by The Last Gun- How Changes in the Gun Industry Are Killing Americans
As crazy as it may seem, Delgado’s addled expressions of fear and assertion of his rights are precisely the elements of the rhetorical foundation upon which gun rights activists now are building a third wave of dangerous gun laws, this one aimed directly at cops. To understand why it may well succeed, one needs to understand the first two waves of gun laws pushed by the NRA, the role of Marion Hammer, and the logic that propelled the gun industry’s arguments.
The NRA’s first wave gutted laws restricting the concealed carry of guns (and in some states, other weapons, such as blackjacks and knives). Until 1987, Florida, like most states at the time, had a discretionary system for issuing licenses to carry concealed guns, commonly referred to as “may-issue” licensing. Under a “may-issue” system, authorities such as a county sheriff, judge, or local police official have discretion as to whom they grant a license to walk around with a gun tucked out of sight. Such discretionary systems lessen the chance that a mentally disturbed person like Humberto Delgado will get a concealed-carry license. Applicants are generally required to show a good reason for carrying a concealed weapon and to pass a thorough background check.42
Marion Hammer and the NRA were determined to change that. They wanted a system known as “shall-issue” licensing, under which authorities have no discretion. The state must issue a concealed-carry license to any applicant who meets a few specific, minimal criteria. These include being a citizen or resident alien and not having a felony record—or having had one’s civil rights restored after a felony conviction. Perfunctory training, or a substitute for training, such as military or law enforcement service, may be required.
The difference between the two points of view about the advisability of handing out gun licenses on demand was aptly summed up by the Miami Herald in 1987. “Pro-handgun people divide the world into two kinds of human beings: law-abiding citizens and criminals. Anti-handgun people think it consists of many kinds: law-abiding citizens, criminals, mental patients, angry husbands, drug addicts, housewives, disgruntled former employees and so on.”43
The NRA’s gun mill had tried to loosen the concealed-carry law in Florida before 1987, but had repeatedly failed. In 1985, the legislature passed such a bill, but Governor Bob Graham vetoed it. In 1986, similar legislation was bottled up in committee. To make matters worse from Marion Hammer’s point of view, populous urban counties in the southern part of the state had imposed waiting periods on would-be handgun buyers. Two of the counties did so after their residents voted in local referenda for “cooling off” periods.44
That would change in 1987. Robert “Bob” Martinez, a Republican, had been elected governor. State Representative Ron Johnson, a Democrat, introduced another shall-issue bill. Johnson was the kind of man who during a newspaper interview would prop his feet up and cough “a gooey wad of Levi Garrett chewing tobacco into a yellow cup. He does not excuse himself for that.”45 Hammer and the NRA “spent thousands of hours and tens of thousands of NRA dollars” to finally ram their change in law and common sense through the legislature. It also helped that police groups in the state, who had opposed earlier legislation, “pulled the old switcheroo,” as the Miami Herald described their action, and endorsed the NRA’s bills. “If you see a freight train coming,” the cops’ chief lobbyist explained, “do you stand in front of it? Or do you stand aside and grab ahold of it and try to ride it to glory?”46
When the final vote came, Hammer was sitting in the gallery behind bulletproof glass, making sure there were no defectors. Governor Martinez signed the bill into law the day before a delegation from South Florida—the Broward County commissioner, the Palm Beach County commissioner, and a Dade County gun-control activist—had an appointment with him to urge him to veto it.47
At the same time, the Florida legislature attempted to preempt the subject of gun regulation, wiping out the ability of counties and cities to issue sensible regulations. Local waiting periods and other laws and ordinances were intended to be erased, overriding the expressed will of local voters. However, some localities persisted in regulating guns, such as forbidding their carry in public buildings and parks and on beaches, and requiring trigger locks.48 The NRA and some citizens filed lawsuits to stop the local regulation, which according to Hammer was a case of “gun haters” flouting state law.49 In 2011, the legislature complied with NRA demands that the law be tightened, and enacted a sweeping measure that imposed the penalties of fines and removal from office on any local officials who dared regulate guns.50 In the wake of the new law, cities and counties gave up and effectively abandoned gun regulation.51 “We just want local public officials, elected and otherwise, to quit violating the state law and stop trampling the rights of Florida’s law-abiding gun-owners,” Hammer wrote in an e-mail supporting passage of the law.52 Regarding concealed carry in particular, the Florida law states that the legislature “finds it necessary to occupy the field of regulation of the bearing of concealed weapons or firearms for self-defense to ensure that no honest, law-abiding person who qualifies under the provisions of this section is subjectively or arbitrarily denied his or her rights.”53
