• CIA Letter Raises Further Doubts About Barrett Story on Sale of 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles to Bin Laden - Press Release
  
  Washington, DC—The Violence Policy Center (VPC) today released a letter from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency that flatly denies any CIA role in the transfer of 25 Barrett 50 caliber sniper rifles to terrorist Osama bin Laden. The letter to Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) raises further doubts about Barrett's explanation that the transfer was part of an official U.S. aid program. The letter confirms a February 2002 VPC report, based on interviews with former top CIA officials, that found no credible evidence that the transfer was part of the official U.S. aid program.

  The transfer of 25 Barrett anti-armor sniper rifles was revealed in the 2001 criminal trial of bin Laden operatives convicted of bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa. Government witness Essam al Ridi, a naturalized Egyptian, testified that he bought the 25 anti-armor sniper rifles and shipped them to bin Laden's group. After the VPC reported this transfer, which occurred in 1988 or 1989, the Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Co. claimed that the rifles sent to bin Laden were part of the secret American program of aid to Afghan rebels fighting occupying Soviet forces. It accused the VPC of hiding this information.

  However, the CIA, which ran the secret Afghan aid program, told Congressman Waxman that after "an extensive review of our records," it had found "no information that indicates the Central Intelligence Agency aided or was otherwise involved in a transfer of weapons by Essam al Ridi to Afghanistan between 1985 and 1990." The letter confirms what the three top CIA officials who ran the Afghan rebel aid program told the VPC earlier this year—the 25 rifles transferred to Osama bin Laden were not part of the U.S. aid program.

  "All of the objective, credible evidence now supports the VPC's position," said VPC Senior Policy Analyst Tom Diaz. "We still don't know exactly how or from whom Essam al Ridi got the 25 Barrett rifles he shipped to bin Laden. But it is clear that he was not acting on behalf of the U.S. government, as Barrett claims. Instead, he was simply taking advantage of lax federal laws that allow the easy purchase of weapons of war like these by terrorists, other extremists, and common criminals."

  Adds Diaz, "The burden is clearly on Barrett to put up or shut up and release any documents it may have supporting its version of the transfer of these anti-armor sniper rifles to bin Laden's agent."
  
  (Posted 08/06/2002)
  
  

• Fort Bragg Tragedies Focus Attention on National Plague of Murder-Suicide - Press Release
  

  WASHINGTON, DC —At least 662 Americans died in murder-suicides during the first half of 2001, and almost all (94.5 percent) were killed with firearms, according to American Roulette: The Untold Story of Murder-Suicide in the United States, a recent study by the Violence Policy Center (VPC). Since June 11, 2002, two Fort Bragg soldiers have killed their wives and themselves.

  The VPC study, based on news clips collected nationwide, is one of the largest and most comprehensive studies ever conducted on murder-suicide. Using the VPC figures, more than 1,300 Americans die each year in murder-suicides. During the six-month study period, 20 North Carolina residents were killed in murder-suicides. The study notes that murder-suicides range from high-profile mass shootings like the April 20, 1999, Columbine massacre to familial shootings claiming the lives of spouses and offspring.

  Josh Sugarmann, VPC executive director, states, "Guns are the catalytic component in murder-suicide. Just as important, it must be understood that the emotional factors that drive suicide can be all too easily turned outward on friends, family, co-workers, and complete strangers because of the unmatched lethality of firearms. Every major murder-suicide study ever conducted has shown that a firearm—with its unmatched combination of lethality and availability—is the weapon most often used to murder the victims, with the offenders then turning the gun on themselves."

  For the study, the VPC used a national clipping service to collect every reported murder-suicide in the United States from January 1, 2001 to June 30, 2001. Currently there is no national tracking system for these incidents. As a result, the VPC study provides the most accurate portrait of murder-suicide in America possible.

  Seven states had more than 10 murder-suicide incidents during the study period: Florida (35), California (29) and Texas (29), Pennsylvania (17), New York (14), Virginia (12), and Ohio (11). North Carolina had nine murder-suicide incidents.
  
