Gun Control Failed to Disarm Hatfield Feuders in 1880

Back in 1880, an angry Kentucky mountaineer named Randolph McCoy, aiming only to stop something ugly before it got started, instead provided history with one of its more pathetic gestures.

He went to the Pike County Courthouse and swore out warrants against four of his neighbors for “carrying concealed and deadly weapons.” All four were named Hatfield. None was arrested.

The same law is still on the books in Kentucky. And it seems no more effective today in keeping pistols out of glove compartments, at least in Pike County, than it was a century ago in holding off what became America’s longest and bloodiest family feud.

The Kentucky law is one of no fewer than 20,000 in America’s states, counties and cities regulating gun use.

Most Laws Uncontroversial

Most statutes prohibit firing a gun within the city limits or allowing children to carry them, and are not controversial. Others are. One, in Morton Grove, Ill., bans possession of handguns; another, in Kennesaw, Ga., requires heads of households to keep a working gun in their homes.

Still others are either ignored or skirted.

In Pike County, Ky., for example, the way to get around that concealed-weapons law, legally, is simply to sign up as a volunteer deputy sheriff. How many have done this is hard to say. The county clerk, who was too busy to count the whole list, estimates that Pike County’s unpaid deputies “number in the hundreds.”

A new Florida law allows a permit for a concealed weapon to anyone who has lived in the state six months, pays a $146 fee, takes a brief safety instruction and has his fingerprints recorded. It wiped out local restrictions, such as one in Dade County that required at least a 72-hour waiting period for a background check by police.

Some States Rigid

In some other states, such as New York and Massachusetts, by contrast, an applicant needs first a permit from the local police just to buy a gun and a second permit to carry it. Both require extensive background investigations and persuasive arguments why the license should be issued. The police may deny it at their discretion.

Florida’s seeming laxity shocked many who believe gun laws should be tightened, not loosened.

They might be surprised to learn that 10 other states are equally free of difficult license requirements: Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, both Dakotas, Utah and Washington. Vermont requires no license at all.

As for carrying guns openly, strapping one on your hip and walking down Main Street, if you choose, is legal in 33 states.

Need a Good Reason

Most states, like Florida, stipulate that the gun must be carried for a legitimate purpose, such as going hunting or target shooting.

Florida’s Legislature inadvertently removed that provision when it passed its new law, then, like a rueful youth lamenting that he didn’t know the gun was loaded, hurried to restore it in special session.

Now if the gun-toter can’t show a legitimate purpose, he is guilty of a second-degree misdemeanor, Florida’s lowest classification of criminal offenses. The maximum fine is $500.

“We couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about in Florida,” said Rick Bartley, an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Pikeville, Ky.

“We couldn’t either,” said Ted Lattanzio, the director of state and local affairs for the National Rifle Assn. The NRA spent years lobbying the Florida Legislature to pass the law.

“All it did,” he said, “was remove arbitrary and confusing laws that varied from county to county and replaced them with a state standard that is uniform, equal and fair for all.”

Foes Want Local Control

“I’ll tell you what the fuss was about,” said Barbara Lautman of Handgun Control Inc. (HCI), one of the NRA’s leading opponents.

“A number of states, 31, have passed preemption laws, laws that give the state authority over all future gun-control laws,” she said. “That’s bad enough. But Florida was the first to wipe out all existing local laws in doing so.

“We believe that issuing licenses for carrying concealed weapons ought to be done locally, where the law enforcement people know the applicants better and can check on them.”

A national law requiring a weeklong wait before completing a handgun sale, to provide time for a local background check and a cooling-off period to prevent crimes of passion, is a key feature in a gun-control bill awaiting congressional action. HCI calls it the “Brady bill.”

Battle of Statistics

Sarah Brady, HCI’s vice chairman, is the wife of White House Press Secretary Jim Brady. The gun-control organization contends that a police check would have shown that John Hinckley illegally gave a false address when he bought the handgun that wounded her husband and President Reagan.

The NRA compiles statistics and studies intended to show that gun laws have no effect on crime rates, or even that some places with less restrictive gun laws, such as Vermont, have lower crime rates. HCI and other gun-control advocates argue that that has more to do with regional history and traditional behavior than on gun laws.