Such cant about self-defense rights, and its obtuse division between “honest, law-abiding” people and criminals is typical of the gun lobby’s close-minded arguments. In 1987, Hammer dismissed concerns about the risks of vigilantes killing innocent people—such as would allegedly happen in the notorious Trayvon Martin case in 2012—or being shot with their own guns as “hysterical, emotional. If an individual is responsible for protecting himself and his family, he’s entitled to have the proper tools.” In a similar vein, the NRA ran “huge” newspaper ads in Florida, one of which portrayed “a blurred face menacingly encased in a stocking cap and, in bold black type, the question: ‘SHOULD YOU SHOOT A RAPIST BEFORE HE CUTS YOUR THROAT?’ ”54
But this equivalent of sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears and shouting rude noises does not change the reality about the consequences of pumping guns into public spaces, a reality that was apparent within months in Florida. It turned out that in its frenzy to pass the shall-issue package, the legislature had inadvertently made the open carrying of guns legal. This caused an uproar. Another legislative battle ensued under the watchful eye of Marion Hammer and the NRA. The Washington Post provided a picturesque glimpse of the Gunshine State’s shooting scenery in 1987:
In just the days in which the legislature debated closing the open-carrying loophole, a Miami jitney driver was killed by a passenger who argued over a 75-cent fare, a 17-year-old Miamian was severely wounded walking to school by a shot meant for another man, a purse snatcher opened fire at 11 A.M. on a crowded street before police shot him, and a man walked into a suburban restaurant with a gun in his waistband, fought with another customer and shot him to death. In rural Marion County, an 8-year-old was shot in the head by a 10-year-old friend showing off his parents’ pistol. And a 5-year-old was shot dead as his father tried to grab the gun his child had taken from the car.55
This week of gun carnage was merely the precursor of years to come. The NRA’s argument in favor of relaxed concealed-weapons laws rested 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 1995 review of records obtained by the VPC from the Florida Division of Licensing and the state’s Board of Executive Clemency revealed that hundreds of criminals, convicted of crimes ranging from firearm violations to kidnapping and aggravated rape, applied for concealed-carry licenses in Florida, criminals did succeed in getting concealed-carry licenses, and concealed-carry-license holders in Florida did have licenses revoked or suspended for various crimes, including firearm and drug violations.56
The following year, 1996, Tanya Metaksa, then executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, stuck her rhetorical fingers in her ears and, in another of the NRA’s trademark arguments by false assertion, told a press conference in Dallas that peopl
e who got concealed-carry licenses were “law-abiding, upstanding community leaders.” According to Metaksa, “These citizens don’t commit violent crimes.”57 Mounting objective evidence proves otherwise. The VPC has tracked non-self-defense deaths since May 2007 involving private citizens legally allowed to carry handguns. As of June 29, 2012, VPC’s Concealed Carry Killer project found that a total of 462 people had died in such non-self-defense incidents.58 Of these victims, fourteen were law enforcement officers, like Corporal Michael Roberts in Tampa. Since this data is derived from media reports, the only national source of information available, the actual number of concealed-carry killers is likely far higher. And as the reader has seen in earlier chapters, many concealed-carry permit holders commit crimes of armed aggression short of murder. Moreover, directly contrary to Metaksa’s bland assertions about the good character of permit holders, criminal gang leaders “have learned how to structure their crews so that at least one of them can be legally armed. One member of a crew will have a concealed weapons permit, allowing them to be armed.”59
These cautionary facts were swept aside as Florida became a national incubator of gun death and injury. Relaxed concealed-carry laws swept over America’s legislatures. The real force behind this wave was not a citizenry clamoring to lawfully pack heat. It was the gun industry, a force that has never been deterred by the mayhem its products wreak on others. This was evident in Florida within months of the concealed-carry law’s passage. Praising Marion Hammer as “a real American,” John Katon, the owner of the Tamiami Gun Shop, enthused in 1987 that first-time buyers prompted by the new law had boosted his gun sales “an overwhelming 50 percent.”60 The NRA’s Tanya Metaksa was even more blunt in 1996. “The gun industry should send me a basket of fruit—our efforts have created a new market.”61
