ANN ARBOR, MI – Harry Frank loves guns. He loves to shoot them. He has a fine collection of antique guns, some dating back to the Civil War, but he has modern ones too, including an AK-47.
Not surprisingly, he thinks the drive to outlaw what the media call “assault rifles” is wrongheaded and may do more harm than good.
But before you jump to conclusions — Harry Frank is not your stereotypical “gun nut.” Not only is he firmly in favor of sensible gun control, he is a self-described “Berkeley, California liberal” who participated in many of the protests and demonstrations of the 1960s.
He’s also a life-long Democrat who can’t stand Donald Trump. Now 78, he grew up to become a psychologist, earned a doctorate, and became a professor and chair of the department of psychology at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus. He has a concealed carry pistol license in both Michigan and New Mexico. But again, he is “a strong advocate for gun control.”
“Expanded background checks? Bravo! It’s about time” he wrote in a letter to President Barack Obama a few years ago.
“When I see the racist and possibly prison tattoos that adorn many of the buyers who frequent gun shows, I wonder how many could survive a criminal background check,” he said.
Frank also has no use for the National Rifle Association, which he thinks is to responsible gun ownership as Jack Kevorkian was to medicine –“the worst possible spokesman for the best possible cause.” He also thinks that there should be much tighter controls on gun dealers, and that federal regulation of those dealers should be much tighter and more rigorously enforced.
“There’s no justification for permitting a fellow with New York license plates to pull up to a gun shop in Virginia and buy a case of 9mm Glocks with a wink and a nod ‘for my personal use,’ ” he said.
That sort of thing happens every day in some states, and those guns are obviously destined for illegal sales, many of which will wind up on the streets and in the wrong hands.
Those in favor of gun control have notoriously failed, in part because of the NRA’s strong opposition. Despite a major push, President Obama couldn’t even get Congress to approve expanded background checks after the 2012 massacre of 26 people, mostly small children, at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut.
Polls, however, show overwhelming support for a new assault weapons ban,” largely because they are seen as the weapons used in all the mass school slayings.
However – there are three problems with that, according to Frank: Most of these weapons are not military assault rifles as all, but “plain, vanilla semi-automatic rifles that have been around since about 1911 all dressed up in military costume. True automatic rifles have continuous fire as long as the trigger is pressed – 700 to 950 rounds per minute. Semi-automatics fire one shot every time the trigger is pulled, approximately 45 rounds a minute,” he said.
Beyond that, the stunning fact is that very few homicides are committed with rifles of any kind. According to the FBI, 297 Americans died from rifle bullets in 2018. The number killed with handguns: 6,603. The figures for each of the last five years are similar. “More Americans are killed every year by an assailant who attacks them with hands and feet,” he noted wryly.
That’s actually true: 672 people were punched and kicked to death two years ago, and another 443 killed with clubs or hammers.
“A ban or a buy-back of military-style rifles would have little impact,” Frank noted. “Limiting illegal access to handguns would therefore seem the most effective first step.”
Harry Frank knows his numbers. “Now that I’ve become certified to teach defensive pistol (safety),” he said, “I’ve become even more concerned about the meaningful control of handguns.”
That’s been made nearly impossible, he said, since the NRA, working with a congressman named Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) got a series of amendments passed in 2003 that essentially make background checks on gun buyers meaningless. They require the FBI to destroy any information it collects on potential gun buyers in the National Criminal Background Check System (NICS) within 24 hours.
That essentially means that unless they get lucky immediately, any background investigation is impossible. The result is that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives, commonly shortened to ATF, has been rendered totally impotent when it comes to enforcing what gun laws we have.
Frank is disgusted, but he’s not giving up. He often writes politicians, including presidential contenders, urging them to forget railing against so-called assault weapons.
“Want to do something about guns? It is essential that the (ATF) be modernized, that criminal background checks be streamlined and made uniform across states, and that new regulations be established to limit the number of handguns a single purchaser can buy at any one time.”
Though gun control is often cast as a liberal-conservative issue, Frank, who studied human behavior for decades, doesn’t see it that way; he thinks it is a “rural-urban issue.”
“Ann Arbor, where I live, is one of the most anti-gun cities, but the traditionally anti-gun left is arming at unprecedented rates.”
Concealed carry classes are booked solid through November, he reported, and there is little ammunition on the shelves anywhere.
But he’s trying to open minds. Besides writing politicians, he’s put together a pamphlet called “Assault Rifles for Dummies,” which he is happy to share with anyone who wants the facts, and a little common sense. When it comes to guns in America, however, common sense seems to be in perpetually short supply.
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(Editor’s Note: A version of this column also appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
