Common-sense laws are more likely than ban on owning guns

This editorial appears in the Yakima Herald-Republic on Dec. 1, 2008.

For those alarmed at what they see as prospects for a Second Amendment thrashing with a new Democratic president and a more heavily Democratic Congress in January, we offer a brief civics lesson reminder.

Even if he wanted to tinker with the Second Amendment, President-elect Barack Obama doesn't have a whole lot of options to go it alone. Gun bans and the like require congressional approval and if that happened, Obama would only have the option of signing or vetoing the legislation. True, he could use the powerful bully pulpit that goes with being president, but even that doesn't guarantee passage of legislation.

As for the fact that Congress will be controlled by Democrats for the third year in a row, we point out that they most likely will not have 60 seats in the Senate -- the number needed to cut off a filibuster. Or put another way, Republicans will probably still be able to talk a bill to death.

The Senate has 56 Democrats and two independents who caucus with them. There are undecided races in Minnesota and Georgia and while there is a possibility of a filibuster-proof working majority, it would be shaky and bare-bones. If would also give a lot of clout to independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. And as he has recently shown, Lieberman does like to play both sides of the aisle on occasion.

Still, The (Tacoma) News Tribune reported that business in a South Tacoma gun shop has tripled since the Nov. 4 election, reflecting a national trend among states and associated with the election.

The newspaper found that pistol sales in Washington during August, September and October rose by 20 percent compared to last year, according to the state Department of Licensing. And the Washington State Patrol has seen a 43 percent jump in background checks the agency has conducted for concealed pistol licenses when comparing September, October and November of last year to this year. That number is likely to go even higher because data were only available through Nov. 13.

Recalling again how bills become law, the rush on gun sales both right before and after Obama's election seems a bit premature and certainly expensive. Given recent events, we would think gun owners would be better served with concerns about safety and proper use of firearms.

Obama has said he respects Americans' Second Amendment right to bear arms, but that he favors "common-sense" gun laws. The Associated Press reported that as an Illinois state senator, he supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on all firearms.

But while all this rush to arms is going on, we'd like to see equal attention paid by Second Amendment aficionados to gun safety and training on proper use of firearms. It was shocking to learn of a 6-year-old Marysville, Wash., girl who died after being shot in the head last month while cleaning guns with her father. Common sense would dictate that the adult had the responsibility to make sure the guns were not loaded before anyone, certainly a child, was allowed near them.

Unfortunately, common sense is not always common when it comes to respecting guns and their proper use.

We also offer as an interesting aside on gun ownership a CNN report that more than half of firearm deaths in the country are suicides.

Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation's nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths, accidents for 3 percent and the remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting.

The report went on to reference conclusions by public-health researchers that in homes where guns are present, there is more opportunity that someone will die from suicide or homicide.

And even the 2 percent of those in the accident category takes on new meaning with the Marysville tragedy.

The nation's high court ruled 5-4 in June that the Second Amendment does ensure the right to own firearms, and in the process scuttled a 32-year-old ban on handguns in the District of Columbia. But the issue was the right to own, not restrictions on sale and use. At the time we said editorially:

... now that the rights issue is settled, the debate can shift to who can own guns and what kind of weapons they can own. The likes of background checks, licenses and permits and waiting periods are certainly reasonable public safeguards in that respect.

... Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."

He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found." It could be because that was not the amendment's intent. The issue before the court was the individual right to own guns, not restrictions on their sale and use.

We're champions of the First Amendment, but even that is not an unlimited license to every application of freedom of speech; that's why it's backed up with laws against libel and slander.

It would not be surprising if there are efforts by the new administration and Congress to address restrictions on firearms. But when measured against common sense, safety and the greater public good, that's not a bad thing if they are reasonable and workable.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins, Bill Lee and Karen Troianello.

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