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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
In the January/February issue of the Atlantic Monthly, former national coordinator for security and counterterrorism Richard Clarke looks back on potential terror attack scenarios. In one, he imagined four terrorists attacking the Mall of America in Minnesota, armed with TEC-9 submachine guns, street-sweeper 12-gauge shotguns and dynamite. They killed 300 and wounded 400. "It had not been hard for the terrorists to buy all their guns, legally, in six different states across the Midwest," Clarke warns.
And indeed, as the GAO reported, it seems that some potential terrorists are buying guns legally. I wanted to see what they could get their hands on. After a 15-minute written safety quiz at the local National Rifle Association range in Northern Virginia (answers are provided), I put 34 bullets into the head and neck of a human-shaped target from 150 meters away, using an M-16 propped on a table and fitted with a small scope. I missed four times. I had never shot a gun before in my life, but I can go to the local gun shop and buy one. And a frightening array of weapons is now on the market that would put the M-16 to shame. Last November, the Department of Homeland Security sent an "Officer Safety Alert" to agents warning them about the FN Herstal Five-Seven. It's a handgun that can penetrate body armor, a capability usually reserved for rifles. According to FN Herstal's Web site touting the gun: "Enemy personnel, even wearing body armor, can be effectively engaged up to 200 meters."
Tennessee-based Barrett Firearms Manufacturing makes the 82A1 .50 caliber sniper rifle. Accurate from a mile away, the rifle's huge round can go through an engine block or take down an airplane or helicopter. A May 2003 after-action report from an Army sniper team in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne describes the power of a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle. The report said the rifle was used "to engage both vehicular and personnel targets out to 1,400 meters." It said the snipers liked the rifle, in part, because of the "psychological impact on other combatants that viewed the destruction of the target." A sniper team using that rifle reported: "My spotter positively identified a target at 1,400 meters carrying [a rocket-propelled grenade] on a water tower. I engaged the target. The top half of the torso fell forward out of the tower and the lower portion remained in the tower." The report says that in some cases, targets were disintegrated when shot with the rifle. These guns are widely available, and no special license is needed to buy one.
If Craig's bill passes, the ATF will have little or no ability to take away the license of a dealer who unscrupulously allows Herstal Five-Sevens or .50 caliber sniper rifles to flow into the wrong hands. Joe Vince, the former chief of the ATF's Crime Gun Analysis Branch, said the bill's new provision barring "administrative proceedings" would severely hamper his old agency. "When they are talking about administrative, what that means is they cannot lose their license," Vince said. "So there is no regulatory power." The ATF reports that 1 percent of gun dealers are responsible for nearly 60 percent of the guns traced to a crime. Vince agreed that most gun dealers play by the rules. "So who are they protecting here?" Vince asked.
The sponsor of the House version of Craig's immunity bill, Florida Republican Cliff Stearns, said the new language means the ATF can only take away a license if it can prove that a gun dealer "willfully or knowingly" violates the law -- the same standard the bill sets up to let some lawsuits proceed. "If that's the case, the ATF can still revoke a license," Stearns said in a statement to Salon. A spokesman for Craig said the senator agrees with Stearns.
But Brian J. Siebel, a senior attorney at the Brady Center, disagrees. He said it is a "real admission" that Stearns admits he is curtailing the ATF's authority at all. He points out that the wording of the legislation does appear to tie the ATF's hands in all cases. "He is trying to pull the wool over your eyes," said Siebel.
Stearns and his supporters make a big deal out of the fact that their bill still holds dealers accountable to the ATF or the courts where it is clear a dealer purposely broke the law. But critics say gun dealers know the loopholes. In the case of the D.C. sniper, the bureau found that the dealer had lost 283 guns over three years, sparking allegations that that it was actually illegally selling guns to criminals off the books. The gun dealer's inventory magically shrank while its guns showed up in the hands of criminals. There were no records proving the dealer knew he was breaking the law. That dealer, Bull's Eye, was among the top 1 percent of dealers in numbers of guns traced to a crime.
