Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The gun lobby likes to say that guns don't kill people - people kill people. That's why meaningful gun laws should target people inclined to kill and keep them from buying a gun with which to do it.

That gun laws are far from meaningful was made clear by Plain Dealer reporters Rachel Dissell and Christopher Evans in their Sunday examination of why it's so hard to track the ownership of guns used in crimes.

There are thousands of reasons why more laws are needed - 6,135 to be exact. That's how many guns sold in Ohio were used in crimes last year. And that's just the recovered guns. Many never will be found. They're tossed in the lake, buried or handed off to confederates.

Certainly, there's no magic measure that can keep gang members, drug dealers or teens seeking to look big in the neighborhood from buying guns illegally. A pistol can be had for $30 or less on Cleveland's streets.

But targeted measures aimed at making sure that those prohibited from gun ownership can't easily acquire guns through illicit or straw purchases could drive up the street price considerably. A straw purchase takes place when someone with a clean record - often a girlfriend or a spouse - pretends to be the weapon's buyer but is actually a front for the intended owner. The U.S. attorney's office in Cleveland has gone after 30 such fake buyers in recent years, but could mount a stronger effort to advertise the risks for straw buyers.

Yet, as Dissell's and Evans' story revealed, instead of pushing new laws to protect citizens, legislators seem busy enacting laws to tie the hands of law enforcement and to protect gun sellers from liability for hazy sales practices.

Cleveland police last year traced 123 guns used in city crimes to one Bedford Heights dealership, Atlantic Gun & Tackle. A spokesman for the family-owned firm told the reporters this was a consequence of its high sales volume - not its sales practices. If that's the case, then more openness about gun sales data is warranted - not less.

At a minimum, the Ohio legislature should not hamstring cities from being able to regulate and track firearms purchases or inspect dealerships. Cleveland had a tough assault-weapons ban until the state's concealed-weapons law invalidated it. That's simply wrong.

Even worse has been a series of federal law changes since 2002 that severely restricts access to and analysis of federal gun-trace data. These laws - most of them sponsored by Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt - appear purely motivated by the desire to shield the firearms industry at the expense of crime victims.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and city safety officials get it, as do officials in scores of other cities - but they need help having their message heard by lawmakers in Washington, Columbus and other capitals. At a time of rising gun violence in America's cities, coddling the industry and hiding the truth about why buying guns is so easy is no longer acceptable.