Shaky Aim
Reviewing Shots in the Dark.

By Dave Kopel, research director, and Paul Blackman, research coordinator, National Rifle Association
November 3-4, 2001

Shots in the Dark: The Policy, Politics, and Symbolism of Gun Control, by William J. Vizzard (Rowman & Littlefield, 288 pages, $19.95).

Litany of Errors

The more serious problem caused by his Vizzard's "insider" approach is a massive number of errors due to sloppiness. Because Vizzard's book is sure to be used as a primary source by writers creating encyclopedia entries and the like, it is unfortunate that he gets so many names wrong. He misspells the names of Supreme Court cases (Haynes v. U.S., and Chicago B. & Q. RR. Co. v. Chicago), of a major pro-gun activist (Alan Gottlieb becomes Allan Gotleib), of an antigun activist (Michael Hancock of the National Coalition to Ban Handguns becomes Handcock of the Coalition to Ban the Handgun), of a Yale law professor (Akhil Amar becomes Akhill Amar), and of a senator (James Abdnor becomes Abnor). He offers the wrong names for Academics for the Second Amendment, the National Alliance of Stocking Gun Dealers, the American Shooting Sports Council, the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and two different wrong names for the National Coalition to Ban Handguns.

Handgun Control, Inc., (HCI) is called Hand Gun Control Incorporated (HGCI), and he describes the group as a non-membership organization — although the Federal Election Commission forced HCI to become a membership organization (one director is elected by the membership) in the 1980s. He says that HCI was founded by Pete Shields, although the group was actually founded by Charles Orasin with the help of retired CIA agent Edwin Welles. Shields became chairman later.

He fails to distinguish between 501(c)(3)s (educational organizations) and 501(c)(4)s (lobbies) in describing "lobbies." He undercounts the number of sheriffs who brought individual cases in different jurisdictions to have the Brady Act declared unconstitutional.

Quite often, the correct name of something appears in close proximity to the incorrect name, raising questions about whether anyone proofread the book. The Firearms Owners' Protection Act (FOPA) is the Gun Owners' Protection Act (GOPA) within a few pages. The Gallup poll is spelled correctly twice on one page, while also twice spelled "Gallop" on the very same page. A controversial NRA fundraising letter is correctly described as a "fundraising letter" on one page, as a "pamphlet" on the previous page, and then again as a "pamphlet" several pages later.

In describing the dramatic increase in the number of states with right-to-carry laws, he says they are now "in almost half the states," whereas the 31 states (ignoring the post-publication additions of New Mexico and Michigan) constitute more than half.

We are told that "Until the election of 1992, no president candidate had risked using gun control as a domestic issue." But in 1988, George Bush defended the right to own handguns for home defense in his Republican National Convention acceptance speech, and wrote a highly publicized letter to the NRA detailing his opposition to new gun controls. In 1980, Ronald Reagan actively courted gun-owner support, and was rewarded with a massive grassroots effort that helped him win close states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Vizzard's history of the Brady Bill's passage through Congress includes several errors: the bill was originally named for Sarah Brady (not, as Vizzard says, James Brady, although he later became the namesake). He conflates the relatively mild bill finally passed by Congress in 1993 with the much more restrictive bill originally pushed by HCI in 1987. He writes that all the pro-gun floor amendments offered in the House in 1993 failed, but in fact two of the amendments passed — most significantly, the one making the waiting period sunset within five years.

Former House Speaker Tom Foley is described as "on record as opposing assault-weapon legislation," but still losing his seat in 1994 to a gun-control opponent. Actually, Foley did oppose "assault weapon" bans during the Bush presidency, but supported the Clinton ban which passed in 1994, and used his Speaker's power to ensure that the ban passed.

Vizzard's explanation of the 1939 United States v. Miller case (the Supreme Court's last major Second Amendment case) is backward. He writes that "the justices may mistakenly have taken judicial notice that shotguns could not be used in militia service." The Court actually wrote: "Certainly is it is not within judicial notice that such a weapon [a sawed-off shotgun] is any part of the ordinary military equipment or could contribute to the common defense." Vizzard's error is not "anti-gun"; indeed, his point, if it were true, would make Miller less persuasive as a pro-control case.

Some statements are simply bizarre. He calls the "Aryan Nation" [sic, Nations] a "libertarian" organization — a startling description for a neo-Nazi group enamored of Adolf Hitler, one of the greatest "big government" creators of all time. When Congress raised the gun-dealer licensing fee to $200 for a three-year license in 1993, this increase supposedly "failed to restore license fees to even their 1968 level of $10 a year, taking inflation into account." Actually, the Consumer Price Index stood at 35.5 in December 1968, and at 145.8 in December 1993. This means that $30 in 1968 dollars was worth $123 in 1993 — so the 1993 fee increase made the licensing fee over 60% higher than the inflation-adjusted 1968 fees.

