When the National Rifle Association asks its members for their next contribution, they might want to disclose how much of that money will be spent to spy on gun violence victims and their families.
Mother Jones Magazine today reported that someone the gun violence prevention movement believed was a committed gun control activist was, in fact, a gun lobby spy.
Mother Jones focused on the activity of Mary McFate, also known as Mary Lou Sapone, a woman who has apparently led a double life for over twenty years, performing industrial espionage services for a variety of anti-environmental and gun lobby organizations – including the National Rifle Association.
A bizarre development to be sure, yet today’s report speaks for itself:
… During Sapone's ascent through the ranks of the gun control movement, she worked for the NRA, according to a business associate. In a 2003 deposition, Tim Ward, who had been president of the Maryland-based security firm Beckett Brown International, said that the NRA had been "a client" of Sapone's. (As a subcontractor for BBI, Sapone had planted an operative within an environmental group in Lake Charles, Louisiana.) According to Ward, at his request Sapone had introduced BBI to the NRA in early 1999. And that introduction quickly paid off. Billing records obtained by Mother Jones indicate that between May 1999 and April 2000, the NRA paid BBI nearly $80,000 for various services….
The article goes on to mention that Sapone was still working for an NRA lobbyist in 2007 and 2008. (Follow developments on Huffington Post here.)
Reading the story, one imagines a group of executives over at NRA headquarters huddled around a copy of The Art of War with a flashlight in a dark basement office, hatching a new cloak-and-dagger plot.
Whatever the case, it’s clear that some over there have too much money and no moral compass.
It is one thing to recognize, as CNN found last month, that 86% of the American people favor a waiting period before buying a gun, while 79% favor the registration of guns with the local government. That’s reason enough for the NRA to feel defensive.
It is another thing entirely to pay a woman to trade on the grief of gun violence victims and their families – to pay someone to pretend to be their friend and confidant – when in reality she was spying on their efforts to strengthen this country’s tragically weak gun laws.
Does this behavior reflect the NRA’s membership? I don’t think so. I think this represents the bunker paranoia of leaders who will resort to any means – by hook or by crook – to get any information they can get about the gun violence prevention movement, and that contradicts every statement they make about being a “civil rights” organization.
I don’t know what the NRA may have learned from Ms. Sapone/McFate’s spying.
Hopefully they were reminded that 32 people are murdered every day in America by gunfire. Another 52 survive a gunshot injury. Every day, 8 children and teens shot and killed, while another 48 survive their wounds.
Every year, 100,000 people are killed or wounded in the United States from gunfire.
Look up "sacrosanct" in the Oxford English Dictionary and you will find:
Of persons and things, esp. obligations, laws, etc.: Secured by a religious sanction from violation, infringement, or encroachment; inviolable, sacred.
As many of us were enjoying our Sunday afternoon this past weekend – perhaps coming home from church, or grilling out in the back yard – we heard reports that a gunman opened fire at a children’s production of “Annie” inside a church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
"Sacrosanct" doesn’t seem to mean what it used to. Many were saddened by the news, but few were surprised, because this is not a new event in America.
In fact, CNN reported that this was the fourth shooting attack on a church in 15 months, the most recent being the Colorado church assault where a suicidal gunman was stopped by a former Minneapolis police officer who had been specifically tasked to be on the look-out for the shooter.
The accused gunman in Knoxville had a history of domestic violence and suicidal behavior, and had a protective order filed against him by his now ex-wife, back in March 2000.
One account reports that he once held a gun to his ex-wife’s head after “drinking heavily.” Apparently, he had also been charged with a DUI and refused to submit to a blood alcohol test.
If that isn’t enough, reports further say that he was motivated by a "hatred" of the "liberal movement" and targeted a church that to him symbolized advocacy of civil rights for African-Americans and gays.
When I say that we make it too easy for dangerous people to get guns in America, the accused Knoxville church shooter is exactly the kind of person I have in mind.
It seems this man couldn’t even get a job, yet he was able to walk out of an Anderson County, Tennessee pawnshop with the shotgun he would use a month later to kill two people, wound six others, and expect to be killed by police intervention.
On the other hand, it is important for us to take notice of the fact that the gunman could fire just three times because the shotgun he used was limited to three shells before he was forced to re-load.
