ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 11, 1995 TAG: 9512110037
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SUSAN GLICK
IN STATE legislatures across America, pitched battles are being waged to relax laws regulating the carrying of concealed handguns.
Led by the National Rifle Association, proponents of relaxed CCW (Carrying a Concealed Weapon) laws cite Florida's 1987 statute as a model to be replicated throughout the nation. Yet until recently, the debate over Florida's concealed weapons law has centered solely on the increase or decrease in crime rates since its enactment. Little attention has been focused on how the law actually operates.
The recent Violence Policy Center study, "Concealed Carry: The Criminal's Companion," does just this and arrives at an inescapable conclusion: Florida's concealed weapons law puts guns into the hands of criminals while offering little benefit in return.
Since 1987, Florida has granted concealed carry licenses to more than 469 individuals who committed crimes prior or subsequent to licensure, including attempted murder, kidnapping and shooting with intent to wound.
The NRA rests its arguments in favor of relaxed concealed weapons laws on three articles of faith: criminals do not apply for concealed-carry licenses; criminals do not receive concealed-carry licenses; and, concealed-carry license-holders do not commit crimes. Yet, a review of Florida Division of Licensing records reveals such assumptions to be, at best, wishful thinking. Contrary to the NRA's rhetoric:
nCriminals do apply for concealed-carry licenses. Since 1990, 691 individuals with serious criminal histories have applied for concealed-carry licenses in Florida. In some cases, individuals convicted of such crimes as kidnapping and aggravated rape, and aggravated battery with a firearm applied for a license and were denied ``but insisted on a public hearing to dispute the grounds for denial."
nCriminals do receive concealed-carry licenses. The VPC study documents cases of persons ``with criminal records including battery and assault on a police officer and manslaughter'' who obtained licenses and were able to keep them for up to 25 months before they were revoked. A total of 167 individuals were licensed who had committed crimes that should have rendered them ineligible.
nConcealed-carry license-holders do commit crimes. The study identifies 292 individuals who had their licenses revoked for crimes they committed after having received the license - including aggravated assault with a firearm.
Ironically, the NRA's ``model'' concealed-carry law actually rewards criminals who plea bargain, a practice that the gun lobby's rhetoric routinely and vehemently condemns.
Under the Florida law, Patrick Purdy, perpetrator of the 1989 Stockton, Calif., assault-weapon schoolyard massacre, and the gun lobby's poster-boy for the evils of plea bargaining, would not have been prevented from eventually obtaining a concealed-carry license despite a lengthy criminal history that included weapon and drug crimes.
And while the NRA has been successful in convincing some state legislatures that relaxed concealed-weapons laws will be an effective crime-fighting tool, information from Dade County, Fla., offers a far different picture.
In the five years following enactment of the law, Metro-Dade police tracked 63 incidents involving concealed-carry license-holders; 25 incidents involved arrests. The 25 arrest incidents included such crimes as aggravated assault with a firearm, reckless display and discharging a firearm in public, armed trespass and cocaine possession.
Despite the arrests, in at least 12 of the 25 cases the arrestee was able to retain his concealed-carry license - including one incident in which an armed license-holder was arrested for misdemeanor battery on his spouse.
The remaining 38 nonarrest incidents included four accidental shootings (resulting in two injuries); three cases in which the license-holder's gun was stolen; two cases of unauthorized carrying in restricted areas, including airports; and six disputes that escalated to the point where a gun was pulled.
A review of the Dade County information reveals that in an extremely broad sense, 16 of the 63 incidents could be classified as self-defense. However, in many of the 16 incidents the actual threat is unclear, possession of a concealed-carry license may not have been necessary (because the license-holder did not leave his or her home), or it is unclear whether the license holder was legally justified in brandishing or firing the weapon.
The NRA's dogged pursuit of relaxed concealed carry laws, despite little to no evidence that they work as promised, is not surprising. With its proactive agenda faltering on the federal level, the NRA's state-by-state concealed-carry campaign is a natural default agenda by which the organization can take advantage of its overwhelming superiority in organization and money over gun-control organizations.
And usually left unstated, although well understood by all members of the gun lobby, is that relaxed concealed-carry legislation offers a ray of hope to a gun industry mired in a sales slump. In the April 1995 issue of the industry newsletter Firearms Business, Gene Lumsden, Interarms Inc. marketing vice president, ``called the increased number of states considering carry laws the `most important star on the horizon. Both in terms of sales and our freedoms
The bottom line of Florida's concealed-weapons law is that it arms criminals while failing to increase public safety. Florida's law is definitely a model - one not to be followed.
Susan Glick is health policy analyst for the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and the author of the study ``Concealed Carry: The Criminal's Companion.''
- Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Richard Milholland/LATimesby CNB