  (Posted 08/05/2002)
  
  

• Attorney General Ashcroft Misled Congress and the American People on Legality of Checking Terrorist Gun Purchase Records - Press Release
  

  Washington, DC—Attorney General John Ashcroft misled Congress and the American public when he repeatedly stated that the Justice Department was legally prohibited from checking gun purchase records in connection with the post-9/11 terrorism investigation to determine if potential terrorists had purchased firearms, a new General Accounting Office (GAO) report reveals. The Justice Department's refusal to review the records received widespread press attention when it was revealed by the Violence Policy Center (VPC) in December 2001.

  The report, Gun Control: Potential Effects of Next-Day Destruction of NICS Background Check Records, reveals for the first time the existence of an October 1, 2001 memorandum prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). [The VPC has obtained a full copy of the memo.] The memo concludes that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has the legal authority to check approved gun purchase records to ascertain whether prohibited persons bought guns in connection with the post-9/11 terrorism investigation. The memorandum flatly contradicts Attorney General Ashcroft's insistence that the Justice Department was legally prohibited from checking approved gun purchase records in connection with the terrorism investigation.

  "The OLC memorandum is the smoking gun proving that Ashcroft grossly misled Congress and the American people," states Mathew Nosanchuk, VPC litigation director and legislative counsel. "Attorney General Ashcroft described the Department's legal authority with the same accuracy that WorldCom reported its profits."

  Despite withering public and congressional criticism of the Justice Department's position, the Department never disclosed the existence of the OLC memorandum. The VPC has identified no less than eight separate statements to the news media and in congressional testimony by Justice Department officials asserting in unequivocal terms that the Department lacked the legal authority to do precisely what the October 2001 OLC memo said was legal.

  The report, which examines the potential impact of the Ashcroft Justice Department's proposal to require the destruction of approved gun purchase records within 24 hours, concludes that the destruction of records would have dire consequences for public safety. Another key finding is that retained records were used to initiate firearms retrieval actions, which take place when a felon, fugitive, domestic abuser, or other prohibited person clears a background check and law enforcement subsequently finds out they are prohibited. In an astonishing 97 percent of retrieval cases that the GAO studied over a six-month period, law enforcement would not have been able to retrieve an illegally purchased firearm from a prohibited person under the shortened retention period proposed by the Attorney General.

  Adds Nosanchuk, "The GAO report should put the final nail in the coffin of the Ashcroft Justice Department's records-destruction proposal. The report leaves no doubt that when it comes to enforcing the gun laws Attorney General Ashcroft is not guided by facts, law, or public safety, but by blind allegiance to the gun lobby."
  
  (Posted 07/24/2002)
  
  

• VPC Denounces Passage of "Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act"—Urges Senate Not To Make the Same Mistake - Press Release
  

  WASHINGTON, DC—The Violence Policy Center (VPC) strongly denounced yesterday's passage of the "Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act" (H.R. 4635).

  "The House of Representatives has collectively misjudged the effectiveness of guns in the cockpits of our nation's commercial planes," Kristen Rand, VPC legislative director stated today. "We strongly urge the Senate not to make the same mistake."

  Facts cited by the VPC in opposition to arming pilots look at the on-the-ground experience of law enforcement personnel:

  • One study found that 21 percent of police officers killed with a handgun were shot with their own service weapon.
    
    
  • Trained law enforcement officers have only an 18 to 22 percent hit ratio in armed confrontations. The cramped quarters of an airliner do not lend themselves to success.

  "Unfortunately, pilots are not infallible. In fact, 84 percent of all fatal commercial air crashes are the result of pilot error. In a nation where states prohibit the use of cell phones while driving, we are relying on pilots of passenger planes, where hundreds of lives are at stake, to be both policeman and pilot," Rand added.

  "There are many necessary and constructive steps that can be taken to protect pilots and passengers short of arming pilots. If firearms are absolutely necessary, they should be carried by trained air marshals whose only responsibility is protecting the safety of crew members and passengers," Rand concluded.
  
  (Posted 07/11/2002)
  

• VPC Statement Opposing "Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act" - Press Release
  

  WASHINGTON, DC—The Violence Policy Center (VPC) released the following statement today by Legislative Director Kristen Rand, in opposition to Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act (H.R. 4635).

  The VPC is in strong opposition to guns of any kind in the cockpits of our nation's passenger planes. Introducing guns to the close quarters of an airliner may be even more hazardous than putting guns in classrooms, as some urged following the 1999 Columbine massacre.

