Wise Climb-Down, Bad Veto

It is small comfort to know that although Gov. Pete Wilson has refused to bar California police departments from selling firearms they confiscate from criminals, the U.S. State Department did rethink its foolish plan to allow importation of Russian pistols. We close off one source of guns yet permit them back onto the streets from another. This is madness.

Last week the Clinton Administration floated a proposal to let Russia export to the United States a large number of semiautomatic pistols. Russia would be allowed to peddle its guns here and in exchange would slow or stop its sales of warplanes, tanks, submarines, missiles and other military weaponry to Iran.

Until recently, the states of the former Soviet Union were heavily restricted in selling guns to American importers; last year, a mere 18,000 firearms were imported from these nations--”mere” in comparison to the 7.6 million that otherwise might have been imported. “Mere” in comparison to the 212 million firearms already in the hands of American civilians. This reckless idea, thankfully, died of its own weight.

But what of the cash-strapped police and sheriff’s departments that sell confiscated guns to the public rather than destroy them? These programs live on. The practice has been widely criticized, rightly so at a time when many communities are trying to reduce the number of weapons through buyback programs. (The latest such effort is an imaginative though ripe-for-satirizing program that exchanges guns for psychotherapy; a group of Contra Costa psychologists is offering three hours of free therapy to anyone who turns in a firearm.)

Wilson’s rationale for his veto is flawed. The bill would not have kept criminals from stealing guns, he said. Of course it wouldn’t. But because they steal guns from lawful owners, fewer guns in circulation would mean fewer to steal. Conversely, as the number of armed criminals grows, law enforcement agencies become ever more pinched for cash. This vicious--and deadly--cycle has to be stopped. A bad call, governor.