLeahy also targets straw purchasing by tacking on federal penalties to those who buy guns for criminals prohibited to make such purchases themselves.
The bill would toughen penalties for false statements on gun purchase documents and for transfers to prohibited purchasers that result in a gun’s use in a violent crime.
“We need to create a strong federal deterrent to stop straw purchasing,” said Durbin, adding that his bill would “make straw purchasing a federal crime that can carry a penalty of up to 30 years if the straw purchaser knows that the gun will be used in a crime of violence.
“And it cracks down on those shady dealers who want to look the other way when they ought to know better.”