Anti-gun lobby is gaining ground

IT BECAME a familiar scene during the election campaign. Charlton Heston, stumping the country as President of the National Rifle Association, would hold a long-barrelled gun in one hand high above his head. Then, in the same tones that he used in Hollywood biblical sagas, he would declare, his voice rising: “From my cold, dead hands, Mr Gore.”

His audience, composed of people who oppose gun control, would go predictably wild with applause and cheering at the idea that Mr Heston’s guns would never be prised from his fingers as long as he was alive. Nor would any give up the right to bear arms.

The moment always made a good sound bite for local, and sometimes national, news. But the state of gun control in the United States is less clear-cut than the NRA would like. Opponents have been making significant headway, often by one state or community at a time.

The NRA says that its membership has shot up this year in response to the threat to guns posed by Al Gore and his fellow Democrats. They have embraced George W. Bush as a friend, often to his intense annoyance. The low point came when Kayne Robinson, an NRA vice-president, told a Los Angeles meeting that if Mr Bush were elected President they would “have a President . . . where we’ll work out of their office”.

Mr Bush reacted angrily, telling a news conference that he would make the decisions about what happened in the Oval Office and emphasising his independence from the NRA. He fell out with the organisation by calling for a raising of the minimum age for handgun possession from 18 to to 21, and by supporting the ban on imported large ammunition clips.

As Governor of Texas, he also supported a State law that held parents liable if children used their guns to injure others. He promised that if elected President he would implement a national programme of offering free trigger locks to gun-owners as a safety measure, especially against children harming themselves by playing with guns they might find at home.

Still, Governor Bush also signed Bills that allowed the carrying of concealed weapons in Texas and last year approved legislation that makes it difficult for Texas cities and counties to sue gun makers, as they have in other states.

Mr Gore supported more gun restrictions than Mr Bush, but his position had evolved from an earlier support for gun control when he represented Tennessee in the Senate and had to keep in with the state’s legions of hunters.

The greatest gun-control triumph under President Clinton was passage of the Brady Bill in 1993, which imposed five-day background checks on handgun purchases from gun dealers.

In last month’s general election, the gun violence prevention movement targeted 39 ballot initiatives, winning 26. The organisers said that the results indicated for the first time that a more unified and powerful guncontrol movement might at least rival the gun lobby in political clout.

Its proponents claimed significant statewide victories in California and Oregon, where voters passed overwhelmingly ballot initiatives to close the loopholes on buying weapons at gun shows, where there are no background checks. They did so despite aggressive campaigning against the initiatives by the gun lobby.

In the US Senate three candidates were elected who had pledged to work for gun-safety measures, defeating incumbent senators strongly supported by the NRA. Those victories helped to level the national political playing field, resulting in a Congress that is more evenly split on gun issues, according to an analysis by a coalition of gun-control organisations.

Carolynne Jarvis, their president, said: “No longer can politicians vote against us without repercussions. This was a banner year for us when we generated the most national awareness and spent the most money to help to elect pro-gun safety candidates.”

These campaigners are careful not to call for an outright ban on guns, knowing that would be political suicide.

Even the Million Mom March, a group that drew some 250,000 to a protest in Washington, was careful to say that they were for sensible gun controls. They would include adequate training in the use of a gun and proper licensing of guns and gun owners — the levels of regulation required, in fact, for owning and driving a car.

As supportive as the Brits have been over the past month or so, I can say first-hand from talking with them that the anti-gun sentiment expressed in The Times is rampant over there. They truly believe we're a bunch of cowboys just itching to go out and shoot someone. Yet, they can't even see the linkage between the recent rise of violent gun crime in their own country and the recent passage of an extreme "gun safety" (i.e., gun banning) bill over there. The mentality is absolutely mind-boggling. I was talking with a couple (a guy and his girl) in a pub one evening. They kept making statements about how horrible and out-of-control America was with respect to guns. I finally reached my limit and told them, with as straight a face as I could muster, that my street hadn't seen any gun violence since the time an armed robber broke in to one of my neighbor's houses and wound up with more perforations than a postage stamp when the owner 'got the drop' on the robber with a Thompson sub-machine gun. You should have seen the look of abject horror on their faces at that point. Yes, I know. I probably didn't advance the gun rights cause with them, but it was worth it. Besides, they'd had a few to drink by then, so they'll probably think it was just a bad dream by morning.

After 9-11, gun sales are faster than ever. I heard Ruger was all set to lay off, and then 9-12 came on with 24-7 manufacturing. How many people are going to vote against themself. I also predict alot of lefties will start to think the "right wing kooks" may be on to something when talking about closing the borders and building the military. The next elections will be interesting. More people are even going to church. Alot has changed in America since 9-11.

I was just thinking today that my daughter is 17, and her children will never know the America I grew up in. I belive we are in perpetual war now like Israel. The whole world will want us dead now. Trust and safety are gone and freedom will diminish. The dreaded ID cards and search and siezure will at some point have to come. Cashless society to follow the money and all kinds of doomsday scenario's will probably happen now just for reasonable saftey sake. The only way to keep what we had before 9-11, is total destruction of about 3/4 of the world. It is just a natural outcropping of fear to give up liberty for safety.

And after the 5th's decision that the 2nd amendment is an individual right and not a collective one, the gungrabbers are in even deeper trouble.

