Resolved: In the United States, private ownership of handguns ought to be banned
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- Historically, federal handgun ban proposals have prohibited manufacture, sale, and possession.
Jacobs 04Handgun bans have a racist legacy.Jacobs 04 James (Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Professor of Constitutional Law and the Courts Director, Center for Research in Crime and Justice New York University School of Law) Can Gun Control Work? “Prohibition and Disarmament” 2004 Oxford Scholarship Online JW In the United States, proposals for universal handgun prohibition are relatively recent, although most of the western states in the mid-nineteenth century had laws against carrying concealed weapons. Efforts to prevent people from owning or possessing firearms altogether first arose in the Black Codes passed by the southern states after the Civil War. The former Confederate states passed laws to prevent former slaves from exercising any rights, especially the right to own firearms. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment were both aimed at reversing the disarmament and subjugation of the former slaves.1 In the latter decades of the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentieth century, some politicians advocated that aliens be denied the right to keep and bear arms. Some New Dealers favored the idea of handgun prohibition and tried unsuccessfully to have handguns covered by the 1934 NFA. Historically, federal handgun ban proposals have prohibited manufacture, sale, and possession.Jacobs 04 James (Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Professor of Constitutional Law and the Courts Director, Center for Research in Crime and Justice New York University School of Law) Can Gun Control Work? “Prohibition and Disarmament” 2004 Oxford Scholarship Online JW Prohibition Proposals In 1973, Representative Ronald Dellums (D-Calif.) introduced the first federal handgun prohibition bill.5 It aimed to prevent lawless and irresponsible use of firearms by prohibit[ed]ing “the importation, manufacture, sale, (p.157) purchase, transfer, receipt, possession, or transportation of handguns.”* Because the bill prohibited handgun possession, all handgun owners would have to give up their arms or face the consequences. Dellums's prohibition and disarmament bill proposed a $5,000 fine and/or a prison sentence up to five years for persons convicted of possessing handguns or handgun ammunition. Pistol clubs could store handguns for licensed members, but such clubs themselves would have to be licensed by the secretary of the treasury. Firearms could only be transported with the approval of a law enforcement agency. Under Dellums's proposal, handguns could only be sold by licensed dealers and only to licensed pistol club members, importers, manufacturers, and other dealers. Federal and state law enforcement personnel and state licensed security guards would continue to be lawfully armed. The federal government would offer to purchase all privately owned handguns for either $25 or the market value of the gun, whichever was higher. Only a few days after Dellums introduced his bill, Rep. John Bingham (D-N.Y.) introduced a similar bill to “prohibit the importation, manufacture, sale, purchase, transfer, receipt, possession, or transportation of handguns, except for or by members of the armed forces, law enforcement officials, and as authorized by the secretary of the treasury, licensed importers, manufacturers, dealers, antique collectors and pistol clubs.”6 Representatives Bingham and Dellums reintroduced their bills several times over the next few years, but neither bill ever made it out of committee. In June 1992, Senators John Chafee (R-R.L), Claiborne Pell (DR. L), and Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) introduced legislation to ban the sale, manufacture, and possession of handguns, with exceptions for law enforcement personnel and licensed target clubs. Senator Chafee exhorted his colleagues: “It is time to act. We cannot go on like this. Ban them!”7 The bill did not provide compensation to those who surrendered their handguns.8 In 1993, Representative Major Robert Owens (D-N.Y.) proposed that it be “unlawful for a person to manufacture, import, export, sell, buy, transfer, receive, own, possess, transport, or use a handgun or handgun ammunition.”9 (p.158) He exempted military personnel, registered security service guards, and licensed handgun clubs and their members. In addition, licensed manufacturers, importers, and dealers “as necessary” were exempted in order to satisfy the limited remaining market. The bill proposed to reimburse gun owners, who voluntarily surrendered their firearms to a law enforcement agency within 180 days. Violators would face a maximum fine of $5,000 and five years imprisonment. Other Disarmament Proposals The Communitarian Network, an organization led by noted sociologist Amitai Etzioni, issued a high profile proposal for handgun prohibition in 1991. “The Case for Domestic Disarmament” condemns “vanilla