VPC inadvertently exposes myth of gun control as 'public safety'

June 23, 8:51 AMSt. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann

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     Oleg Volk photo

The Violence Policy Center's Josh Sugarmann claims that with Obama having signed restrictive new tobacco legislation into law, gunmakers are now the "last unregulated industry."

President Obama's signing of a bill granting the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over the tobacco industry now leaves the gun industry as the last American industry not regulated for health and safety.

Let me repeat. Guns are now the only consumer product manufactured in America not regulated by a federal agency for health and safety.

But wait--if one were to count every gun law on the books in this country at the federal, state, and local levels, the total would be in the tens of thousands.  Hardly sounds "unregulated" to me (let alone shall not be infringed).

Sugarmann attempts to justify his "unregulated" claim this way:

Health and safety regulatory powers commonly include the authority to set design standards, recall dangerous or defective products, and require reporting from manufacturers.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the default "regulator" of guns in our nation, has no such powers. ATF is currently empowered only to oversee commerce in guns.

In other words, if no federal agency has the power to dictate the design of a product, that product is "unregulated." 

The BATFE, by the way, does have considerable power in that regard.  Federal law specifies very strict licensing requirements for rifles and shotguns with short barrels, for suppressors (aka "silencers"), and even pistols with the ergonomic feature of a second grip, firearms (aside from those determined--by decree--to have a "sporting purpose") with a bore diameter of over half an inch, and fully automatic firearms.  Speaking of the BATFE and fully automatic firearms, get a load of what they manage to classify as a "machine gun" (also here).

Never mind that, though, my point is that Sugarmann claims that all the gun laws on the books are apparently not "safety measures."

Yet these are sales standards, not product safety standards.

Now wait a second--you mean those tens of thousands of gun laws aren't about safety?  I agree, of course, but I didn't expect the forcible citizen disarmament cheerleaders to come out and admit it.