Law fails to control junk guns

The 1968 Gun Control Act, aimed at stopping the flow of cheaply made, easily concealed handguns into the country, has done little to prevent the import of millions of guns that lack important safety features.

Most imported firearms don?t have features that show if the guns are loaded or that prevent them from firing if the ammunition clips are removed, a Detroit News investigation found. Fewer still have pistol grip safeties, effective in preventing children from discharging firearms by rendering the gun inoperable unless the grip safety and trigger are depressed at the same time.

The law, which set no rules for American-made guns, also has created a breed of low-end gun makers in the country. Manufacturers, domestic and foreign, have set up U.S. operations to take advantage of the freedom from restrictions and safety standards granted guns made in the America.

With no federal agency empowered to recall problem guns, their weapons continue to injure, maim and kill.

Once again, we see a call for magazine safeties and chamber-loaded indicators. And yet, guns with both features are readily available on the market. The only reason to have a gun without those features is choice -- and the choice to buy a gun that lacks them is a perfectly valid one, as many police departments have proven by their choice of Glock firearms, which lack both safety features by design.

Why has the Detroit News focused so heavily on those features? It might have something to do with the lawsuits being brought against gun manufacturers around the country. Those lawsuits, particularly the one against Beretta in California (which has recently been ruled a mistrial for the second time), focus on obtaining in a settlement the agreement to include those safety features on handguns.

Yet the gun in that very lawsuit already had a chamber loaded indicator. It just "wasn't large enough", according to the plaintiffs, who also claimed to have no idea the feature existed. And here, in fact, is where we find the common thread: people who are hurt in firearm accidents are people who either ignored the rules of safe gun handling, or were victims of those who did.

Is a gun which fails to include a magazine disconnect and chamber loaded indicator a "junk gun"? Glock doesn't think so; neither do their customers. And while many people make fun of the Glock design ("combat tupperware", for their partially plastic construction), no one would deny that they are a major handgun manufacturer and make a quality product.

But the gun control organizations want you to think they are talking about "junk guns" rather than an optional feature which some guns happen to lack. They illustrate this with the case of Rohm GMBH, a german-based corporation selling firearms. Apparantly, in 1981, they were the fourth largest handgun manufacturer in the US. It's strange how they have to go back over 20 years to find a suitable example... but it is a good one.

The guns, manufactured for $14 apiece, lacked several important safety features, such as magazine safeties and loaded chamber indicators.

In addition, several models of RG pistols had a tendency to fire when dropped. The quality of the company?s guns was further compromised because RG workers, who were paid by the piece, were required to assemble 100 pieces every two hours to make minimum wage.

With no standards to adhere to for its American-made guns, safety features on the RG models were left to the discretion of the company?s firearm designer, Edwin Kroisandt. But Kroisandt, who joined the company as a tool and die maker, admitted during a 1994 deposition that he knew nothing about such features as magazine safeties and loaded chamber indicators until he read about them in an Italian gun magazine 13 years after he started designing RG pistols.

He also admitted that he learned gun design on the job at RG and that his only formal training was from a correspondence course. Kroisandt said had he known of the magazine safety when he designed the RG pistols, he most likely would have incorporated it into his design.

So what we have here is a single individual designing firearms for a company building them as cheaply as possible. The designer doesn't include a magazine disconnect or a chamber loaded indicator because he doesn't know about them. That's not exactly a stellar description of his knowledge of the field, but then he never claimed to be an expert. And since he's designing cheap firearms to be sold at low prices, he doesn't need to be -- people are free to purchase guns with, or without, whatever safety features they feel appropriate.

Such a safety feature could have saved Detroiter Craig Blaydes? life. The 17-year-old was accidentally shot in the chest and killed in 1994 when a 14-year-old friend took the magazine with ammunition from an RG-26, and thinking the gun empty, pulled the trigger. A bullet remained in the chamber, and the gun fired, killing Blaydes.

Despite the deaths and injuries associated with its weapons, RG never has recalled any firearms for design defects. And it didn?t warn customers of any danger.

If this is the best case they can find, it's pretty slim. But it follows the same pattern of their other stories; "young child finds gun, thinks it is empty, and shoots a friend." Would a chamber-loaded indicator have saved a life here? No, because the shooter would not have known to check it. Would a magazine-disconnect safety have saved a life? Perhaps, if it had worked; in a gun this cheaply made that's not a sure thing.

What would definitely have saved a life would be proper training in gun handling: never point a gun at anything you are unwilling to shoot, and most especially never in adolescent horseplay. But somehow, that is never acknowledged by those clamoring for more gun control. And neither is the fact that firearms accidents are at an all-time low.

RG closed its American operation in 1986 after the company lost its insurance following several lawsuits. But by the time it shuttered its Miami factory, the company had assembled more than a million guns in America, many of which have serious design flaws.

So, tell me again how the "law fails to control junk guns". They spend an entire article talking about guns from a company that has not been in business for nearly 20 years, because consumer safety lawsuits prevented them from operating, and then have the gall to claim that laws don't work to control "junk guns"?

Well, the 1968 Gun Control Act did not help much in this case. But other laws certainly did. So where's the beef?

No foreign-made long gun has presented more problems than the Chinese-made SKS semiautomatic rifle. More than 300,000 of these rifles were imported into the country before they finally were banned in 1994.

The refurbished weapons, which sell for about $100, have major design and safety flaws. Built by the Chinese Defense Agency, the rifles can fire in full automatic mode while being loaded without the trigger being pulled. In automatic mode, the SKS can fire at the rate of 1,200 rounds a minute.

The Chinese government, which sold the rifles through North China Industries Company, has never recalled the weapon. As with other gun manufacturers, there is no federal agency with the power to force a recall.

At first glance, this looks to be the same basic issue. An imported, cheap firearm has safety issues; nobody can recall it; lives are being lost because the laws aren't working!

And yet... that's not all there is to it.

The guns are cheap, and by now, nearly 60 years old -- or older. At that price and that age, malfunctions are hardly unexpected. Since 1994, they cannot be imported (presumably under the Assault Weapons Ban). The originals are made in China by a Chinese company. So, what are the options here? Order a recall, ship the guns back to China for repairs? Assuming the company was willing to repair or redesign firearms that are 60 years old, they would be unable to return them to the US! .

How many people who own SKS rifles -- safety issues and all -- would be willing to give them up with no compensation for a "recall" that amounted to confiscation? Not many. That renders a recall somewhat impractical at the least.

But maybe the Detroit News would prefer the guns be confiscated. They do seem to have an ulterior motive...

One of the unforeseen consequences of the 1968 Gun Act was the creation of a whole class of domestic junk gun makers.

More than any group of firearm manufacturers, they have used the freedom from safety and design standards to make guns that are unnecessarily dangerous.

"A gun maker can make a gun that fires backwards and violate no safety standards," said Oklahoma attorney Richard Miller, who has successfully sued several gun makers for defectively designed firearms. "I can?t imagine we would allow that for any other product."

Gee -- tell me again how current laws are failing to control "dangerous junk guns"? Consumer safety lawsuits are being filed and apparantly won, where the cases have merit, Consumers have the choice of buying guns with safety features and without; understandably the cheaper models are often those lacking the safety features. That's not a failure of the market or the law; it's a reflection of the fact that for some people, a $100 gun they can afford is better than a $600 gun they can't.

Are we to deny the poor the right to defend themselves? Of course not. But requiring safety features will increase the cost of defensive firearms enough to do just that.