by Dave Hardy -
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
On Nov. 19, 2015, Brady
Center president Dan Gross (left) and New York Governor (and New York
SAFE Act author) Andrew Cuomo (right) present Hillary Clinton with the
Mario M. Cuomo Visionary Award for her leadership on gun control.
Last month,
we outlined the Bill Clinton administration’s plans for gun control,
including a plan to use lawsuits against gun manufacturers to force a
settlement that would have imposed gun registration, bans on magazines
holding more than 10 cartridges and many other forms of gun control, all
without going through Congress.
Those were not the only gun control secrets stashed in the archives
of the Clinton Presidential Library—not by any means. The archives also
held evidence of the Brady Campaign’s real agenda, as revealed by its
lobbying of the Clinton White House.
The Brady Campaign has long claimed that its agenda is limited. Just
some “reasonable, common-sense” gun restrictions—no need for anyone to
worry about confiscation or onerous regulations. Brady officials would
prefer that no gun owner read the words of its former chairman Nelson
“Pete” Shields—the man who put the organization on the political map. In
the July 26, 1976, issue of The New Yorker, Shields gave an interview
and summed up the group’s program. Saying that for now his organization
would have to accept that half a loaf is better than none, and that for
now he’d “be happy to take just a slice,” he explained:
Neither
Brady nor the mayors got all of their wishes, but they certainly got
some. The Brady Act, the “assault weapons” ban, and the driving of small
FFLs out of business represented their major successes.
“Our ultimate goal—total control of handguns in the United States—is
going to take time. My estimate is from seven to 10 years. The first
problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this
country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final
problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun
ammunition—except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards,
licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors—totally illegal.”
Around that same time, the Brady Campaign (then known as Handgun
Control Inc.) sent out a fundraising letter that listed gun control
measures that it was pushing, but assured contributors it would not stop
there: “Ultimately, we want strict federal laws that will effectively
restrict the possession of handguns to only the police, the military,
licensed security guards, licensed pistol clubs and registered
collectors.
(This, we know, will take time. But we hope and believe it will come.)”
For years, the Brady Campaign had to sit on these hopes. The Carter
administration was willing to use the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms (ATF) to harass gun owners, but had sense enough not to
publicly endorse Brady’s agenda. After Carter came the Reagan
administration, during which there was no sense even trying, and the
first Bush administration, which for Brady Campaign purposes wasn’t much
better.
Then came the 1992 elections, when a new world opened up for gun
control advocates. Bill Clinton, with campaign promises of more gun
control, occupied the White House, and his party controlled both houses
of Congress. At last, the opportunity Brady had waited decades for had
arrived!
The Clinton archives show that the Brady Campaign moved quickly to
take advantage. A September 1993 letter sent by Richard Aborn of the
Brady Campaign to Howard Paster, head of Clinton’s White House Office of
Legislative Affairs, showed the opening of the White House door. It
begins, “Dear Howard: In preparation for the possibility of Sarah, Jim
and I meeting with the president, we thought the White House might want
to consider signing some additional presidential directives. ... I’d be
happy to discuss these with you and would like to discuss with you the
actual meeting with the president.”
Paster forwarded the letter, and its attached list of ideas, to the
White House Domestic Policy Council with a handwritten note asking to be
notified “ASAP” if any were usable ideas. He added, “The president’s
focus on violent crime makes anti-gun directives logical.” The Domestic
Policy Council’s reply was essentially that some of the ideas were not
legally doable, and they were already working on the rest.
From that point on, the archives show, anti-gunners had exceptional
access to the White House, and used it to the fullest. In fact, the
files of President Clinton’s Domestic Policy Council read like the
archives of the Brady Campaign.
The White House files were filled with Brady Campaign/Handgun Control
Inc.’s legislative plans. A memo stamped “confidential—do not
circulate” (with the label set out by images of skulls and crossbones)
outlined Brady’s real agenda.
It began with a list of what Brady wanted from the Clinton
administration. The list was long, but mostly quite predictable:
licensing requirements and registration for handgun ownership, a ban on
“assault rifles,” “one-gun-a-month,” a seven-day waiting period, and
stiff increases in fees (to $1,000 per year) for FFLs.