Unarmed parishioners had the chance to tackle him while he paused. As bad as the Knoxville shooting was, it could have been much worse.
If we don’t have the laws to help keep firearms from a man like this, then clearly we are not doing enough in this country to keep dangerous weapons from dangerous people. Some say the answer is more private guns in church. But that simply accepts four church shootings in a year-and-a-half as “normal” in America.
We need to find ways to keep dangerous people from gaining easy access to firearms. There is much more we can do to protect our children and families and help prevent shootings that, if history is any guide, we can expect to happen again.
“We were told that (the shooter), who killed five students and then himself at Northern Illinois University in February, was a sweet, unassuming, overachieving grad student who inexplicably snapped. He was not.”
This is the introduction to the David Vann article in the August 2008 issue of Esquire Magazine which I received last week (link not yet available UPDATE: read the story here). The story is captivating, frustrating, tragic and depressing.
The few news accounts about this article (for example, here and here) have focused on the shooter’s numerous suicide attempts while in high school – in December 1996, April 1997, November 1997 (fall of his senior year), and February 1998 – his sex life, and psychotic episodes.
The rest of the story is just as compelling, and indicative of all the warning signs exhibited by this mass killer:
Middle School – “picks (his dog) up by its hind legs and hurls it, hard, against the wall” before shooting his pellet gun at passing cars. Explodes “Drano bombs” under a neighbor’s porch.
High School – “with his “friends … [t]hey light chemicals on fire, blow shit up, shoot pellet guns, make out, smoke pot, sneak away to the porno stash in the trees. Whenever they shoot, (the killer) brags he has a membership with the NRA.”
Post-High School – numerous “escapes” from the Mary Hill Residence group home where his parents had him sent.
Army – pulled in for “a psych exam” and then placed in “the Army psych ward as a precaution against any suicide attempts” since they consider him “possibly a danger to himself or others.” This is followed by the shooter’s “uncharacterized discharge” from the military.
College – the shooter’s roommate “tells everyone Steve’s a psycho.” The shooter complains about Illinois’ “Firearm Owner ID cards” comparing them “to the days of Hitler’s regime” and that “the government is trying to track us.”
Grad School – “He gets interested in buying guns. He applies for his firearms permit in December [2006] and receives it in January. He’s been out of the mental health system for five years now, so he’s eligible. (In the fall he’ll write a paper titled “(No) Crazies With Guns!” questioning whether people on antipsychotics should be allowed to buy firearms.) In February [2007] he buys a Glock .45-caliber handgun, a powerful weapon. He buys a shotgun and another handgun the next month. Goes to the shooting range instead of school.”
April 16, 2007 – After the Virginia Tech shootings, he’s “excited” and “all over this… studying everything” including where that killer “bought his guns.”
August 2007 – after an appointment with a social worker, “… he decides to buy guns. Perhaps it’s just a whim. Or maybe he’s concerned that his visit to the hospital will go on his mental health record and his gun license will be revoked. He drives to Tony’s Guns & Ammo, which is just Tony’s house. Steve trades in his Glock .45 caliber, his .22-caliber pistol, and his 20-gauge shotgun. He buys a Sig Sauer .380.”
Fall 2007 – “He starts his new job as a correctional officer at Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana…. He enjoys parts of the training. They teach him how to use a Remington 12-gauge shotgun. He has to take a test detailing how to load and unload it.”
Christmas 2007 – “… goes to Tony’s Guns & Ammo, buys a Hi-Point .380 and a 12-gauge shotgun.”
February 3, 2008 – “… buys extra magazines for his .380 pistol.”
February 4, 2008 – “… buys gear from Bounty Hunter and Top Gun Supply.”
February 5, 2008 – “… he keeps buying. Two 9mm magazines and holsters from Able Ammo.”
February 6, 2008 – “… back to Tony’s Guns & Ammo. He buys a Glock 9mm and a Remington 12-gauge shotgun, a model similar to the one they trained him on at Rockville.”
