Violent, Drunk and Holding a Gun

By The New York Times | Editorial

24 February 13

ultiple mass shootings by deranged young men have made keeping firearms out of the hands of mentally ill people a big part of the gun debate.

Given the enormity of those crimes, that is understandable. Federal law does, in fact, prohibit gun ownership by mentally ill people if a judge has found them to be dangerous or they have been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. President Obama has also issued executive orders to ensure that federal background checks include complete information on people barred from owning guns for mental health reasons and to clarify that federal law allows health care providers to report patients’ credible threats of violence to the authorities.

But a focus on mass murder, while critical, does not get at the broader issue of gun violence, including the hundreds of single-victim murders, suicides, nonfatal shootings and other gun crimes that occur daily in the United States. And focusing on the mentally ill, most of whom are not violent, overlooks people who are at demonstrably increased risk of committing violent crimes but are not barred by federal law from buying and having guns.

These would include people who have been convicted of violent misdemeanors including assaults, and those who are alcohol abusers. Unless guns are also kept from these high-risk people, preventable gun violence will continue.

VIOLENT MISDEMEANORS Federal law prohibits felons from buying and possessing firearms; it also bars people convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. But it permits gun purchase and ownership by people convicted of other violent misdemeanors, defined variously under state laws, including assault and battery, brandishing a weapon or making open, credible threats of violence. Many people convicted of violent misdemeanors were originally charged with felonies but then convicted of lesser charges because of plea bargains. And research shows that people who have been convicted of any misdemeanors and who then legally buy a handgun are more likely to commit crimes after that gun purchase than buyers with no prior convictions.

California provides a case study. It changed its law in 1991 to prohibit individuals convicted of violent misdemeanors from buying guns for 10 years after the conviction. Before that, a study showed that gun buyers with even a single prior misdemeanor conviction were nearly five times as likely as those with no criminal history to be arrested for gun-related or other violent crimes. After the law was enacted, a significant decrease in arrests was attributed to the denial of gun sales to people with misdemeanor records.

ALCOHOL ABUSE Federal law prohibits the purchase and possession of guns by anyone who is "an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance." But the statute ignores alcohol abuse. That is also a mistake. The evidence linking alcohol abuse and gun-related violence is compelling. One study found that subjects who had ever been in trouble at work for drinking or were ever hospitalized for alcohol abuse were at increased risk of committing homicide and suicide.

Other studies also suggest that alcohol abuse is a factor in the association between gun ownership and the criminal justice system. The difficulty in policing alcohol abuse for purposes of gun control is that there is no precise definition of abuse. Pennsylvania, however, provides a useful example. It bars gun purchases by those who have been convicted of three or more drunken driving offenses within a five-year period. That criterion identifies drinkers with demonstrated tendencies toward recklessness and lawbreaking.

President Obama has instructed the Justice Department to review the federal prohibitions on gun ownership and to make legislative and executive recommendations "to ensure dangerous people aren’t slipping through the cracks." The answers are already out there.