Guns on the run

States should continue regulating guns

While even the most modest and widely supported gun control efforts have been completely stymied at the national level by Congress' unrelenting dread of the NRA, many states have admirably taken matters into their own hands. In the most important example, Massachusetts began regulating handguns in the same manner as all other consumer products this week. By finally recognizing the danger posed to gun buyers and acting to improve consumer safety, Massachusetts has demonstrated how firearms should be treated as long as they are legal.

It has taken far too long for recognition that handguns should at least be governed by the same safety rules as other products. While this is certainly a step in the right direction, handguns, if legal at all, deserve to be regulated in the strictest manner possible, considering they are virtually the only legal product specifically designed to kill people. Such inherently dangerous products should have never received the legal protection from consumer safety laws granted by Congress at the federal level and it is encouraging to see the institution of protections at the state level.

Many other states have been able to avoid Congress' paralysis on the gun-control issue and implement measures to improve gun safety. Maryland's legislature, earlier this week, approved a bill requiring all handguns to have built-in trigger locks after January 2003. Connecticut passed a law allowing the seizure of guns from potentially dangerous individuals. And lawsuits by numerous cities have forced at least one gun maker, Smith and Wesson, to change the way it manufactures and markets handguns to make them safer and less accessible to children and criminals.

These developments were achieved in the face of massive opposition from gun manufacturers, the NRA and other gun-rights organizations and are some of the first instances of government, at any level, taking a stand against those groups. The gun lobby still holds considerable influence in most states and Congress continues to cower before it however, making the promising new state measures isolated islands of responsibility in a nation still awash in guns.

The usual assertion made by those who oppose tighter regulation of guns is that people deserve the right to protect themselves. That argument is utter nonsense. The United States has an astronomically high number of gun-related deaths for a developed nation and, not coincidentally, the weakest gun laws. In addition, almost all those deaths are attributable to shootings by criminals and accidents, not people defending themselves. Clearly, this nation's practice of letting almost anybody have a gun isn't protecting anyone.

It is disappointing that the U.S. Congress has proven to be completely impotent in the face of the gun lobby and that even the continuing high rates of gun violence and endless series of school shootings cannot seem to convince them to enact even the most minimal gun controls. While it is encouraging to see many states taking action to curb gun violence, so far they are exceptional cases. Many states, including Michigan, have actually been trying to weaken existing gun laws. Every American deserves relief from the epidemic of gun violence that afflicts this nation and Congress should follow the example of Massachusetts and Maryland by finally standing up to the gun lobby.