February 11, 2008 – After he asks his roommate to stay home with him, but she declines because she has to go to work, “he saws off the barrel of the shotgun” and packs up “the two new guns, the extra magazines and holsters” (all the things “he’s hidden” from his roommate) but “leaves his old shotgun in the closet. It’s for skeet or birds, not designed for killing people.” The shooter has also “bought longer ammo clips for the pistols. They hold thirty-three rounds each. But the problem is they’re so long, he’ll have to carry the pistols in his hands. He won’t be able to use the holsters and hide everything under his coat.”
February 14, 2008 – Cole Hall Room 100 – “He keeps shooting, a few rounds at a time. Five dead. Eighteen injured…. He’s shot forty-seven bullets. One more shot. Then silence.”
*****
This story raises a lot of troubling issues, one of which is why we make it so easy for dangerous people to get guns.
Those who knew the shooter saw the danger signs, but no one checked with them before the shooter was allowed to accumulate his arsenal.
We should be able to stop foreseeable tragedies like this before they occur. What we’re doing now isn’t enough.
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment, it's been my hope that it might be easier to find some common ground on steps to help reduce gun violence in this country now that the extremes of the gun control debate (gun confiscation on the one hand and the absolutist "any person, any place, any gun" on the other hand) have been rejected by the Court.
Some sense that this might be possible came out of a PRI (Public Radio International) show that I was part of a couple days ago. The "To the Point" show on Tuesday, July 1, hosted by Warren Olney involved a discussion of the Heller case and its implications for the future with Robert Levy from the Cato Institute, LA Chief of Police William Bratton, me, Chuck Michel (described for the show as the Chief Attorney for the NRA), and former Guns & Ammo magazine editor Whit Collins.
After I brought up the numerous permissible restrictions and limitations on the "right to keep and bear arms" outlined by Justice Scalia in Heller, including his references to possible licensing of gun owners and registration of guns, the host asked the NRA representative his thoughts as follows (at 25:00/50:04):
Warren Olney: What about registration and licensing?
Chuck Michel: I think that, well, that’s a very interesting question. The problem has always been that registration and licensing led to confiscation and I think, I still think registration and licensing is really - it’s problematic in multiple respects, privacy reasons and that kind of thing, but I think that now that, you know - there are a lot of people in the gun control movement who are really gun ban, banners. They’re in favor of civilian disarmament. Those folks are never going to get their way now as a result of this opinion, so I think licensing and registration is, it’s going to be tougher to defend, or, I should say tougher to criticize.”
Olney: Oh so, in other words, licensing and registration are more likely to be upheld?
Michel: Yes, particularly if it’s – and I’m not saying I necessarily agree with that – but particularly if there are actual licenses issued. A lot of times, what the problem with licensing and registration is that the system is abused. It’s set up, theoretically, to actually issue a license, but you can’t really get one. That was sort of the situation in Washington, D.C. So those licensing schemes which are illusory I think are all going to be struck down. If you have actual, a good faith licensing system in place that complies with due process notions, and you know, procedural notions of constitutionality, then I think those will probably stand.
After this, the radio host asked for my response:
Olney: …Paul Helmke, back to you, Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence, what are you hearing from Chuck Michel that either reassures or disturbs you about what’s gonna happen next?
Paul Helmke: Well, I was very happy to hear the comments about licensing and registration because really that could be one of the crucial things that could help make our communities safer. If we knew who had the guns and where they were, and made sure that they passed some basic level of testing, knowledge of the laws before they had the guns, that makes sense. We’re not a gun ban organization. We don’t push for gun bans. But we do feel that things like licensing and registration, real licensing and registration, things like background checks, restrictions on military style weapons, can make a difference here, and I think Justice Scalia allows that. And for the – for Chuck at least – and the NRA hopefully to recognize that licensing and registration might make sense, I think is a step forward. My hope with this whole decision is that by eliminating the extremes, the extreme on the one side of a gun ban, and the extreme on the other side of “anybody can have any gun, anywhere, any place, any time” – by eliminating the extremes, maybe we can get this middle-of-the-road, common-sense discussion in the middle, and try to figure out what really works here.
Then the host returned to Mr. Michel as follows:
Olney: Chuck Michel, when people say “military-style” we hear about assault weapons, you said something earlier about various classes being banned, is that an area where you think there will be litigation?
