Want to Protect Police Officers? Close Gun Sale Loopholes, Group Says

Everytown for Gun Safety

"Background checks are the single most effective way to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people," says Everytown for Gun Safety.

Nearly two thirds of all police officers in Washington state gunned down over the last 33 years were killed by individuals prohibited by law from owning firearms, according to an analysis released today by Everytown for Gun Safety, the group backing a state initiative to expand background checks on gun sales.

"Initiative 594 would expand background checks to cover all gun sales," Everytown says in a statement, "including those between strangers at gun shows and online— and protect law enforcement by preventing convicted felons and other prohibited purchasers from getting guns."

Voices from law enforcement have featured prominently in Everytown's campaign in support of I-594 ahead of the November election. The group is spending heavily, having raised $7.3 million from big donors like Steve Ballmer, to run TV ads like this one featuring a former police chief.

The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, poured almost $200,000 into its opposing initiative last month.

The analysis (PDF) released today, drawing on FBI data and press reports, shows that 36 officers were murdered between 1980 and 2013. Of those, 8 were killed by their own guns, and 28 were killed by other guns. Of those using those other guns to kill police officers, 61 percent were barred by law due to either criminal or mental history from possessing them.

Everytown for Gun Safety

Two thirds of police officers gunned down in Washington were shot by people who weren't supposed to have guns in the first place, the study says.

Everytown doesn't know precisely how each criminal obtained his or her weapon. But in the most recent case of felon Josh Blake, who police say killed State Trooper Tony Vian Radulescu with a handgun in February 2012, "the firearm was last transferred at a gun show and then transferred in two separate unlicensed gun sales" before Blake obtained it, according to researcher Ted Alcorn.

I asked Seattle Police Officers Guild President (SPOG) Ron Smith, whose union represents about 1,200 Seattle police officers, to comment on the study. He said SPOG has no position on I-594. "Those bent on committing violent crime will find a way to get a gun, no matter how many laws are passed," he told me, "just like people still driving when their license is suspended."

But I-594 would "make it more difficult on any given day for an individual who's at the bottom rung—the felon who isn't allowed to buy one," said former Auburn police officer Brian O’Neill, a member of that department's gang task force, during a conference call with reporters today. "There will be fewer weapons available." They'll still be able to steal guns, for example, he said, but less guns would "trickle down to them" in sales occurring without background checks.

"This puts in place a system that will allow me to sleep better when I sell a gun," added former Bellingham police chief Don Pierce, who said he owns firearms.