That collective right thing gave them a lot of leverage that is now gone. The sooner the SCOTUS upholds the 5ths decison, the better for us!! The gun grabbers are in deep kaka, and they know it, listen for the spin, it's here but rather quiet, they will start to shout pretty soon. We must be ready to shout right back.

And as far as gun sales are concerned, I don't need figures, I know all the gun shops around here and stop in at least once or twice a month to buy ammo, and shoot the breeze with them. They can't keep the guns on the shelf, they're flying out the door faster then they can order them. Ruger is doing REAL good these days. And the FBI is going nuts trying to keep up with all the instachecks!! LOL

Makes my heart go pitter patter!! :)

And my 50cal sniper rifle got sold!! Dammit!! I wanted that puppy, just hadn't gotten the 2500 together yet!! The scope on that thing was AWSOME!!! Isn't exactly what you would call real mobile, but it will put a hole through an engine block and the next engine block and the next engine block, well you get the picture!! LOL

Oh yea, I'm sure the British know MUCH more about the state of things in America than we do. After all, any article that has that many spelling errors has GOT to be credible! Not to mention incorrect use of words, and some problems with capitalization.

Check it out!

IT BECAME a familiar scene during the election campaign. Charlton Heston, stumping the country as President of the National Rifle Association, would hold a long-barrelled gun in one hand high above his head. Then, in the same tones that he used in Hollywood biblical sagas, he would declare, his voice rising: ““ From my cold, dead hands, Mr Gore.””

His audience, composed of people who oppose gun control, would go predictably wild with applause and cheering at the idea that Mr Heston’’s guns would never be prised from his fingers as long as he was alive. Nor would any give up the right to bear arms.

The moment always made a good sound bite for local, and sometimes national, news. But the state of gun control in the United States is less clear-cut than the NRA would like. Opponents have been making significant headway, often by one state or community at a time.

The NRA says that its membership has shot up this year in response to the threat to guns posed by Al Gore and his fellow Democrats. They have embraced George W. Bush as a friend, often to his intense annoyance. The low point came when Kayne Robinson, an NRA vice-president, told a Los Angeles meeting that if Mr Bush were elected President they would ““ have a President . . . where we’’ll work out of their office”“.

Mr Bush reacted angrily, telling a news conference that he would make the decisions about what happened in the Oval Office and emphasising his independence from the NRA. He fell out with the organisation by calling for a raising of the minimum age for handgun possession from 18 to to 21, and by supporting the ban on imported large ammunition clips.

As Governor of Texas, he also supported a State law that held parents liable if children used their guns to injure others. He promised that if elected President he would implement a national programme of offering free trigger locks to gun-owners as a safety measure, especially against children harming themselves by playing with guns they might find at home.

Still, Governor Bush also signed Bills that allowed the carrying of concealed weapons in Texas and last year approved legislation that makes it difficult for Texas cities and counties to sue gun makers, as they have in other states.

Mr Gore supported more gun restrictions than Mr Bush, but his position had evolved from an earlier support for gun control when he represented Tennessee in the Senate and had to keep in with the state’’s legions of hunters.

The greatest gun-control triumph under President Clinton was passage of the Brady Bill in 1993, which imposed five-day background checks on handgun purchases from gun dealers.

In last month’’s general election, the gun violence prevention movement targeted 39 ballot initiatives, winning 26. The organisers said that the results indicated for the first time that a more unified and powerful guncontrol movement might at least rival the gun lobby in political clout.

Its proponents claimed significant statewide victories in California and Oregon, where voters passed overwhelmingly ballot initiatives to close the loopholes on buying weapons at gun shows, where there are no background checks. They did so despite aggressive campaigning against the initiatives by the gun lobby.

In the US Senate three candidates were elected who had pledged to work for gun-safety measures, defeating incumbent senators strongly supported by the NRA. Those victories helped to level the national political playing field, resulting in a Congress that is more evenly split on gun issues, according to an analysis by a coalition of gun-control organisations.

Carolynne Jarvis, their president, said: ”“No longer can politicians vote against us without repercussions. This was a banner year for us when we generated the most national awareness and spent the most money to help to elect pro-gun safety candidates.”“

These campaigners are careful not to call for an outright ban on guns, knowing that would be political suicide.

Even the Million Mom March, a group that drew some 250,000 to a protest in Washington, was careful to say that they were for sensible gun controls. They would include adequate training in the use of a gun and proper licensing of guns and gun owners —— the levels of regulation required, in fact, for owning and driving a car.

All of that is too much for the NRA, of course.

To be fair, some of the words are spelled correctly for this side of the pond. For example: programme is the way it's done here and I believe barrelled does have the double "L" (but don't hold me to that). Also, looking in the Oxford dictionary I see that Bible is spelled with a capital "B" and biblical is with the lower case. Prised is correct as well.

Ever since I left the States my spelling has gotten worse and worse. It started when I learned to speak German (lived in Germany 8 years) and now I keep wanting to capitalize all my nouns. I lived a while in France and have been living in the UK for 2 years. I get all screwed up when I try to write now because I'm not certain how words are spelled for an American or for a Brit. Some more words they do differently : defence ,aluminium (pronounced altogether different here), they call a kayak a canoe and I keep hearing them pronounce cervical with a long "I".

My wife (a German) is always asking how to spell this or that word and the longer I live here, the more I consult the dictionary because I can no longer be certain.

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