Much Related to Guns Bubbles Below the Surface
August 10, 2002

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Guns are directly related to civil rights, property rights, and privacy rights. Perhaps that is why much that is currently being discussed about changes in law related to the war on terrorism bother observant gunowners.

Yes, there are gun bills lurking Congress and perhaps elsewhere in Washington and the state capitals. And certainly the anti-gun organizations and foundations are constantly stoking the flames of gun control. But some involve old questions and are less obvious, but they still bubble below the surface.

For instance, some gunowners have expressed grave concerns about the Administration’s Terrorist Information and Prevention System (TIPS) and probably breathed a sign of relief when they heard that the US Postal Service would not engage in what some called “Operation Snoops.”

Then, in a shift from its position 24 hours earlier, the US Postal Service (USPS) said on July 18 it had decided to meet with the Justice Department to discuss Operation TIPS, the government plan to encourage US postal workers and other citizens to report suspicious activity as part of the government’s war on terrorism.

USPS officials had said a day earlier their 800,000 employees would not participate in the proposed program. But the USPS explained, “That decision was made because we had insufficient information on the program, and because we had not discussed the issue internally or with the two unions affected.”

In a statement, the postal service said the National Association of Letter Carriers and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association agreed a meeting was necessary with Department of Justice representatives to discuss the initiative.

No meeting has been scheduled.

Several weeks ago, Homeland Security officials approached the postal service about Operation TIPS and held a preliminary meeting about the possible involvement of letter carriers in the proposed initiative.

Plans for the program have raised concern across the political spectrum. Members of civil liberties and privacy groups have joined conservative groups in their condemnation of the proposed program.

Old Issues
Also bubbling below the surface are old questions that still need resolution.

The Washington Post reported recently that the official in charge of ferreting out information about the FBI for a joint congressional intelligence panel probing the Sept. 11 attacks had obstructed a Justice Department probe of the FBI two years ago. And the FBI’s deputy general counsel, Thomas A. Kelley, was the bureau’s point of contact for special council John C. Danforth’s inquiry into the 1993 Waco debacle.

Kelley, who has since retired from the FBI, now heads the intelligence panel’s investigation of the bureau’s role in tracking terrorists before Sept. 11

According to a December 2000 internal FBI memo, Kelley “continued to thwart and obstruct” the Waco investigation to the point that Danforth sent a team to search FBI headquarters for documents Kelley refused to turn over.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) wrote a letter to the FBI saying that even when Kelley’s supervisor recused him from dealing with the Waco investigators, Kelley “continued to insert himself into the Waco inquiry.”

FBI Shooting
Even the specter of Ruby Ridge surfaced again recently, when The Baltimore Sun noted that the question of the immunity of federal agents raised as a result of the shooting of Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge, ID, in 1992, had resurfaced as prosecutors in Maryland prepared a case for the grand jury in the shooting by an FBI agent of an unarmed young Pasadena, MD, man—Joseph C. Schultz, 20— in March.

Schultz was shot in the face with an M4 rifle by Special Agent Christopher Braga, who was part of an FBI team searching for a bank robbery suspect. Schultz, who survived, was a passenger in a car driven by his girl friend that was stopped by agents in a case of mistaken identity. Neither Schultz nor his girlfriend had anything to do with the robbery, and neither was armed.

But the question of immunity recalled the Ruby Ridge case that clambered through federal courts when the former Boundary County, ID, prosecutor sought to prosecute FBI hostage rescue team member Lon T. Horiuchi, who fired the shot that killed Weaver’s wife during the 11-day Ruby Ridge siege. But when the courts finally decided that the FBI agent could be prosecuted despite claims by the Justice Department that federal agents would make it impossible for the government to function, the charges were dropped by the newly-elected county prosecutor.

Thus the issue of agent responsibility was left unresolved in the Weaver case, might have been resolved in the Maryland case.

But that agent was also absolved by the Maryland Grand Jury and the issue will be put on the back burner once again. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to be resolved until another tragedy occurs or very different circumstances present themselves in the future.

And if you thought the background check question had been put to rest, you might have been reawakened by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) report that claimed that nearly 3,000 domestic abusers had purchased firearms between 1998 and 2001, despite laws designed to prevent such purchases.

The report has a lot to say about the people who want to keep NICS records for months, if not forever, because, according to the GAO, the FBI was unable to complete criminal background checks before the sales went through.

The General Accounting Office found that federal authorities have had to retrieve guns from those convicts and more than 8,000 others because they had been wrongly allowed to buy the weapons, The Washington Post claimed.

While most of the purchasers were felons, more than a quarter of the cases involved people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence offenses whose criminal pasts were difficult for authorities to assess in determining whether to approve gun purchases. Usually this occurred because of haphazard record-keeping and other problems, the study found.

The large number of domestic abusers who were able to buy firearms underscores a chronic problem with the background check system implemented under the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and increases the risk that violent spouses might take advantage of the loophole, according to the GAO study and victim advocacy groups.

Conyers
The study, which was requested by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), is likely to play a role in the debate on Capitol Hill over proposals to conduct background checks at gun shows, an issue that hinges in part on how much time the FBI should be given to complete the task.

The GAO study argues that federal authorities, who are now limited to a three-day check before a purchase goes through, should be allowed as much as 30 days to research questionable cases before a sale is approved, noting that a relatively small number of buyers would be affected. Some members of Congress, by contrast, have recommended shrinking the background check time to 24 hours in some cases.

Conyers, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the report is “proof positive that shortening background check times will have real consequences for battered women: Their abusers will get guns. . . . On the issue of the time allotted for background checks, it is clear we need more time, not less.”

Caught in the crosshairs of this campaign is Attorney General John Ashcroft, because he rescinded an earlier Clinton Administration order on the length of time NICS approval records could be kept. Ashcroft said 24 hours was enough and sent the anti-gunners into frenzy.

The antis really want national registration—an essential element of any plan to eliminate legal firearms altogether. They will fight over misdemeanor domestic abusers and the length of time records are kept even as some people think that there is no firearms civil rights battle being waged.