A 'well crafted ordinance'

November 4, 6:50 AMGun Rights ExaminerDavid Codrea

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A recent story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette caught my attention.

Lose a gun in Cleveland and fail to report it to police and you could face a $250 fine and 30 days in jail...

"We've had two documented instances in which people have been brought before the court for violating the ordinance," said Martin L. Flask, Cleveland's public safety director. One was in 1996, the other five years later...

He maintained that the ordinance is "well crafted" and "has value" for the message it sends.

And what message does it send, if the instances of it being applied in the second largest city in Ohio are twice in 12 years?

"Without a lost-and-stolen gun provision, (investigators) are kind of powerless when they trace the gun back to someone who says it was lost or stolen," said Jana Finder, Western Pennsylvania coordinator of Ceasefire PA, which is pushing the measures. She said they're "targeting the people who (sell guns to criminals) regularly."

Really. With Cleveland setting a 13-year record in homicides last year, and with Mayor Jackson's ramped up policing efforts resulting in 723 guns seized this year, that's some "targeting," Jana. So I guess there's manufactured perception and then there's reality. This is a "solution" to an obviously non-existent problem designed for one thing--to make politicians looks like they're doing something by attacking symptoms of their failed social policies.

But here's something else that may be problematic, a potential glitch I've observed for some time about similar laws in other cities and states. The caveat is I'm not a lawyer, so I'm asking here.

Consider the case of Haynes v US. Cliffs Notes version: A criminal appealed his conviction for illegally having a short-barreled shotgun. His reasoning was that since he was a convicted felon, prohibited by law from possessing a firearm, to require him to register it would equate to forcing him to incriminate himself. Conversely, prosecuting him for not registering it created a Catch-22. Bottom line, he argued, his Fifth Amendment right not to "be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" had been violated.

And the Supreme Court agreed, big time, by 8 to 1.

OK, interesting, but the point? What does this have to do with Cleveland's stolen gun reporting requirement?

Bear with me here--like I said, I'm asking.

If the principles and law resulting in the Haynes decision are applicable (and why wouldn't they be?), there is one group of people who would be legally immune to the ordinance-- criminals.

If they're prohibited persons, legally barred from even touching a gun, by definition they're not the legal owners. And requiring them to report that a gun-- which they're not allowed to own-- was lost or taken from them would also require them to admit they had possessed a firearm in violation of the law. In other words, would it not be forcing them to self-incriminate?

So the only people who would be affected--and turned into criminals-- would be the people who aren't the problem? And the people who are the problem could not be bound by the same rules?

My head hurts. What's the purpose of this "well crafted ordinance" again? Its "value"?

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