First law broken - Arkansas Online

Violent crime involving firearms is a very serious problem. More Americans died of gun murders in 2020 (the most recent year for which data are complete) than any year on record. The percentage of murders involving a gun also reached a record high that year.

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An economic study conducted in 2021 pegged the annual cost of all gun violence (including suicide, which has more victims than murder) at $280 billion.

It's often forgotten, but crucial to remember, that the first law broken in so many violent crimes is a gun law.

Until we get serious about taking guns out of the hands of criminals, gun crime won't get better, and may get worse.

You may have read or heard about the horrific Uber driver murder in Pennsylvania in February. Christina Spicuzza, a mother of four, was forced at gunpoint to drive to a secluded location by her passenger, where he shot her once in the head, killing her.

Part of the episode was caught on video by a dashcam in Spicuzza's car, which was publicly released last week. That footage shows the passenger slide to the center of the back seat, grab Spicuzza's ponytail and press a large handgun barrel against her head. Spicuzza can be heard fearing for her life, telling him she has a family.

"I'm begging you, I have four kids," she pleaded at one point.

"I got a family too," the gunman said. "Now drive."

The alleged suspect was prohibited from owning a gun due to a robbery adjudication as a juvenile in 2014. Police believe he stole the gun used to kill Spicuzza from his girlfriend.

The more troublesome thing is that police knew the suspect tried to buy a gun last September, and that he lied on the application form about his criminal history. A warrant for his arrest on falsification and unauthorized firearms sale was issued on Dec. 8--only two months before the murder of Christina Spicuzza--but evidently never executed.

This incident exemplifies why the solution to gun crime must focus far upstream of any violence, to the illegal possession of guns long before they are ever used.

Reducing those crimes--the countless so-called "minor" firearm violations that are rarely enforced and never carry stiff enough sentences--is how to reduce gun violence.

Nearly 2 million guns a year are stolen in the U.S., and a high percentage of them wind up being used in crimes. Robberies of gun stores increased 175 percent from from 2012 to 2016, according to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives data. The number has likely grown since then.

And yet clearance rates (a crime is "cleared" when an arrest occurs) for thefts are abysmal. In Texas, for example, which reported the highest number of stolen firearms and gun-store robberies in 2017, the statewide clearance rate for robberies is one in five; for burglaries it's one in 10.

Some Texas counties apparently make no attempt to solve thefts or burglaries at all, with clearance rates of 5 percent or less. Gun thieves looking at a 95 percent chance of getting away with their burglary or robbery aren't much deterred.

Not all states provide clearance- rate reports--but Texas isn't an anomaly. In any high-crime area, gun thefts get short shrift as offenses deserving investigation. Other prohibitions, such as felons possessing guns, probation conditions or restraining orders restricting firearm possession, get virtually no enforcement attention.

California is experiencing a surge in prohibited gun owners, a fact highlighted by a February shooting in which a man barred from owning a gun shot and killed his three daughters and himself at a Sacramento church. A University of California-Davis study found high gun ownership rates among convicted felons, as well as other prohibited firearm owners, suggesting that as many as four out of five people in the state's prohibited gun owner database continue to possess guns.

There's good consensus about draconian measures translating to deterrence on the lower end of the criminal offense spectrum. The best example is drunk driving; when mandatory jail time and expensive fines became the norm, DUIs dropped dramatically.

Why not make gun-possession violations serious crimes, with serious punishments and sentences? Mandatory prison time might flood cells at first, but it would also create real deterrence, ultimately reducing both violations and incarcerations.

The argument that no nonviolent drug offender should ever go to prison, and every illegal gun owner always should, has strong merit.

Time after time, as seen in Pennsylvania and California and every other state, murderers and shooters have previous gun-possession crimes or charges on their records. Had they been removed from the streets at that point, their violent crimes may have been averted.

Illegal gun owners are a tiny, but very dangerous, fraction of a percent of the population. Ironically, the criminal justice system knows exactly who they are. They just haven't been a serious priority for arrest, prosecution and punishment.

If a criminal carries a gun long enough, he'll eventually become a gun-crime statistic. Making the risk too high, and the punishment too certain, for illegal gun possession would save untold gun-violence victims, and sometimes even save the criminal himself.

Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.

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