A proposal to limit the number of guns a person can buy in Massachusetts is being mulled by the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee today, sparking hope among supporters that the bill may finally come to a vote.

The bill, introduced by Governor Deval Patrick in May 2009, would prevent people from buying more than one gun a month. It is winding its way through committee as the state and the city of Boston grapple with the shooting deaths of two 14-year-old boys in the same month. A 10-year-old girl was shot in the leg over the weekend as she played outside her Roxbury home. The girl is expected to survive.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) agents are in the midst of fanning out across Texas in order to conduct house by house investigations into what the agency deems numerous “suspicious” firearms transactions and as a means to combat “narco-terrorism” along the U.S. /Mexican border.

In fact, the “suspicious” transaction searches are so loosely defined, that BATF agents ended up questioning a Houston area pastor who previously purchased two handguns for target practice, which is then flippantly chalked up as “hard to believe”. Additionally, interagency cooperation between the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the BATF have led to warrantless airplane surveillance of vehicles along the border.

After speaking to five offices within the agencies and being told by several agents they felt “uncomfortable” with my line of questioning, Special Agent, Public Information Officer Perot of the BATF, indicated that aerial surveillance does not require a warrant due to it taking place with the “public sphere” thereby meaning individuals should have no expectation of privacy.

Perhaps even more alarming to Constitutionalists and civil libertarians than an “eye in the sky” with carte blanche authority to surveil, is the fact that the door to door firearms checks come at the behest of a foreign government. In 2008 alone, the Mexican government requested the BATF track down the original owner of 7,500 firearms used in drug crimes at American taxpayer expense.

“Ever turning up the heat on cartels, our law enforcement and military partners in the government of Mexico have been working more closely with the ATF by sharing information and intelligence,”

Kenneth Melson
Acting Director
BATF

Moreover, federal agents lament the tedious difficulty in conducting door to door firearm checks due to a current federal law prohibiting the use of a centralized database for gun owners. Alternatively, Mr. Eric Pratt of “Gun Owners of America” believes that a centralized database would only end up further infringing upon the inherent rights of law abiding gun owners. He goes on to state that criminals will still develop and expand avenues in order to arm themselves regardless of a behemoth centralized registry, just as they have after each previous “needed” addition to the nation’s gun laws. Further, by his analysis this is merely another attempt by federal authorities to scapegoat lawful gun owners when the crux of the issue is really one of border control, or lack thereof.

Top city officials will announce Tuesday that despite a new state gun law that went into effect at midnight, they will have anyone carrying a weapon at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport arrested. The state lawmaker who sponsored the new gun law says if they do, the city will immediately be sued. And state Rep. Tim Bearden (R-Villa Rica) said the plaintiff in the lawsuit could be himself.

“I have a permit, and I have family I have to pick up at the airport tomorrow [Tuesday],” Bearden told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. “I’ll have one [a concealed weapon] with me at all times.”

Airport General Manager Ben DeCosta said if Bearden shows up at the world’s busiest airport with a gun, he’ll be busted.

“I can identify him, and I’ll have him arrested,” DeCosta said Monday. “We’re not fooling around. This is a post-terrorism environment.”

The new law, which Bearden sponsored, permits licensed gun owners to carry concealed firearms in parks, on public transportation and in restaurants that serve liquor. The law takes effect Tuesday.

Firearms proponents hailed the law as a victory for the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They say law-abiding citizens with the appropriate permits should be allowed to carry firearms in formerly forbidden areas for self-protection.

Before the new law was passed, Georgia law banned guns from venues like public transportation and restaurants serving alcohol. More than 40 other states permit guns on public transportation, Bearden said, and 37 allow permit holders to carry weapons into restaurants.

“I was in law enforcement for 15 years,” Bearden said as the bill awaited the governor’s signature two months ago. “I never rode up on a shooting in progress. I don’t like the idea of the police telling you, ‘Get mugged, get raped, get murdered. We’ll come by, take the report, or send flowers.’ That’s the wrong message.”

Opponents, however, blasted the proposal, saying it has the potential to spark more violence than it stops. DeCosta wrote to Gov. Sonny Perdue asking him to veto the bill, and Mayor Shirley Franklin and MARTA officials publicly lambasted the idea. MARTA bus drivers gathered more than 1,000 signatures on petitions demanding bulletproof shields.

Federal law already bans guns past the security checkpoints at U.S. airports. The new state law, however, apparently would permit guns to be carried on the non-secure side of Hartsfield-Jackson by people who have gone through a background check and have been certified to carry a weapon. Licensed gun owners would be permitted to carry weapons on public transportation coming into the airport, its lobby and in restaurants outside the security checkpoints.

DeCosta said he will use the first day the new law takes effect to declare Hartsfield-Jackson a “gun-free” zone.

“We’re going to make it clear that the law does not make any allowance for guns at the airport,” DeCosta said. “Guns are not appropriate for any airport in Georgia.”

He and Franklin plan a 10 a.m. news conference to discuss the new gun law.

Bearden said the new law clearly permits guns in some areas of the airport.

“They are not appropriate once you go past security,” he said. “But in parking lots or restaurants or public transportation, they are OK.”

The state lawmaker said the city does not have the authority to defy a state law, and if they make arrests they will end up in court.

DeCosta said city officials will not back down from their position on the new law and again vowed to have Bearden or anyone else carrying a gun on airport property arrested.

“He can then have all the NRA [National Rifle Association] lawyers say why it’s OK for him to bring a gun to the airport,” DeCosta said.

MARTA, meanwhile, released a statement late Monday noting that state law prohibits firearms on public transit unless the carrier has a valid license to carry a gun.

“This license must be carried at any time that an individual is carrying a firearm on MARTA,” the statement said.