7/10/98 Arianna Huffington Conservative Current " On Wednesday morning , at a White House ceremony the president endorsed a bill aimed at reducing children ' s access to guns . Among other things , the bill will make parents criminally responsible for the actions of children using unsafely stored guns .It is a forlorn hope to continue to pretend that we will reduce teenage violence just by focusing on gun control , just as it is delusional to continue fighting the war on drugs just by focusing on illegal drugs"

Reuters 4/26/99 Randall Mikkelsen "...President Clinton will propose new anti-gun laws Tuesday, the White House said, predicting last week's Colorado school horror would fuel support for the long-planned measures. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart also denounced the National Rifle Association, telling reporters Monday that the time had come for the pro-gun lobbying organization to stop fighting against gun control. "There is a consensus in this country that we need to do more; the president will propose doing more, and it's time for the NRA to get out of the past and get on the right side of this issue," Lockhart said..... Saturday, Clinton said he would ask Congress to crack down on gun shows and illegal trafficking, ban violent juveniles from ever buying guns and close loopholes permitting juveniles to own assault rifles...."

New York Times 4/26/99 Barry Meier "...Just hours after the gunfire had stopped on Tuesday in Littleton, Colo., another battle erupted as lobbying groups and others on warring sides of the nation's gun debate moved to turn the shootings to their advantage. Appearing that evening on CNN, Sarah Brady, the chairwoman of Handgun Control, blamed the easy access to weapons for the killings. A day later, Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association and its chief political strategist, went on the MSNBC program "Equal Time" to say Hollywood's obsession with violence, rather than firearms, was at fault...."My bottom line is that these laws were passed with the best of intentions to create safety zones for our children," Lott said in an interview. "But my concern is that the people who obey these laws are the good people and what these laws do is make safe zones for criminals."..."

WorldNetDaily 4/29/99 Jon E. Dougherty "...While much of the nation and most politicians call for increased gun control measures in the wake of mass murder by two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., April 20, a new study shows that the best way to prevent such incidents in the future is to pass more laws that allow concealed carry of handguns. The study, completed earlier this month by John R. Lott, Jr. and William M. Landes of the Chicago University School of Law, concludes "that the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws." The study also shows that other crime deterrent factors -- such as more police and wider use of the death penalty -- tend to curb "normal" instances of murder. But they do little or nothing to prevent such tragedies as those that have occurred in a number of the nation's public schools since 1997. "Not only does the passage of a shall issue law have a significant impact on multiple shootings," wrote the authors, "but it is the only law related variable that appears to have a significant impact." ..."

Associated Press 5/12/99 David Espo Freeper Brian Mosely "...The Republican-controlled Senate refused Wednesday to impose fresh restrictions on sales at gun shows in Congress' first vote on gun control since last month's shooting spree in a Colorado high school...."

Chicago Sun-Times 5/30/99 Robert Novak "...Rep. Christopher Cox is receiving private backstage criticism from fellow House Republican leaders for letting President Clinton off the hook in order to get bipartisan approval for his select committee's report on alleged Chinese theft of nuclear secrets. Cox, who as chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee ranks fifth in his party's House hierarchy, responds that the report implicitly targets Clinton and that its impact is much greater for not being narrowly partisan. Members of Chairman Henry Hyde's House Judiciary Committee, accused of partisanship in their presidential impeachment proceedings, are particularly irked by the comparison with Cox. A footnote: Conservative House Republicans also were irritated that Speaker J. Dennis Hastert chose to endorse Senate-passed gun controls on the day the Cox report was released--partially upstaging the bad news for the Clinton administration..... "

Jewish World Review 6/10/99 Thomas Sowell "..."gun control." The tragic irony is that such laws are much more likely to increase shooting deaths than to reduce them. For those of us old-fashioned enough to think that facts still matter, comprehensive research has shown that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons reduces gun violence, as well as other kinds of violence. Unfortunately, facts may carry very little weight politically, in the midst of an emotional orgy with rhetorical posturing. Yet the evidence is overwhelming that allowing law-abiding citizens to be armed has reduced violence in general and mass shootings in particular. For those to whom facts still matter, John Lott's book "More Guns, Less Crime" presents overwhelming evidence. Another study of his, with Professor William Landes of the University of Chicago as co-author, addresses mass shootings, such as those which have been taking place in schools, post offices and other public places. These shooting rampages have been far more common in places where there are strong gun control laws. No matter what other factors these authors take into account -- poverty, race, population density, etc. -- the results are still the same. Places with many armed citizens have fewer mass shootings. Their data cover mass shootings in every state and the District of Columbia, going back nearly two decades...."

