Guns and Violence in the U.S.A.

Editorial

Lax and Lethal

Published: October 3, 2010

The high price Americans pay for weak gun laws — no matter where they live — is made painfully clear in a new study prepared by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan coalition led by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston.

The study examines the source of guns confiscated at crime scenes across the country during 2009. A large number of these guns, 43,000 in all, originated with out-of-state gun dealers. Among the states with the worst record of exporting crime guns were Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi and Alaska.

Each of these states exports crime guns at a rate more than double the national average. All have weak gun laws. They generally fail to require background checks for handgun sales at gun shows. They tend not to require state inspection of gun dealers, or require owners to report lost and stolen guns to police.

The study finds that states that have enacted strong restrictions export crime guns at only about one-seventh the rate of those with lax laws. It relied on data available only after Congress loosened restrictions — put in place with support from the gun lobby — that barred public release of information tracing the flow of guns.

There are sensible steps that could help, like closing the loophole in federal law that permits gun traffickers and other unqualified purchasers from obtaining weapons without background checks at gun shows. The National Rifle Association persists in blocking that, and is pressing to loosen gun restrictions even further.

There are 12,000 gun murders a year in this country, many committed with guns flowing into states with the strongest gun laws from parts of the country with the weakest ones. Stanching that flow — with tough national and state laws — is a matter of life or death.

The New York Times