Even that would not be enough to please the Brady Campaign, though.
Its memo added some proposals that (until now) have never seen the light
of day.
Brady also asked for a federal requirement of a special “arsenal
license” for any gun owner who possessed 20 guns or 1,000 rounds of
ammunition. (The White House copy has a handwritten note: “all guns.”)
The memo described the arsenal license’s requirements as “similar to the
requirements for a machine gun license,” including the requirement for
police approval, since “anyone who has an arsenal is a danger to
society.” In this scenario, two bricks of .22s would be enough for a gun
owner to be treated as a public menace.
From that point on, the archives show, anti-gunners had exceptional access to the White House, and used it to the fullest.
Brady also asked that each component of a handgun, including the
“barrel, stock, receiver, any part of the action, or ammunition
magazines” be treated as if they were the receiver. “Buyers would need a
license, sellers would need an FFL, and interstate sales would be
illegal,” Brady explained. Replacing the grips or a firing pin spring,
or purchasing an extra magazine, would actually require a 4473.
Apparently they consider handguns to be that dangerous!
Incredibly, Brady also wanted a ban on manufacturing magazines that
held more than six rounds, and a requirement that transfers of used
seven-round and larger magazines have law enforcement approval.
Essentially, nearly every magazine in the United States, apart from
those for some pocket guns and deer rifles, would be banned if new, or
tightly restricted if already in existence.
So much for Brady’s claim that they only want “reasonable,
common-sense gun control”! The moment there seemed to be an opening for
more, they seized the opportunity with both hands. They were obviously
seeking to implement anything that made gun ownership more difficult,
burdensome or legally risky. Want a different action spring for that
pistol? See your dealer and fill out the 4473. Want to a buy magazine
for that 1911? See your chief of police. Want to own two bricks of .22
Long Rifle? After you see your police chief, send your application,
fingerprints and photo to Washington, and wait for them to license you
as a “danger to society.”
Yet even that wasn’t the limit. In a later letter to the Clinton
White House, Brady expanded on its idea to heavily tax handguns and
ammunition, and in the process showed its disdain for hunters and
shooting ranges. The October 1993 memo, sent by Brady’s president
Richard Aborn, was aimed at Pittman-Robertson funds. P-R funds come from
an excise tax long imposed on new firearms and ammunition, and
earmarked for state game and fish agencies, which use them for game
conservation and shooting ranges. The memo recommended raising the tax
on handguns and handgun ammunition to 30 percent, and diverting all of
these funds away from conservation and into paying the medical costs of
treating handgun shooting victims.
What about game conservation and ranges? To Brady, these were not a
concern. “The Pittman-Robertson program is a product of another era,”
the letter stated. “If it was ever important to subsidize hunting and
sport shooting, that time has past [sic].”
To the Brady Campaign, damaging Pittman-Robertson and hunting was a benefit, not a bug. The memo ended:
“It would probably be politically impossible to eliminate the
Pittman-Robertson program. It has developed an entrenched constituency
in every state. Still, that program could probably be trimmed by
eliminating all funding from handgun taxation. That would cut the
program by about one-third.”
To be fair, Brady was not the only group charging ahead with plans
for gun control, nor did the Clinton White House need much prodding. A
December 1993 letter from the U.S. Conference of Mayors related that
group’s desires. As might be expected, first and foremost was dealing
with the “root causes of crime” by … wait for it … giving city
governments more taxpayer money. After that came a litany taken directly
from Brady’s list. Possession of “assault weapons” and their “component
parts” should be outlawed. So should all possession of firearms (not
just handguns) by minors. Small FFLs should be put out of business, and
the licensing fee for surviving FFLs raised to $1,000 per year. The
excise tax on firearms should be “increased significantly,” and taken
out of Pittman-Robertson.
The mayors’ demands in some areas even went beyond what the Brady
Campaign had proposed. The mayors proposed that gun shows be banned,
period, and likewise the sale of hollow-point ammunition. FFLs with
paperwork violations should be subject to a minimum penalty of $20,000
for a first violation, “with increasing amounts for subsequent
violations.” The mayors apparently felt that was an appropriate response
to failing to write down a county name or ZIP code on a form.
