Taming the Gun Monster: Doing It Right : The success abroad in containing firearm-related violence argues for systematic, not half-baked, gun control

On the gun issue, foreigners just do not get it. They just cannot understand how America let things come to this. They hear the news of the coldblooded murders of German and British tourists in Florida this past summer, and of a Japanese exchange student gunned down by mistake in a Louisiana doorway last year, and they just cannot believe it. How could this happen? What kind of society is America when almost anyone can get a gun and when too many people are all too ready to use them?

Given the United States’ soaring rate of gun-related crime, the question deserves to be asked. But let’s be clear: It’s not that Britain, Germany and Japan, for example, don’t have their own problems with violent crime. Crime is rising in those countries too, but it is still very low compared to the incidence of daily mayhem in America’s streets and homes. And, in particular, the gun-crime rate is relatively low.

FEWER FIREARMS MEAN LESS GUN-RELATED CRIME

Why such a difference? Certainly a major reason, among others, is that in many European nations, as well as in Japan and Australia, private citizens have no presumptive right to own a gun as they do in the United States. Britons and Germans, as well as other Western Europeans, Australians, Japanese and others, simply are mystified by the long American romance with guns and the bloody tide of death it has caused. Their experiences with guns are quite different from ours. And their experiences are instructive for Americans reeling from daily accounts of gun murders.

The lesson is clear: Those nations that tightly restrict gun ownership are nations where, generally, children can still play outside, adults can stroll at night and families can picnic in parks without fear. They are nations where private security guards are not yet ubiquitous, as they are in the United States. And they are nations where people usually go about their daily lives free of the shadow of drive-by shootings, mass murder-suicides and domestic quarrels that escalate into homicide.

The direction for the United States is also clear: We must enact gun-control laws that work better than current ones. We must do so soon and we must do so nationally. What’s required is a near-total ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns and assault weapons, leaving those weapons in the hands of law enforcement officials alone. Individuals should be permitted to own sport guns and rifles only if they have submitted to a background check and passed a course in safe weapons use.

How do other countries control guns?

Japan has perhaps the strictest gun control laws in the world. Those who wish to own a gun must submit to rigorous screening that very, very few pass. Weapons are automatically denied to criminals, the mentally ill, minors and those with no fixed residence. Virtually no one can possess a handgun except police officers, self-defense personnel or marksmen who compete in approved competitions. Permission to possess a rifle or shotgun is granted after a complicated procedure to hunters or those who have safely possessed a hunting firearm for 10 years or more.

In 1991, 74 people were killed in firearm-related homicides in Japan, a nation of 124 million; handguns were used in 69 of those deaths. Over the last five years, Japan has averaged about 80 gun murders a year--a far cry from the 14,200 gun murders in 1991 alone in the United States, which has a population of 250 million.

Other countries are close behind Japan in strictness. Germany allows citizens to apply for permission to own a specific gun and a specific type of ammunition. But for the average German, permission is nearly impossible to obtain. The few who are permitted to purchase a gun are granted a license good for only three years. To keep that weapon longer, the applicant must apply for a new license.

Although crime has risen in Germany since 1990, the criminal misuse of guns accounts for only 0.3% of all criminal acts. In 1992, 17,240 out of 6.3 million crimes involved use of a gun. Of those gun-related crimes, 63% involved a threat to use a gun, and in 37% an actual shooting occurred.

The British as well tightly control access. Personal possession of machine guns and submachine guns is banned, and individuals must obtain a permit to own a rifle, pistol or shotgun and most types of ammunition for those weapons. As in Germany, permits are valid for three years. Those who have served a prison sentence cannot own a gun, nor can persons under 17.

To own a firearm in Australia, individuals must first obtain a license from law enforcement officials. All licenses are strictly monitored; those for handguns are much harder to obtain than for rifles or shotguns. Licenses must be renewed annually; non-renewal can result in confiscation. If a gun changes hands in a private sale, the buyer must be licensed and the seller must report the sale. Authorities are permitted to verify, on site, that the reported weapons transfer actually occurred.

Switzerland is often cited as a potent counter-example by those who oppose gun control. The per capita rate of gun ownership is higher in Switzerland than in the United States but the rate of gun crime there is extremely low. Because of the unique military tradition of Switzerland, where many citizens serve in the militia, citizen-soldiers store their ammunition and military firearms, including machine guns, at home. However, the ammunition is issued in sealed boxes. And the citizen-soldiers participate in compulsory shooting practice and must submit to inspection of their uniform and equipment. If the seal on an ammunition box is not intact when a person musters for militia duty, serious punishment follows. Moreover, when individuals complete their term of military service, they must return their uniform and equipment, including all weapons and ammunition.

This system is more than a little different from America!

But despite the strict laws, isn’t there a weapons black market in Europe, Japan and Australia? Yes. No law, no matter how carefully drafted or rigorously enforced, can stop everyone from committing crimes. The existence of a black market in guns, however, is not evidence that strict gun laws don’t work, as many who oppose gun control in the United States argue. Rather, even with an underground trade in firearms (a trade that is limited), strict laws do indeed seem to keep a tight lid on the availability of guns and thus serve to dampen the rates of gun homicide and injury. Firearms are used in 75% of U.S. killings and only 25% of killings in comparable industrialized countries. The overall U.S. homicide rate is 15 times as high as Japan’s.

A LOCAL ‘SOLUTION’ IS NO SOLUTION AT ALL

The message from abroad is obvious: Control guns and control gun crime. Americans who are serious about reducing the appalling level of firearms violence will understand that we must severely constrict if not virtually end the private possession of guns.

Lesser solutions could be tried, but ultimately, halfway measures won’t do. Nor will state-by-state or community-by-community approaches. In 1986, District of Columbia officials, fed up with escalating gun violence, imposed a ban on the sale and possession of new handguns within the capital’s city limits, and a ban on possession of all assault weapons. But gun crime there has not declined as local officials had hoped. If anything, it has risen--to the point where Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly last month asked President Clinton to deploy the National Guard to help control crime within the city. Why has Washington’s law not stemmed the killing? Because guns still flood into the city from neighboring states, particularly Virginia, where there are much looser restrictions. This year, Virginia managed to pass a law limiting residents to the purchase of “just” one gun per month. That’s 12 guns per year. Imagine! That’s 12 more weapons in the tide of 200 million firearms that is threatening to inundate America.

This country does not need one more gun in circulation; in fact, it needs about 200 million less.