Lethal Passage_ The Story of a Gun - Erik Larson [114]
The NRA and its libertarian core would get what they have sought all along: unrestrained access to firearms. Manufacturers could build and sell any weapons they chose, distributors and dealers could sell them to anyone, including felons, fugitives, drug addicts, and children. But all parties in the distribution chain would now have to accept legal and financial responsibility for such libertine commercial behavior.
I guarantee that within a breathtakingly short period of time, the manufacturers, distributors and dealers of America would by themselves establish a more stringent, more efficient, more highly automated system of distribution restrictions than anything ever dreamed of by Handgun Control Inc. Suddenly all firearms would be childproof, perhaps with built-in combination locks; the manufacturers’ advertising would concentrate on assuring the market that guns were as macho as always—just different. All pistols would include magazine safeties, which deactivate the firearm when the magazine is removed, thus ensuring that no one gets hurt if someone forgets there is a live round still in the chamber. Manufacturers doubtless would require gun buyers to present some kind of prior medical authorization—a kind of prescription—to assure them that the buyer was not insane, depressed, despondent, or otherwise likely to contemplate murder and suicide. The first thing the manufacturers would do is make gun proficiency and safety education a mandatory requirement for gun ownership. In short, with one bold stroke America could eliminate all the bizarre and dangerous behaviors of the firearms trade, and do it in a distinctly American, free-market way.
For now, however, society at large continues to absorb all the costs: to bury its children, heal its wounded, endure its mounting grief and embarrassment—all costs so blithely charged to our account by America’s firearms industry.
In early August 1994, Sylvia and Wayne sent licensed dealers, including me, their latest catalog. It arrived well after the House and Senate had each passed its own crime bills containing a ban on the Cobray and other assault weapons, but before the two bills were finally reconciled and passed by the full Congress. On the catalog’s cover was a photograph of a private jet. A woman in white steps from the aircraft, guarded by three armed men. A headline over the photograph reads THE LEGEND CONTINUES.
—ERIK LARSON
September 1994
SOURCE NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS USED
ATF Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
ATF-CR1 ATF Case Report. Case no. 93215 85 1526P. Federal Records Center, Atlanta.
ATF-CR2 ATF Case Report. Case no. 93215 85 1526P-Supplemental. Federal Records Center, Atlanta.
EE-ASC Estelle Elliot vs. Atlantic Shores Christian School. Virginia Beach Circuit Court. CV 89–1022.
ET-SP Earl Taylor, et al. vs. Snell Publishing, et al. Fulton County Superior Court, Atlanta. Case D-26477.
GAO U.S. Government Accounting Office
NES Nicholas Elliot. Statement to police, December 16, 1988. Police case no. 88–222747. Page numbers refer to locations in court documents or in transcripts of testimony commissioned by author.
PA-JH Pa. vs. Jean-Claude Pierre Hill. Superior Court, Philadelphia. No. 4178, Philadelphia, 1992. Court transcript.
US-AF U.S. vs. Amir Faraz. U.S. District Court, Norfolk. CR 91–154-N.
US-CW U.S. vs. Curtis Williams. U.S. District Court, Norfolk. CR-88–145-N. March 1, 1989.
US-DA U.S. vs. Dean Archer. U.S. District Court, Norfolk. CR 91–4-N.
US-PEG U.S. vs. Pablo Escobar-Gaviria, et al. U.S. District Court, Jacksonville, Florida 89–29-CR-J-16. Indictment, February 24, 1989, 12, 13, 14.
U.S.-SWD U.S. vs. SWD Inc. and RPB Industries Inc. U.S. District Court, Atlanta. CR-86–22A. Federal Records Center, Atlanta.
VA-NE Virginia