Anyone who wants to buy a gun from a licensed dealer is required to fill out a Firearms Transaction Record. It asks various questions to determine if the customer is legally prohibited from getting a gun--because he or she is a felon or a fugitive from justice, received a dishonorable military discharge, has been "adjudicated as a mental defective" and the like. It also notes that the purchase may not be made on behalf of another person.
The application notes that "any false oral or written statement . . . is a crime punishable as a felony under federal law." To lie in order to acquire a weapon that you are legally forbidden to have is, as the form notes, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
That's fair warning to anyone tempted to lie. But a surprising number of people do so anyway. A new report from the federal Government Accountability Office says that last year, 112,000 people tried to buy guns from licensed dealers but were caught giving false information on the form.
It's reassuring that so many felons and other ineligible people were blocked from acquiring guns. What's not reassuring is how few of them were prosecuted. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives referred just 12,700 cases to field offices for investigation. Of those, the Justice Department prosecuted exactly 12--one of every 9,333 alleged liars.
The message to criminals is clear: What have you got to lose? Maybe you'll get the gun in spite of your disqualifying record. If you don't get the gun, no worries, because you will almost certainly go unpunished. The pattern and practice are notorious enough that there's even a name for this approach: "Lie and try."
In Chicago, which is plagued by violent crime fueled by illegal trafficking in firearms, this is especially distressing. A report last year by the city said, "The vast majority of crime guns were handguns possessed by adults who were not the original purchaser of the firearm" and were legally barred from gun ownership.
Americans have plenty of disagreements over whether new laws are needed to prevent gun crimes. There should be no disagreement about enforcing the ones we already have.
Editorial on 09/18/2018