'Bootleggers' and gun control: domestic firearms manufacturing has been a major beneficiary of gun control.

AuthorNewhard, Joseph Michael

The terrible attack on Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. has renewed calls for tighter gun control regulations. Those calls were predictable, as was the response of gun rights activists that such regulations restrain the law-abiding more than the law-breaking. What many people on both sides of the issue don't expect, however, is that domestic firearms manufacturers often benefit from gun control efforts--at least, they have in the past, and they could continue to do so in the future.

In 1983, Regulation published Bruce Yandle's seminal article, 'Bootleggers and Baptists: The Education of a Regulatory Economist." In it, he describes how two interest groups, acting independently, can work toward a common policy goal. One is motivated by high-minded concerns, while the other is driven by narrow self-interest, and that allows politicians to adopt the language of the former while furthering the interests (and receiving the gratitude) of the latter. Yandle's model sheds light on regulation in areas as diverse as tobacco, health insurance, automobile safety, and environmental protections. Wherever we look, we observe moral crusaders and safety advocates endorsing regulations that benefit some particular industry.

U.S. federal gun control is an excellent example of Yandle's model in action. Cyclical periods of rising street crime coupled with infamous acts of violence perpetrated by gangsters, assassins, mass murderers, and rioters have repeatedly spurred private calls for gun control at the national level. Under the guise of fighting crime, those efforts have ultimately led to restraints on foreign-made firearms and the sale of military surplus weapons--restraints that benefit U.S. firearm manufacturers.

SEEKING IMPORT CONTROLS

The first major piece of federal gun control legislation came about during the Great Depression. Journalists, the police, and private groups like the General Federation of Women's Clubs demanded nationwide gun control in response to the rising lawlessness of Prohibition. Homicide rates climbed from 7.8 per 100,000 in 1920 to 9.5 in 1932. Newspapers at the time frequently lamented the ease with which "gangsters" like Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, "Machine Gun" Kelly, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Al Capone, and George "Baby Face" Nelson could obtain machine guns and pistols.

Acceding to calls for action, Congress passes the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA), which imposed excise taxes on machine guns, short-barreled rifles, suppressors, and other weapons associated with crime. The NFA also included the first major protectionist measure for U.S. firearms manufacturing: Section 10 (a) states that no firearm shall be imported unless "such firearm is unique or of a type which cannot be obtained within the United States or such territory." The NFA hearings transcript, which runs 166 pages long, contains no debate or discussion of that provision.

Three decades later, in the 1960s, crime races repeated the disturbing trend seen during Prohibition. Having dropped off steadily following passage of the Twenty-First Amendment ending Prohibition, the United States saw a record low of8,530 homicides in 1962. Then the trend reversed: within six years, homicides ballooned 62 percent to 13,800 nationwide.

Television, which exploded in popularity in the 1950s, broadcast rising violence into the majority of American homes. The decade saw the assassinations of President Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. Americans witnessed Charles Whitman murder 16 and wound 32 from the 28th floor of the Tower on the University of Texas at Austin campus. Racial strife resulted in numerous race riots from coast to coast.

Yet renewed gun control efforts began in earnest much earlier, in 1958, and were unrelated to crime--which, after all, was falling at that point. That year, Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass)--whose state, together with Connecticut, was home to "Gun Valley" and much of the U.S. firearms industry--submitted to Congress S-1592, a bill to prohibit the importation of military surplus weapons. On the floor of the Senate, Kennedy argued quite candidly "that imports or re-imports of guns and ammunition manufactured originally for military purposes were helping 'spoil the domestic market,"' the Wall Street Journal reported years later, on Nov. 27, 1963. The article notes that Kennedy

didn't challenge the importation of foreign military weapons on the ground that they may be dangerous ... [but] rested his case solely on economic grounds. He mentioned in particular the help the bill would provide firearms manufacturers back home in Massachusetts--Savage Arms Corp., Harrington & Richardson, Inc., Nobel Manufacturing Co., Smith & Wesson, Inc., and Iver-Johnson Arms & Cycle Works. Kennedy stated that "the bill is in the interest of a great many jobbers and at least 125,000 retailers located in all 48 states, and of particular importance to five arms manufacturers in Massachusetts," the Chicago Tribune reported on Jan. 15, 1967. Not persuaded by the protectionist argument, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee declined its approval of Kennedy's bill and suggested instead that "arms-makers hurt by foreign competition should seek protection from the Tariff Commission."

Five years later, Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald using an Italian bolt action rifle that, according to the Wall Street Journal article, would have been banned from importation under S-1592. The New York Times reported on Nov. 25,1963 that such weapons were "sold to American gun dealers and imported in huge quantities to be sold cheaply." The newspaper noted that

the importation of these guns caused great concern to American firearms makers. They felt the impact on sales of domestically produced sporting rifles.... [Imported surplus rifles were sold at] prices far under those for commercially made guns. The same article adds that a bill introduced in Congress three months prior "would have limited foreign imports severely," referring to S-1975, which targeted military surplus weapons. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Thomas Dodd (D-Conn.), whose state was home to several firearms manufacturers including Winchester, Remington, Marlin Firearms, Sturm, Ruger & Co., Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool, and Colt. According to the Wall Street Journal's Nov. 27, 1963 article, "Seven large firearms manufacturers are known to have cooperated with Sen. Dodd's subcommittee in drawing up its proposed bill," with Harmon Williams, a vice president of Browning Arms, declaring, "We feel Sen. Dodd's bill is a good one."

Earlier in 1963, calls for new gun controls made their way into the national media. Citing the "rising number of persons killed and wounded in teen-age gang wars," the New York Times reported in an Oct. 16, 1963 article that the Committee to Ban Teen-Age Weapons was calling for universal registration, licensing, waiting periods, and restrictions on transportation and mail-orders. At first, those efforts went nowhere. But as crime exploded...

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