Backers of gun rights cite Constitution to make points

Greeley Tribune ^ | 9-3-02 | Anne Cumming

[Pat Bateman]

Backers of gun rights cite Constitution to make points

 Story By Anne Cumming

JOHNSTOWN — The back of a T-shirt summed up the flavor of a Labor Day barbecue in Johnstown on Monday.

"Gun Owners of America: If guns kill people, then pencils miss spel words, cars make people drive drunk, and spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat."

About 300 people, some wearing Gun Owners of America T-shirts, showed up at Parish Park for hamburgers, potato salad and camaraderie with gun owners. Most said they don't want Washington to curb gun ownership and gun use.

"It's the Constitution we're all defending out here," said Jeff Andreski of Loveland. "I take part in groups like this for my children's future. I want them to have the same freedoms and rights I have."

The event was the annual Labor Day picnic sponsored by the Johnstown-based American Freedom Radio Network, heard on KHNC 1360-AM and KTMG-1370-AM. Larry Pratt, director of the national lobbying group Gun Owners of America, was the guest speaker.

"For me, gun control has always been a constitutional issue," said Pratt, who said he owns guns for self-defense, not for hunting or other sports. "Our desire is to roll back gun control. We're not rolling it back right now."

Pratt, who lives in Washington, D.C., calls into a weekly radio show and talks about gun control, one of many issues listeners hear on the conservative radio network.

Since it started in 1993, the network has featured programs about the Bible, finances, politics and natural health. It broadcasts across the Colorado Front Range and has listeners nationwide through satellite and the Internet.

Some people attended Monday's event to meet Pratt, who sold his book and signed people up to join Gun Owners of America. Some said Gun Owners of America is more effective at lobbying Congress than the National Rifle Association. Andreski said he left the National Rifle Association six years ago because he thought it was moving too far to the left politically.

"The NRA has become an arm of the Republican Party," said Dudley Brown of Brush, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a group that lobbies the Colorado legislature. He used to be a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association's Colorado affiliate.

"People don't know it, but Gun Owners of America and Larry Pratt are responsible for putting more pressure on Congress to eliminate gun control than anyone else in Washington," Brown said.

[Crowcreek]

Campers Create a "Weapon Free Zone"

[Redbob]

"If you're a member of another group, I'm all ears to hear what that group is doing. I'm not interested in what the NRA is or is not doing from people who are not members."

Well put.

[Dick Bachert]

Yeah, sort of an ETERNAL gun-free zone.

The kind our own statist-elitists -- of BOTH political stripes -- have in mind for the likes of us here on FR.