Curb Violence by Targeting Bullets

...In the meantime, advocates of gun and ammo control must acknowledge some uncomfortable truths...

...Beyond confronting those root causes, the more immediate battle requires heavier—and more creative—firepower...

...The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (or a successor bureau with more teeth and less baggage) should have the power to recall especially dangerous handguns and ammunition at any time, which would still preserve the overarching right to manufacture and sell certain kinds of guns...

...If the Consumer Product Safety Commission finds a toy to be dangerous, it orders it withdrawn from the market...

...A more radical solution would be: 1) require that all bullets be bought with a special credit card that identified the purchaser, and 2) require serial numbers on every bullet, perhaps engraved on an indestructible microchip that cannot be smashed on impact (and which would help make bullets more expensive...

...No one knows the answer...

...It may even be possible to convince the gun industry that it stands to win a huge new market—thousands of legitimate gun owners who would have to buy new, heavily regulated guns to fit the new, permissible bullets...

...Busting our mental blocks on crime means that it's no longer good enough to say, "The problem is guns, not lenient judges," (ACLU) or "The problem is career criminals, not guns," (the NRA) or "The problem is guns, not violence in the media," (Hollywood liberals) or "The problem is violence in the media, not guns," (the U.S...

...That battle was over simply acknowledging that the war existed in the first place—that even though violence has not increased appreciably in recent years, we've been in a state of denial about its Vietnam-like toll...

...The Black Talon hollow-point bullet was recently recalled and everybody cheered, but there remain at least 12 other kinds of equally dangerous hollow-points that can meet demand...

...It would reduce the supply of certain bullets in the short run, but it's insignificant as a revenue-raiser, and without restructuring the industry, ammo makers would simply increase production of equally odious bullets...

...So it's time for a different approach...

...But new bullet technology could conceivably prevent that...

...That means pushing to reform the juvenile justice system so that young thugs can be sentenced as adults, supporting "three strikes and you're out" proposals (three violent—with the emphasis on violent—felony convictions and you get a life sentence), and greater constitutional latitude on search and seizure...

...Like the Brady Bill, these are small changes that require considerable work and commitment and won't make much of a dent in gun violence...

...But they are a start...

...There are obvious practical problems that would have to be solved...

...That could turn millions of weapons into overnight antiques...

...dealership regulation, and establishing a national gun permit system that makes obtaining a gun license at least as difficult as getting a driver's license...

...All of these are problems, and anyone who doesn't recognize that has no business being taken seriously in the debate...

...It would also encourage the reporting of stolen guns and ammo, which would lead to more people being brought in who are wanted by authorities on other charges...

...Is it true, for instance, that there is only a four-year supply of ammo in the U.S...

...This would provide a strong incentive for gun owners to lock up their guns and ammo so that they won't be stolen, which would cut down on the household accidents that cause so many gun deaths...

...If they expect conservatives to compromise long-held convictions and move toward the mainstream on guns and bullets, they must move toward the mainstream on punishing criminals...

...Senate...

...The Clinton administration is already on track with the fust part of the agenda: banning assault weapons, tightening gun Jonathan Alter, an editor of The Washington Monthy from 1981 to 1983, is a columnist at Newsweek...

...The elements driving this first victory were a series of especially gruesome murders, a new administration receptive to some gun control, the re-definition of gun violence as a public health issue, and a news media that has moved from an unthinking "If it bleeds, it leads" mentality to at least occasionally more sophisticated coverage of the root causes of violence...

...Such a change would require advances in bullet technology that have not been attempted so far...

...Eventually, the government could permit the manufacture of only those bullets that fit certain guns—and no others...

...1993 will be remembered as the year when we woke up and realized that other nations thought we were insane—and that perhaps they were right...

...Even this will not do anything about the illegal guns used in most crimes...

...Moynihan's plan to apply a 10,000 percent tax on some bullets is worth trying...

...And we did not issue fly swatters, we drained the swamp...

...Overnight, a huge black market in homemade bullets would spring up, and bullet smuggling could make drug smuggling look like small potatoes...

...By some estimates, there are already 200 million guns out there that would be unaffected by any gun control legislation...

...We did not, in fact, understand the actual virus, but we knew the vector that carried it to the human host...

...The next, much more difficult step is to turn the gun into just another consumer product that can be regulated by the federal government...

...But we have got to be open to Moynihan's process of creative thinking on violence...

...Right now, much ammunition is interchangeable between hunting rifles and handguns...

...The violence pathogen that Moynihan favors analyzing is ammunition, which is not, by the way, covered explicitly by the Second Amendment...

...Once the bullet is scanned for its number, a warrant could be immediately issued for the arrest of the purchaser...

...When the French could not build the Panama Canal and the Americans did, it is because we had figured out that yellow jack was carried by the anopheles mosquito," Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan says...

...There is little if any research on bullet control, so the first goal is simply to create some ferment on the issue...

...A complete ban on the manufacture and sale of handguns will never happen in this country, so we've got to begin thinking about other points of entry...