The gift of a new market was exactly what the industry needed. “As more states pass concealed-carry legislation, we’ll see an increase in handgun sales,” Michael Saporito, of RSR Wholesale Guns, said the year before, when industry reports were gloomy about slumping sales.62 In 1996, Massad Ayoob, a pro-gun writer who specializes in advising dealers on the subject of selling lethal force in the form of handguns, waxed enthusiastic about the gun industry’s gift. “A high point for gun dealers, as well as those who believe in freedom and safety,” wrote Ayoob, “was 1995’s record number of states passing favorable concealed handgun carry legislation. Persons enabled to carry a concealed weapon in public for the first time are willing to splurge to get the right blend of discretion with speed and power. (Some have been known to buy a new gun just to celebrate the permit!)”63
The only problem was that the bloodred NRA tide had not yet washed over every state. Greg Griffeth, owner of the Sportsman Den gun shop in Shelby, Ohio, complained to Shooting Industry in 2002 that Ohio’s lack of a concealed-carry law was holding back his sales of semiautomatic pistols. Griffeth explained, “Smith & Wesson, Taurus and Ruger comprise about 80 percent of my handgun sales, mostly in revolvers. If we could get a CCW law through our state government, our semi-autos would take off.”64 Not to worry. The NRA lobbying machine was on the case. In 2004, pistol sales could “take off” in Ohio after the state’s new concealed-carry permit law went into effect. By then, Shooting Industry triumphantly crowed, “Self-defense products have been and continue to be the heart of the weapons market. Self-defense sells.”65
Ayoob pointed out another important profit center for gun shops, derived directly from concealed-carry laws. “Remember, too, the first-time gun carrier is a walking cluster of ancillary sales: inside the waistband holster for maximum concealment, outside the belt high-ride scabbard for waistbands too tight for IWB (“inside the waistband”), fanny pack, spare magazines or speedloaders, a secure firearm storage unit, and of course, the best premium-grade defensive ammo money can buy.”66 In fact, many experts advise that gun shops can make more money from the sale of accessories to “walking clusters” than from guns. “Accessories are where you make your profit,” advised gun store owner Mike Goschinski in 2003. “If you’re selling handguns but not selling accessories, you’re doing a lot of work for nothing.”67
“Customers who spend several hundred (or, in some cases several thousand) dollars on a handgun are usually willing to drop 40 or 50 extra bucks to buy something extra for their ‘new baby’. . . Now’s the perfect time to cash in,” Shooting Industry suggested to retailers.68 By 2003, Ayoob noted a marked change in gun enthusiast garb. “For generations, retail firearm dealers have found hunting clothes and other outdoor garb to be a profitable sideline,” he wrote. “Today’s gun clothing has been augmented by garments expressly designed to discreetly conceal defensive handguns.”69 In 2006 the same monothematic writer suggested that “many of your customers may not realize their ‘wardrobe of firearms’ should include a ‘winter ensemble.’ If that’s the case, do them a favor by bringing it to their attention. And, since you are their ‘gun-wear store,’ you’ll be helping your bottom line, also.”70
Another profitable sideline for gun store owners was mandated by the relaxed concealed-carry laws the NRA husbanded through compliant state legislatures. This was the requirement for training by—no surprise here—NRA-certified instructors. In Roseburg, Oregon, Curly Jensen, a certified NRA instructor and owner of the Gunner’s Club gun shop, offered such classes and told Shooting Industry in 1996 that “a high percentage of those taking the classes buy a handgun, or at least ammunition and accessories, like holsters.”71 As usual, Ayoob had advice on the subject. “Firearm training is something your customers want and need, even if you or your staff don’t have the time or the facilities,” he wrote. “Likely, there are competent trainers within driving distance of your store. They’ll do the training and be happy to pay a commission to you for the referrals or give your customers a discount.”72
An idea of how much fresh blood concealed-carry laws have pumped into the anemic gun industry is demonstrated by Florida’s experience. Before the new law, 16,000 Floridians were reported to have concealed-carry licenses.73 As of August 31, 2012, Florida had dispensed 1,151,537 gun licenses, of which 963,349 were run-of-the-mill concealed-carry licenses. The remainder were for various specialized occupations, such as private investigators.74 Add to this growth the increased sales in all of the forty-one states that as of February 2012 have shall-issue laws similar to Florida’s, and it’s clear that the NRA’s gift to the gun industry was a big one, a gift that keeps on giving profits to the industry while taking innocent lives.