Vizzard makes mass-murderer James Huberty's third gun an Uzi pistol rather than a carbine, and gets the wrong number of handguns used at another mass murder, in Killeen, Texas. He writes that the Columbine murderers' guns were "illegally" obtained at guns shows, but in fact the purchases were lawful.

He claims that author John Lott"lacks the cultural ties to the gun community displayed by [Gary] Kleck" (a Florida State University criminologist). To the contrary, Kleck won't even say whether he owns a gun, while Lott is proud to admit that he does. (He's also a very good shot.) Kleck adamantly refuses to speak at gun-rights rallies, whereas Lott frequently does. In 1999, after the Columbine murders, Lott organized over 300 professors to sign a joint letter to Congress opposing new gun controls. Kleck was virtually the only well-known academic skeptic of gun control who refused to sign.

Reliance on memory even leads to mistakes in describing ATF. The ATF's Operation CUE is called "Project CUE" and Vizzard says that "CUE" stood for "Consolidated Urban Enforcement," although it actually stood for "Concentrated Urban Enforcement." One wonders if this casual approach to details permeates ATF, or other law-enforcement agencies, and partially explains the periodic police raids on wrong addresses. One is reminded of the warrant application which was the basis for the ATF's Waco raid; the warrant application made numerous errors of fact and law, even citing the wrong sections of statutes.

Worth the Paper It's Printed On

Despite our catalogue of errors, Shots in the Dark is a useful book. It is the first pro-control book to explain how disconnected gun-control politics is from pragmatic gun policy. The book helps gun-rights supporters understand why the ATF tends to see itself as an innocent victim of politics. And none of the factual errors and typos (we haven't listed them all) undermines the power of Vizzard's case for universal licensing and registration, and for other gun controls. While much of Vizzard's not always accurate material will, unfortunately, appear in recycled versions in newspaper editorials and other secondary sources, his gun-control proposals are, as reviewer Philip Cook states, Vizzard's real contribution. So let us conclude the review by addressing in more detail this important part of the book.

Vizzard's push for gun-control laws seems geared toward having laws which help law enforcement. He wants to reduce the number of gun dealers, since the fewer there are, the easier it is to regulate the remainder. He also finds it perfectly reasonable that the costs of gun control be borne by gun dealers and gun buyers. That seems fair to him, even if it adds to the cost of guns, through fees which are ultimately passed on to buyers. We would note that, if gun control is supposed to benefit society in general, there is no reason why its costs should not come out of general tax revenues. But, then, just as Vizzard has a pro-enforcement bias, we have a pro-rights bias, and have gotten tired of people saying "if it saves a single life, gun control is worth whatever it costs — so long as the costs are all borne by gun owners and not ordinary taxpayers." To make gun dealers and gun buyers pay is unfair to all gun buyers, but particularly to the poor, who have the greatest need of guns for protection and the least likely to benefit from law-enforcement protection.

Vizzard does note that many gun-owners fear that intermediate regulations will ultimately lead to confiscation. He doesn't want confiscation, although he admits that many in the gun-control lobbies do. Nor does he offer a mechanism for compromise-minded gun owners to support his plan in good faith, with the understanding that Vizzard's controls today won't be used as the platform for prohibition and confiscation in the future. Given that Vizzard-like controls did lead directly to handgun prohibition in England, he offers no reason why American gun owners shouldn't fear the same.

Vizzard admits that huge numbers of gun owners will violate his registration laws. His response is two-fold: First, to the extent that they bury their guns in their walls or backyards, the guns are out of circulation, and therefore harmless, and therefore gun-caching is socially beneficial.

Second, Vizzard would make enforcement of his laws selectively draconian. Ordinary gun owners who violated the registration law would simply face confiscation of their entire gun collection. But, when the registration violators were suspected of other crimes, prison terms would be imposed with severity. He takes great pride in having used gun laws to obtain a long sentence for criminals suspected of a violent crime, even though the corpus delicti was never found, and the men could not be prosecuted for any violent crime. His model is the use of tax laws to catch Al Capone. But he forgets that the purpose of the tax laws was to raise taxes; being able to punish Capone was a desperation measure using an otherwise legitimate law. Vizzard is pushing registration and other restrictions primarily in order to be able to punish the Al Capones of the gun world with legislation that could also punish ordinary folks. He is hoping for selective prosecution, but he did not seem particularly upset by the hideous perversions of selective enforcement involving Kenyon Ballew, Ruby Ridge, and Waco. And selective prosecution could easily be implemented in a racist manner — as drug laws already are.

For gun-policy specialists, Shots in the Dark is a worthwhile read, especially since the specialists will know enough about the subject to separate Vizzard's insights from his errors. General readers looking for an expert survey of the gun issue would be better off with Gary Kleck's much more carefully written Targeting Guns.

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