  The first and foremost consideration should be the fact that the weapon, by definition, would potentially be available to every passenger. That includes passengers with a case of air rage or those suffering from suicidal tendencies, as well as terrorists.

  Moreover, those contemplating terrorism will know that a gun is available and will act accordingly— and the terrorists will usually have the element of surprise on their side.

  Giving the task of defending the airliner to an already engaged pilot is a scenario rife with potentially disastrous consequences. In fact, highly trained police officers, whose only job is law enforcement, all too often have their service weapons turned against them by suspects.

  (Posted 07/10/2002)
  

• VPC Releases License to Kill IV: More Guns, More Crime - Press Release
  

  WASHINGTON—A new study released today by the Violence Policy Center (VPC) shows that Texas concealed handgun license holders have been arrested 5,314 times since the concealed handgun license law went into effect—an average of two and one-half arrests every day from January 1, 1996, until August 31, 2001. Texas has a "shall issue" concealed carry system, in which an adult (21 or over), is issued a license that allows them to have a handgun on or about their person as long as it is not visible or discernible through ordinary observation after they meet specific, objective criteria.

  According to License to Kill IV: More Guns, More Crime, from January 1, 1996, through August 31, 2001, there were 41 arrests for murder and attempted murder by concealed handgun license holders in Texas. License to Kill IV: More Guns, More Crime discusses the dangerous ramifications of concealed carry legislation and details the arrests of 11 concealed handgun license holders subsequent to licensure for the crimes of homicide, attempted homicide, and aggravated kidnapping. Arrest data is regularly accepted as a valid measure of crime, reflecting law enforcement response to criminal activity, and is used by agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for its Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).

  "The NRA told Texans in 1996 that a concealed handgun law would make Texas a safer place," VPC Health Policy Analyst Karen Brock, MPH, said today. "The thousands of arrests of concealed handgun license holders demonstrates the exact opposite to be true: license holders are committing crimes, not preventing them. States now considering concealed carry laws should learn from the dire consequences that Texans now live with day-in and day-out."
  
  (Posted 06/12/2002)
  
  

• Statement of Violence Policy Center in Response to Supreme Court Refusal to Hear Second Amendment Cases - Press Release
  
  

  Today the Supreme Court denied review in two cases in which criminal defendants had asked the high court to strike down federal gun laws on Second Amendment grounds. In briefs filed in Emerson v. United States and Haney v. United States, the Ashcroft Justice Department announced a 180-degree shift in the Department's interpretation of the Second Amendment, arguing for an expansive individual rights interpretation of the Amendment. At the same time, the Justice Department asked the Court to reject the defendants' petitions for review. In response to the Supreme Court's action today, Mathew Nosanchuk, the Violence Policy Center's litigation director and legislative counsel, issued the following statement:

  "Today's Supreme Court action is a victory for public safety and security and a defeat for the National Rifle Association and gun criminals, who have been chomping at the bit for the Supreme Court to overrule its own precedent on the Second Amendment. By declining to hear the Emerson and Haney cases, the Supreme Court–as it has done repeatedly for decades–once again refused to reopen the question of whether the Second Amendment protects an expansive individual right to keep and bear arms that is unrelated in any way to service in the ‘well regulated militia' cited in the Second Amendment. In its unanimous 1939 decision in United States v. Miller, the Court held unambiguously that the ‘obvious purpose' of the Second Amendment was to ‘assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness' of the militia, and ‘[i]t must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.'

  "Today's action by the Supreme Court reaffirms, the Ashcroft Justice Department's policy shift notwithstanding, that the Miller decision remains the law of the land–and it continues to be followed in the lower courts. The Ashcroft Justice Department completely ignored Miller in its Supreme Court briefs, and the NRA has argued that Miller means something other than what it says. If the lower courts have been misreading Miller for 63 years–as the NRA and pro-gun advocates believe–the Supreme Court has had ample opportunity to correct the error. Once again, it has declined to do so.

  "Thankfully, the Justices do not share Attorney General John Ashcroft's enthusiasm for reinterpreting the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, criminal defendants and the gun lobby can be expected to rely on the non-binding and ill-advised statements contained in the Ashcroft Justice Department's Emerson and Haney briefs in their efforts to overturn our nation's gun laws."