Neither Brady nor the mayors got all of their wishes, but they
certainly got some. The Brady Act, the “assault weapons” ban, and the
driving of small FFLs out of business represented their major successes.
Then came the midterm elections. In his autobiography, Bill Clinton
described the effects:
The goal is to make
handgun ownership illegal: Along the way, remember that half a loaf is
better than none, and if you have to, settle for just a slice. Take
whatever you can get, and keep on asking for more.
“On November 8, we got the living daylights beat out of us, losing
eight Senate seats and 44 House seats, the largest defeat for our party
since 1946. … The NRA had a great night. They beat both Speaker Tom
Foley and Jack Brooks, two of the ablest members of Congress, who had
warned me this would happen. … The gun lobby claimed to have defeated 19
of the 24 members on its hit list. They did at least that much damage,
and could rightly claim to have made [Newt] Gingrich the House
Speaker.”
It’s said that one form of insanity consists of taking action,
experiencing disaster and then repeating the action in hopes of getting a
better result. After an electoral thrashing like that, we might have
expected the Brady Campaign to take stock of the situation and lie low
for a time. After all, they would be lobbying the very man whom they
just led into political disaster.
But the Brady Campaign didn’t seem to know when to quit. In November
1996, Brady’s legislative director wrote the White House to propose
several new and old ideas for gun restrictions. First, he proposed “one
handgun a month,” a by-then old idea (but which 20 years later is still
being floated from time to time). The Clinton people may have been
getting tired of Brady’s ideas: When the letter argued that
one-gun-a-month would reduce gun-running, someone in the Domestic Policy
Council wrote “How?” in the margin. Brady also proposed requiring
private sales to go through FFLs (again, an idea that is still at the
top of the anti-gun wish list), “smart guns” that could only be fired by
their owner (ditto) and some other measures, before coming down to
their single new idea.
That idea: Make it illegal for anyone but an FFL to sell more than
one gun a month. That way, the administration could claim it wasn’t
closing down gun shows or requiring background checks for private sales.
In effect, of course, it would greatly curtail participation at gun
shows, but that wouldn’t be the administration’s problem.
I could find no reply to that Brady letter in the Clinton archives. The group had apparently worn out its welcome.
The Brady Campaign’s correspondence with the Clinton White House,
revealed here for the first time, illustrates how well and persistently
it has stuck with the agenda laid out by its first real leader. The goal
is to make handgun ownership illegal: Along the way, remember that half
a loaf is better than none, and if you have to, settle for just a
slice. Take whatever you can get, and keep on asking for more. Anything
that makes gun ownership more burdensome or risky is a step toward that
goal. Federal licenses to own ammunition or a gun collection, higher
fees and more penalties for FFLs, treating springs and grips as if they
were receivers, one-gun-a-month—get them if you can. Stripping away
funds for wildlife conservation—go for it, less game means fewer
hunters. What matters to them is not the impact on crime, but the impact
on gun ownership.
That is exactly what should be on gun owners’ minds as another
election approaches. The Brady Campaign’s new highest hope is that
a White House door—and especially a new Clinton White House door—will
open for them next year.
See the full text of Handgun Control Inc.’s (now The Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence) gun control recommendation from the
Clinton Presidential Library, by clicking here.
The New Clinton-Brady Connection
It’s little surprise that Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is a darling of the Brady Campaign.
On Nov. 19, the Brady Center presented Hillary Clinton with the
inaugural Mario M. Cuomo Visionary Award at the Brady Bear Awards Gala
in New York. The Brady Campaign is “honored to recognize Mrs. Clinton
for her leadership on this issue [gun control].”
Of course, Clinton’s “leadership” has included an increasingly vocal
desire to dismantle the Constitution of the United States. Cocooned by
Secret Service protection, she doesn’t believe ordinary Americans like
you and me should have the right to a firearm for self-defense. She
thinks Australian-style gun confiscation is “worth considering.” And
she’s declared the highest court of the land to be in error, stating,
“The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment.”
Kudos to Hillary on her win last November. We say enjoy it … because
as long as America’s gun owners have anything to say about it, she won’t
be enjoying any wins this November.