Michel: Well, let me just first clarify, so I don’t get overly criticized by the members of the NRA that may be listening, you can’t license a civil right. So, I’m not talking about a license to own a gun or to have a gun. There are certain types of licensing which will survive and others that won’t….
I’m not sure what kind of license Mr. Michel thought he was talking about, but his original statement speaks for itself.
From Heller's attorney’s statement at the March 18 oral argument…
“We don't have a problem with the concept of licensing... So long as the licensing law is not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner, so long as there are some hopefully objective standards and hopefully some process....”
…to Justice Scalia memorializing that statement in his opinion…
Respondent conceded at oral argument that he does not “have a problem with . . . licensing” and that the District’s law is permissible so long as it is “not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner.”
… Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.
…to one of the NRA's chief lawyers now saying positive things about the possibility of gun licensing and registration, maybe we really are on the way to finding some common ground here.
We still make it too easy for dangerous people to get guns. Now that gun confiscation is off the table, maybe we can start finding some areas of agreement that will help make us all safer.
Almost two years ago, I became President of the Brady Center and Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. A great deal has happened in the gun violence prevention movement since then, but one of the most important has been the debate in the Supreme Court over the meaning of the Second Amendment.
I was in the Supreme Court chambers during oral arguments in March, and I listened intently to the dialogue between the attorneys and Justices. I was back in the courtroom on Thursday when Justice Scalia read the majority decision and Justice Stevens read his dissent. Now that the Court has issued their opinions, there are a few points that should be discussed.
By way of introduction to new readers of the blog, I was mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana for 12 years. I was proud to be the 1998 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Indiana. I have also been for common-sense gun control throughout my life.
Over the years, I have seen the gun lobby effectively thwart efforts to pass many sensible gun laws by arguing that even modest gun control would lead down the path to a complete ban on gun ownership. It is the classic “slippery slope” argument, and it has served the gun lobby well politically.
The “slippery slope,” however, is now gone. The U.S. Supreme Court took it off the table yesterday in their D.C. v. Heller opinion. Government is now barred from “taking away” the guns of law-abiding Americans.
Because of this Court decision, proposals such as Brady background checks on all gun sales, limiting bulk sales of handguns, restricting access to military-style assault weapons, and strengthening the power of law enforcement to shut down corrupt gun dealers can now be debated on their merits without them being seen as a “first step on the road to gun confiscation.”
While the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the District’s ban on handguns, they also made it clear that the Constitution allows for reasonable restrictions on access to firearms. As Justice Scalia said, “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” When the dust settles, most Americans – and I believe even most in the gun violence prevention movement – will come to see that there are some positives in this decision.
Elected officials will no longer be able to use a mistaken, absolutist misreading of the Second Amendment as an excuse to do nothing about gun violence in our country. Politicians can’t hide behind the Second Amendment anymore.
In public and political terms, gun control advocates “lost” the battle over the Second Amendment a long time ago. According to a recent Washington Post poll, about 75% of the American people believed that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to own a gun for private purposes before the Heller decision was announced. Given that Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, Mayor Bloomberg and the national Democratic Party platform all said basically the same thing prior to this ruling, a Supreme Court decision to the contrary would really have confused the general public.
What is fascinating, however, is that the same Washington Post poll shows almost 60% of Americans also approving the system of gun laws in the District of Columbia in effect before the Court’s decision.
The American people support an “individual right” and they also support most “gun control” laws.
Unfortunately, this new court ruling will almost certainly embolden criminal defendants as well as the gun lobby to file new legal attacks on many existing gun laws. Prior to Heller, such challenges would have been dismissed out of hand under the Court’s previous interpretation of the Second Amendment.
Nevertheless, with the help of the Brady Center’s legal team, most of those new challenges can be successfully resisted in the interest of public safety. I am also confident we will prevail in advancing good new legislation to make it harder for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons because the battle lines will be drawn not on abstract Constitutional history, but on common sense gun policy in the here-and-now.
Approximately 80 Americans continue to die from guns every 24 hours in this country.
Our weak or non-existent gun laws contribute to the thousands of senseless gun deaths and injuries that occur each year in the United States. Our efforts need to focus on reducing these deaths and injuries.
We must keep up the fight for sensible gun laws to help protect our families and our communities. The Brady Campaign will continue to lead the charge.
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