If this boom from the NRA’s concealed-carry push made gun retailers happy, gun manufacturers and importers were tickled pink. Designing and marketing new lines of small but powerful “pocket rockets” in high calibers for the new concealed-carry market boosted manufacturers as well. This factor explains why the industry has never thrown its weight behind the “open-carry” movement. Just about any gun will do for open carry. A handgun can be stuck into a waistband or shoved into a holster. A long gun can be slung over the shoulder. No special gun size or design is required for carrying a gun openly, no accessories are needed, and no specialized clothing need be worn. Thus, open carry offers few new, if any, profitable marketing ploys to tempt Ayoob’s “walking cluster” gun buyer.
A Brazilian handgun manufacturer, Taurus, was one of those who caught the new wave. (Many foreign gun manufacturers export to the United States guns that they cannot legally sell to civilians in their own countries.) Taurus “began seriously pursuing the U.S. firearms market in 1982” and within two years “had established a beachhead in the American market.”75 In 1998 the company announced its Millennium handgun series, “notable for its extremely compact size that almost literally fits in the palm of one’s hand.”76 Two years later, Shooting Industry’s self-promotional “Academy of Excellence” gave Taurus its Manufacturer of the Year Award.77 And in 2001 the company’s 45 caliber Millennium model “joined the family . . . a signal achievement of firearm design and engineering, placing 10 man stopping rounds of .4
5 ACP into a pistol that is more compact than most 9mm handguns.”78
In 2009, Humberto Delgado shot Corporal Michael Roberts to death with a single shot from a Taurus “signal achievement of firearm design and engineering.” Corporal Roberts, however, was not the first police officer to have been shot to death in the United States by a palm-sized 45 caliber Taurus Millennium with its “10 man stopping rounds.”
At about 1:30 P.M. on September 23, 2008—less than a year before Corporal Roberts was killed in Tampa—a Philadelphia police officer, Patrick McDonald, pulled over a car with a broken taillight. One of the occupants, twenty-seven-year-old Daniel Giddings, jumped out and ran. Giddings had a 45 caliber Taurus Millennium in his waistband. He had been released from prison about a month earlier and was already wanted for violating his parole and assaulting police officers. McDonald gave chase, caught Giddings, and the two men fought. In the course of their struggle, they exchanged gunfire. Like Corporal Roberts, Officer McDonald was killed by a powerful 45 caliber round fired from a Taurus Millennium handgun. Just as in the case of Roberts, the huge 45 caliber slug blasted through McDonald’s shoulder and pierced his heart.79
Connecting the dots between weakened concealed-carry laws that have pumped millions of handguns into the United States and the resulting death and injury was not something that NRA executives Marion Hammer, Tanya Metaksa, and Wayne LaPierre; handgun manufacturers and importers; or anybody else in the gun lobby were likely to do. They would continue to divide the complex human world into “law-abiding citizens” inside their smugly righteous walls and “criminals” outside.
But there was a cloud over this Happy Valley and its neat division between law-abiding good guys and criminally violent bad guys. That cloud was raining on the gun market’s growth potential. As previous chapters have documented, most people in America just aren’t interested in having a gun around the home, much less inside (or outside) their waistbands. The gun lobby’s challenge has been to persuade more and more Americans that they need to carry a gun in order to be safe. But there were also legal flies in the gun industry’s marketing ointment, its dream of bringing back to modern streets the mythical gunslinging ways of the Old West.