March 26, 2000

Gunlock Blackmail Threatens Representative Democracy

The unholy alliance between liberal presidents and tort lawyers -- manifest in the gunlock controversy -- has expanded to a level that threatens the nation.

Alarm has been triggered (pun intended) by a Wall Street Journal expose of the blackmail of Smith & Wesson by Clinton ambulance chasers.

Says the Journal: “In late January, two young Clinton Administration lawyers flew to the Nashville, Tenn., airport. There they handed Ed Shultz, chief executive of Smith & Wesson Corp., a list of gun-control demands. Agree to this, the government attorneys said, and the legal assault on the nation’s largest handgun manufacturer would be called off.

“President Clinton declared he was sending in a platoon of his aides to energize the negotiations, or, if that failed, to organize a class-action suit against gun makers on behalf of thousands of federally subsidized housing projects.”

With the hatchet job on the tobacco industry in mind, Shultz capitulated after two months of arm twisting and shmoozing.

He agreed to invent a smart gunlock, and to force gun dealers to sell only one hand gun on the day of purchase. In return, Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo said he would “try” to persuade the states of New York and Connecticut, and 29 municipalities, to withdraw class action suits against Smith & Wesson.

Clinton hailed the agreement as a “break through” that would force other gun companies to follow suit.

The Republican controlled Congress had already crafted a law that would mandate gun locks, registration, and a 24-hour delay on delivery pending a computerized felon check. Clinton stymied the bill by threatening to veto it unless the delay was extended to three days.

Clinton’s rationale for a veto is that it takes more time to check police and FBI files. This with a computer system that routinely pulls up IRS and census files instantly. Washington insiders know full well that the 72-hour delay is designed solely to kill week-end gun shows which account for most gun purchases.

Congress also knows that gun laws have no effect on controlling use by criminals, deranged adults, angry juveniles and curious children. Principal sources of illegal weapons are black market sales of guns smuggled into the country or stolen from responsible owners.

The endless debate over delay time is an excuse for Democrats and Republicans to keep gun control as a campaign issue. The solution is obvious. Delay delivery of six-shot hand guns – 80 percent of which is for personal protection -- for 24 hours. Three days or more for mega-clip weapons. In either case, the turn-down of a customer simply sends him around the corner to obtain a black market gun.

It is understandable that a majority of Congress is reluctant to impose severe gun restrictions contrary to the Second Amendment: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

It also is understandable that social activists are frustrated by Congress’ reluctance to wave its magic wand and correct all things perceived by them be inadequate.

Nevertheless, an inadequate Congress is the check and balance of an inadequate Presidency. It is critical that we hew to the Constitution’s Article 1, Section 1: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.”

No place in the Constitution is there a hint that it is OK for a president dissatisfied with Congress to use the courts to override the peoples’ duly elected representatives.

The tendency by liberal presidents to employ despotic coercion has gone dangerously far already. One or two more such incursions and representative democracy will collapse, as have all “popular” democracies.

Yesterday it was tobacco. Today it is guns. Both are legal products protected by the Fourteenth Amendment: “No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person … equal protection of the laws.”

Tobacco and guns have not been voted unlawful by Congress – whether through wisdom or avarice. Until such time, no president or court has the right to confiscate property craved by a Great Poohbah. Pharmaceutical companies surely are next on the hit list in the effort to demagogue health drugs.

One need not wonder about the motive of trial lawyers who donated $2.7 million in soft money to Democrats last year and $49.4 million so far this year. They are horrified that George W. Bush – who curbed tort excesses in Texas – might get elected.

We should be so lucky.

PARTING SHOTS

McCain has returned to work in the U.S. Senate amidst thundering silence. As Andy Capp says, “The only thing worse than being wrong, is being right with no body listening.”

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It isn’t whether you win or lose, but how you place the blame.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun-Herald columnist and can be reached at linwms@lindseywilliams.org