NRA uses Justice memo to accuse Obama on guns

FILE – In this Jan. 28, 2013, file photo President Barack Obama meets to discuss administration policies to reduce gun violence with representatives from Major Cities Chiefs Association and Major County Sheriffs Association at the White House in Washington. The National Rifle Association is using a Justice Department memo it obtained to argue in ads that the Obama administration believes its gun control plans won't work unless the government seizes firearms and requires national gun registration, ideas the White House has not proposed and does not support. At left isHennepin County Minnesota Sheriff Richard W. Stanek, and at right is Charles H. Ramsey Police, Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

By ALAN FRAM

Associated Press / February 23, 2013

Text Size:

E-mail

Page 2 of 2 --

The memo was written under the name of Greg Ridgeway, acting director of the National Institute of Justice, the Justice Department’s research arm. It is dated Jan. 4, nearly two weeks before Obama announced his plan for restricting guns, and Ridgeway’s first day as acting chief.

Justice Department officials said Ridgeway was not granting interviews. He came to the institute last July from the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research institution where he studied criminal justice issues, and has a Ph.D. in statistics.

The memo says straw purchases and gun thefts are the largest sources of firearms used in crimes, and that such transactions ‘‘would most likely become larger if background checks at gun shows and private sellers were addressed.’’

Gun control supporters said the NRA ad and the Justice memo don’t mention that the current federal background check system blocked gun sales to 2.1 million criminals and others barred from owning guns between 1994, when the checks began, and 2010. Also ignored is that Obama has proposed cracking down on straw purchases to prevent a growth in illegal transactions, they said.

Advocates of restricting guns also said the memo omitted mention of several studies that affirm the effectiveness of firearms curbs. These include a 2010 police group analysis showing more than one-third of police departments found increased criminal use of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines since the 2004 expiration of the ban on those items.

‘‘It doesn’t appear to be a serious discussion of gun violence prevention policy, never mind an expression of administration policy,’’ said Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

The memo says that out of 11,000 annual gun homicides, an average of 35 deaths yearly are from mass shootings, defined as those with four or more victims.

‘‘Policies that address the larger firearm homicide issue will have a far greater impact even if they do not address the particular issues of mass shootings,’’ it says.

It says there were an estimated 1.5 million assault weapons before the 10-year ban on those firearms began in 1994, so their sheer number would weaken a new ban exempting existing weapons. Such guns accounted for just 2 percent to 8 percent of crimes before the 1994 ban, so eliminating assault weapons ‘‘would not have a large impact on gun homicides,’’ the memo said.

Recent data on the assault weapons ban impact is scarce because since the 1990s, Congress has blocked most federal research on the effect that firearms have on public health. As part of the gun restrictions Obama proposed last month, he ordered federal scientific agencies to research gun violence.

___

Online:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/preventing-gun-violence

National Rifle Association: http://home.nra.org