Posted on 05/20/2003 12:13:22 PM PDT by microgood
When it comes to guns, politicians are figuring out what clay pigeons have known for a long time: it's safer to be a moving target. So it is that President Bush can win points with gun-control groups by sticking to his campaign promise to sign an extension on the assault-weapons ban when it expires next year, while House majority leader Tom DeLay can make the gun lobby happy by suggesting, as he did last week, that no such bill will ever reach Bush's desk. And Democrats can fuss and fume over how Bush and the Republicans are trying to have it both ways — while quietly breathing a sigh of relief at being spared a vote that would expose the party's own divisions on the issue.
The pantomime will continue, for behind it lies a new reality: two years into the Bush Administration, the gun lobby is on a winning streak. Bill Clinton muscled through the most significant new gun laws in 30 years, including the 1994 assault-weapons ban and the 1993 Brady Law, requiring background checks for gun buyers. But gun groups got some revenge in the 2000 election, when they were credited with costing Al Gore at least three states, including his home, Tennessee.
Most of the gains for the gun lobby have been quiet ones. Attorney General John Ashcroft has expanded the government's view of the Second Amendment, stating explicitly that it protects an individual's right to possess and bear arms — a departure from the longstanding view that this right was limited to state militias. Ashcroft has also proposed shortening the length of time the FBI is required to keep records of background checks. He wants it reduced to a single business day; the Clinton Administration required 90. And while the National Rifle Association wasn't pleased with Bush's statements in support of the assault-weapons ban, no one expects the President to lobby for it. At the same time, Bush has promised to sign the NRA's top priority: legislation that would shield gunmakers and dealers from lawsuits.
Part of the reason for the gun lobby's success is that the political landscape shifted right after 9/11, when the nation lost its sense of security and gun sales soared. Whereas married women were long thought to be the constituency most sympathetic to new restrictions on guns, they were the group most supportive of allowing pilots to be armed in the cockpit, according to focus groups conducted by Republican pollster David Winston.
Many Democrats are nervous about putting the gun issue on the front burner. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called upon Bush to pressure G.O.P. House leaders to bring the extension of the ban to the floor, but she conceded that Democratic leaders would be leery of strong-arming their own members on such a sensitive issue. "We would probably lose some votes," she said. When guns came up during the first debate among the 2004 Democratic presidential contenders earlier this month, the candidates — with the exception of Al Sharpton — were virtually silent.
That's a significant change from the last presidential campaign, when Gore proposed licensing gun owners. Back then, whenever Bush was asked about guns, he contended that what's needed is not new gun laws but enforcement of existing ones. However, a study last week by Americans for Gun Safety — a relatively moderate gun-control group that does not support licensing gun owners or registering their weapons — found that the Bush Administration has done little better than its predecessor at prosecuting those who break gun laws. The group found that of the 25,002 federal firearms cases over the past three years, fully 85% were for violations of just two statutes — illegal possession by a felon or another prohibited buyer and possession of a firearm during a violent or drug-related crime. The remaining 20 major federal gun laws, which include statutes designed to keep weapons out of the hands of children, are rarely enforced. The Justice Department disputed the study, saying many prosecutions have been shifted to state and local jurisdictions, some of which have tougher penalties.
It is on the enforcement issue that some Democrats think they may have found an opening to talk about guns again. But no one is very eager. Taking aim on the gun issue is one thing; pulling the trigger is another.
From the May. 26, 2003 issue of TIME magazine
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/711949/posts
Do Guns Save Lives?
-Empty-Barrel Gun Policies-A legacy of nonsense from Clinton, Blair, and the Left--
-A Problem With Guns (Long... but SOOOO good)--
Shooting More Holes in Gun Control
HCI Aussie Style (read it and weep-or laugh)
The Great Australian Gun Law CON!
More Guns on Street - Cops Fearing Increased Bloodshed (more Canadian gun control "success")
Through the Looking Glass and Back Again - From Anti-gunner to Firearms Instructor in Four Months
This is sort of like calling Al Qaeda a moderate Islamic group. Obvious anti-gun bias and lies with just this. Excuse me prosecuting a felon in possession of a firearm makes a whole lot more sense than prosecuting a gun dealer for a paperwork mix up.
quid pro quo? Gun makers get protected...gun owners get the shaft
What a crock - no anti-constitutional gungrabbing group and nobody who would vote for a fascist gungrabber at any political level is going to vote for Dubya, nobody. And let us all start referring to ourselves as pro Bill of Rights/pro Freedom and stop letting the heavy left quislings control the terms of the argument with their incessant references to us as "pro gun". The latter term does not instantly center the discussion on the foundational Constitutional issues which underly the 2nd Amendment. In and of itself, the use of the term "pro gun" is akin to calling a staunch supporter of the 1st Amendment "pro ink" or "pro exercise". Not called to mind are the chief justification for and guiding principle of the 2nd Amendment, that all power resides in the people and that no legitimate government shall exercise any power whatsoever except that which, [and no more] the people permit it to exercise. To the contrary, for the last forty years or so, the heavy left quislings in the media, pop culture and academe have successfully [and falsely] imbued the term "pro gun" with a good number of scurrilous and disparaging attributes. And like it or not, among many people who have not thought the matter through, such terms have the desired effect of [a] pre-empting serious discussion of the issue and [b] planting the seeds of antipathy towards the peoples' arms per se. And last, let us start describing the "gun control" quislings in historically and constitutionally correct terms. Very briefly, in historical terms these people are ideologically and spiritually indistinguishable from the long train of totalitarian fascists, from the French revolution down through the present. And underneath it all, they are implacably opposed to our Constitutional first principle, that power flows from the people, through the States and to the central government, only as set forth in the Constitution. These first principles the heavy left publicly scorns and derides, but privately views with fear and loathing. What other conceivable reason drives the heavy left in its invidious and dishonorable assault on the crown jewel of the Bill of Rights?
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