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(Source: The Modesto Bee 2/14/81)
WASHINGTON- The federal agency that enforces gun controls would be radically reduced or abolished under the Reagan administration’s deregulation and budget cutting plans.
Any such action undermining the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms would be a victory for “new right” conservative supporters of President Reagan, and for the National Rifle Association, which has tried for years to accomplish the same thing through legislation.
Renewed demands for stricter gun control legislation followed the murder of rock singer John Lennon in New York last Dec. 8.
Hamstringing the bureau would be one of Reagan’s first major concessions to his conservative allies, including the anti-gun control forces which spent heavily in support for his election.
The bureau has been under fire from other quarters as well, stemming from the charges against some of its agents of arbitrary or violent investigative and arrest tactics.
Proposals under study would transfer some functions of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to other agencies and possibly eliminate the agency’s gun control enforcement. The agency’s current budget totals $151 million annually.
Federal law requires licensing of gun manufacturers, importers and dealers. Persons buying guns must fill out forms giving their names and addresses.
The law prohibits the sale of firearms to such persons as convicted criminals, fugitives from justice, unlawful users of narcotics, and to insane or mentally incompetent persons.
Presumably, because gun laws would remain on the books, some agency would have to continue the issuance of registration forms and enforcement would be left to local authorities.
The federal gun control law was enacted in 1968 after the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Repeated efforts in Congress to repeal the law have failed.
*CWB: How many more deaths will occur as a result of this payment of a political debt? The fact that polls have shown that most Americans favor strict gun control laws has not overcome the influence of the National Rifle Association. Ronald Reagan is consistent in his anti-people program.
