Tough on Guns, Tough on Crime : A cheer for proposal to revamp gun licensing

President Clinton’s move to tighten the appallingly lax and under-enforced federal firearm licensing laws might actually help reduce gun violence and crime. It could help reduce gun violence because it could directly and immediately affect the number of firearms sold and thus in circulation.

The Administration’s latest proposals, credited to Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, involve sharply hiking gun dealer license fees in an effort to dramatically reduce dealer ranks. Those ranks should be severely thinned. Of the more than 284,000 federally licensed gun dealers nationwide, officials estimate that only 20% are genuinely engaged in firearms trade as a business. The rest buy licenses only to obtain weapons for their own use at lower costs; they have no intention of selling guns as retailers.

A bargain-basement licensing fee has constituted an incentive for applying for dealer status. (The recently passed Brady bill increased the three-year license fee to $200 from the $30 that had been charged since 1968.) So many hold dealer status, in fact, that it’s ludicrous to expect the 240 inspectors of the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to monitor the throng.

Clinton and Bentsen propose to hike the licensing fee to $600 yearly. They also want to boost the ATF’s enforcement capability and to improve agency cooperation with state and local authorities.

Tightening firearm regulations at the federal level is one way to confront the growing crisis of crime. In California, at the state level, there is increasing support for life sentences for those convicted of a third violent felony.

Such calls are sure to be heard often and loudly at the crime summit that Gov. Pete Wilson will open this month in Los Angeles. The notion is all but irresistible: Life imprisonment would take convicted violent offenders off the streets. So what’s the problem?

Proposals for ever-tougher prison sentences are nothing new, of course. Although California ranks 17th in the nation in terms of its rate of incarceration, it already houses more prisoners than any other state: 120,000. Our prisons are bursting, yet the carnage in our streets and schools and even in our homes continues. That’s the problem.

And that’s why addressing the gun-supply side of the crime equation is at least as promising as addressing the prison-supply side. Let’s prevent the violence in the first place by curbing the supply of guns. That means much tighter state and local restrictions on private gun ownership and much stronger enforcement of existing laws on possession. Yes, let’s get tough on crime--no quarrel there. But let’s get a lot tougher on guns.