pale measures that have been taken thus far with regard to firearms” and calls for prohibiting handguns for everyone except military and law enforcement agencies, licensed pistol clubs, security services, and collectors.10 This manifesto was signed by 75 prominent academics, politicians, and other national leaders, including Independent Party presidential candidate John Anderson, former Illinois senator Adlai Stevenson III, former FCC chairman Newton Minow, former San Antonio mayor (and later secretary of housing and urban development) Henry Cisneros, and many prominent academics such as Benjamin Barber (Rutgers), John Coffee (Columbia), John Gardner (Stanford), Mary Ann Glendon (Harvard), Albert O. Hirschman (Princeton), Charles Moskos (Northwestern), Philip Selznick (Berkeley), Lester Thurow (MIT), and dozens of others. If handgun disarmament was once considered a fringe idea, after promulgation of this manifesto, it could no longer be so considered. The Communitarian Network called a ban on handguns “one measure sure to gain monumental benefits in the short run.” It argued that domestic disarmament is the remedy for accidental gun discharges, impulsive uses, and gun violence. According to the manifesto, criminalizing all private possession of handguns will reduce deadly crime simply by making it harder for people to arm themselves. Etzioni and his colleagues would permit very limited exceptions to the disarmament plan. Gun collectors could keep only those weapons that they render nonfunctional, for example, by pouring cement into the barrel. Hunters could have rifles and shotguns, as long as they do not have sights and cannot fire “powerful” bullets. The communitarians, with some sarcasm, encouraged “super-patriots” to join the National Guard. The Communitarian Network urged that disarmament be implemented (p.159) quickly. Acknowledging that it would be costly to buy up all existing firearms, it argued that this would be better and cheaper than devoting more resources to enforcing current legislation. It suggested implementing and testing its plan in the northeast region of the country. The Communitarian Network's proposal leaves many questions about implementation and enforcement unanswered. For example, what punishment would be meted out to handgun owners who do not turn over their handguns? Who would enforce handgun prohibition? Normal means is banning sales and possession. This a) conforms to current prohibition laws and b) preserves aff ground from damning feasibility objections. This means disarming the citizenry.Jacobs 04 James (Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Professor of Constitutional Law and the Courts Director, Center for Research in Crime and Justice New York University School of Law) Can Gun Control Work? “Prohibition and Disarmament” 2004 Oxford Scholarship Online JW Prohibiting the Sale of Handguns All handgun prohibition proposals discussed in this chapter include a ban on the sale of handguns. A sales prohibition would necessarily have to prohibit every type of commercial transfer, lest the ban be circumvented by leasing and renting. But even that expanded proscription would be incomplete. Banning just commercial transfers would not prevent handguns from being transferred by nondealers to new owners as gifts or barter. Therefore, an effective “sales” prohibition should encompass a ban on gifts and lending as well. No doubt once a sales prohibition seemed like a realistic possibility, (p.162) some people (including profiteers and ideological opponents of the prohibition) would purchase large quantities of handguns in order to supply the post-sales prohibition demand. Prohibiting Possession of Handguns Proponents of handgun prohibition ought to see little point in banning the manufacture and sale of handguns without also banning possession. Failure to ban possession would leave the existing private sector stock of handguns intact. Moreover, if handgun possession was undisturbed, following the model of National Alcohol Prohibition, there would be a tremendous opportunity for blackmarketeers to meet the demand for handguns with weapons imported from abroad or produced in clandestine workshops. The new handguns and handgun possessors would blend in with the existing handguns and their possessors. The moral coherence of this form of prohibition would be weak; tens of millions of owners would be allowed lawfully to possess guns, while younger people would be treated as criminals for doing the same thing. Criminalizing the possession of handguns, along with the manufacture and sale, would conform the gun prohibition paradigm to the regime that currently covers illicit mind- and mood-altering drugs. Prohibition that includes a ban on possession would commit the country to disarming the citizenry. The Dellums and Bingham bills say that 180 days after the law becomes effective, it would be a crime to possess a handgun. In one fell swoop, tens of millions of Americans would be prosecutable, unless they surrendered or destroyed their arms. 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