  (Posted 06/10/2002)
  
  
• Statement of Violence Policy Center in Response to D.C. Gun Crime Defendants Using U.S. Department of Justice Second Amendment Policy Shift to Strike Down Gun Laws - Press Release
  

  The Washington Post reported May 30, 2002, that criminal defendants in Washington, D.C. are seeking to have the District's gun laws declared unconstitutional on Second Amendment grounds. The defendants are relying on the 180-degree shift in the Department of Justice's interpretation of the Second Amendment that was announced May 6, 2002 in briefs filed in the U.S. Supreme Court. Mathew Nosanchuk, the Violence Policy Center's litigation director and legislative counsel, issued the following statement:

  "When Solicitor General Theodore Olson filed briefs in the Supreme Court embracing the expansive individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, we warned that the primary beneficiaries of the Ashcroft Justice Department's novel interpretation would be criminal defendants. An expansive individual right under the Second Amendment simply is not supported by history of the Constitution or binding Supreme Court precedent and threatens to undermine the Justice Department's enforcement of existing gun laws.

  "Now, the chickens have come home to roost. As the Washington Post today reported, the defendants are charged in separate cases with unlawful possession of a handgun and ammunition respectively. They both rely explicitly on the Justice Department's briefs—and a memorandum from Attorney General Ashcroft to all 93 U.S. Attorneys in which he directs them to follow his interpretation of the Second Amendment—to support their Second Amendment challenges to the District's gun laws. According to the brief in one of the cases: ‘As made clear by the various government representations, the United States now understands and represents before tribunals that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is an individual and personal right, not a collective right of the state to form a militia.' On this basis, the defendants seek to have the District's laws, which impose a virtual ban on the private possession of handguns and ammunition, struck down.

  "The reliance by criminal defendants on the Justice Department's new position puts the lie to the Justice Department's claim that it can be tough on gun crime and soft on the Second Amendment. Instead of promoting some abstract concept of constitutional law to score political points with the gun lobby, the Ashcroft Justice Department is handing criminal defendants arguments that will used to invalidate gun laws. The real-world implications of the Department's position make it clear that the Department will have to choose: protect public safety and security or implement an expansive individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment that gun criminals will use to their advantage."
  
  (Posted 05/30/2002)
  
  

• Ashcroft and NRA Provide Second Amendment Gun Defense for Accused American Taliban Terrorist John Walker Lindh - Press Release
  
  Washington, DC—One week after the Ashcroft Justice Department formally adopted the National Rifle Association (NRA) view that the Second Amendment guarantees a broad individual right to keep and bear arms, the defense team for accused American Taliban terrorist John Walker Lindh has used the government's arguments made to the U.S. Supreme Court to urge dismissal of the gun charge filed against him.

  The Justice Department position, announced last week in briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, is contrary to both Supreme Court precedent and long-standing and consistent bipartisan Justice Department policy that the Second Amendment protects a militia-based—not an expansive individual—right to bear arms.

  VPC Litigation Director and Legislative Counsel Mathew Nosanchuk states, "We warned of this inevitable result and it has not taken long for our fears to come true. The Ashcroft Justice Department has betrayed its law enforcement responsibilities by strengthening the legal position of those charged with committing serious crimes. These are the real-life consequences of a cynical, politically motivated action. Now defendants charged with a gun crime will argue the NRA-endorsed, Ashcroft- implemented, American Taliban defense. The tough-on-crime rhetoric of President Bush, Attorney General Ashcroft, and the NRA means little now that they have given accused gun criminals a new Justice Department-endorsed defense."

  The Violence Policy Center warned of the clear threat to public health and safety posed by the Justice Department shift in a May 2 letter sent to Solicitor General Ted Olson by former Deputy Solicitor General Andrew Frey on behalf of the VPC before the briefs were filed. The letter stated: "Prosecuting gun crimes would also be made more difficult in the wake of a policy change by the government....A person accused of violating one or more of these statutes will have the opportunity to make the argument that he was merely exercising his Second Amendment right at the time of his arrest, and that any statute purporting to impose criminal penalties for that conduct is unconstitutional....The ability of the United States to perform its task of defending the laws enacted by the Congress will be needlessly, and perhaps seriously, compromised by a filing of the sort we here urge you to avoid."
  
  (Posted 05/16/2002)
  
  
  
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