Boston Globe 6/12/99 Louise D. Palmer "....While the NRA did not get exactly what it wanted, the lobby's influence during the early stages of House discussions on gun control has reversed the prevailing opinion that pronounced the gun lobby weakened after last month's defeats in the Senate. ''Our epitaph has been written many times,'' said Jim Manown, an NRA spokesman, laughing...... The NRA's two-pronged lobbying strategy, which was advertised on the Internet, in mainstream newspapers, and all over Capitol Hill, began two months ago with a campaign that questioned the wisdom of passing new gun-control laws when the Clinton administration is not enforcing existing ones. In one advertisement in The Wall Street Journal, the NRA wrote that the government prosecuted only 37 cases where felons bought firearms through straw purchases, 11 cases where individuals provided guns to juveniles, and 11 cases of juveniles caught with guns. ''More firearms legislation, like previous legislation, that is passed with no intention of enforcement is a dangerous fraud,'' the ad said. The Justice Department said it could not comment on particular prosecutions but defended its record, pointing out that combined state-federal prosecutions of gun crimes were up 22 percent since 1992. The number of federal cases in which an offender is sentenced to more than five years also rose 22 percent....."

Washington Times 6/18/99 Sean Scully "…The House Thursday night narrowly passed a measure regulating sales of weapons at gun shows - written by a rebellious faction of Democrats - that could doom a larger gun control bill set to be voted on Friday. The House voted 218-211 to support a measure sponsored by the most senior Democrat in the House, Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan. Forty-five Democrats joined 173 Republicans in the vote. The mildest of three gun-show proposals before the House, the approved measure limits to 24 hours the maximum amount of time gun buyers must wait for background checks. The strictest measure - sponsored by Democrats - sets a maximum of three business days for background checks. A Republican measure sets a maximum of 72 hours…."

Washington Compost 5/19/99 David B. Ottaway "....Some of the nation's leading private foundations and philanthropists such as billionaire George Soros are pouring millions of dollars into research and support in the battle to control gun violence. The infusion of private money has raised the wrath of the National Rifle Association, which in a publication this month named Soros and another private foundation as part of a "vast conspiracy" to bankrupt gun manufacturers with lawsuits...."

Jewish World Review 5/27/99 Tony Snow "...Even though Selleck is the nicest guy in show business, she[Rosie] treated him like meat. As hausfraus and tourists shouted "You go, girl!" the klatchmistress assailed his affiliation with the National Rifle Association, insinuating that he condoned the massacre of innocents at Columbine High School. ... The show's producers had promised Selleck the conversation would focus on his new movie, not guns. But Rosie broke the compact and ambuscaded the poor fellow. Then again, she may have had her reasons. Selleck often shoots objects -- sporting clays -- that otherwise might carry food. In any case, Rosie's attack was notable for its imbecility and hypocrisy. Begin with the dim-wit part: Gun violence in the United States has been declining for the better part of a decade. Research indicates that states with relatively permissive gun laws also have the lowest levels of gun crime -- presumably because bad guys never know whether their intended victims are packing heat. Moreover, the nostrums recently approved by the U.S. Senate -- trigger locks and background checks -- would have saved no one at Columbine High School and could make it more difficult for citizens (such as, say, battered wives) to defend themselves..... The Clinton administration has promoted more federal gun legislation than any in history, but it hasn't enforced the statutes. The Justice Department has prosecuted exactly one person in four years for violating the much-touted Brady Law and the feds have gone after 20 juvenile gun-thugs in the last three years -- out of an estimated 20,000 cases. Cut to the moral core of the controversy. The NRA never has condoned the murder of innocents. This distinguishes it from the Clinton White House -- which is considering the legal harvest of babies for medical purposes -- and Planned Parenthood. If Rosie were truly concerned about preventable deaths, she might want to ambush Democrats who support partial-birth abortion. Or she might want to bushwack Spike Lee, who recently told the New York Post that the National Rifle Association ought to shut its doors and that someone ought to shoot NRA president Charlton Heston -- not only a nice guy, but a Freedom Marcher in the 1960s -- "with a .44-caliber Bulldog." Talk about double standards! If some right-wing cracker were to suggest similar justice for Spike Lee, Janet Reno would be convening a hate-crimes tribunal and prescribing a year's worth of sensitivity training for the foul-mouthed malefactor...."

WorldNet Daily 7/2/99 Stephan Archer "..."More gun confiscation in California? State may take some firearms without compensation By Stephan Archer 1999 WorldNetDaily.com While some California gun owners are turning in their illegal guns for cash, others may have to turn them in for nothing at all. In a situation related to California's current buy back program in which the state is offering $230 to gun owners in exchange for their SKS "Sporter" rifles, owners of certain semiautomatics other than the SKS "Sporter" may have to give up their firearms without compensation to avoid facing criminal prosecution. ..."

Star Tribune 4/30/99 Larry Oakes Freeper DonMorgan "... In 1998 a civic group called Violence Free Duluth set out to study a year's worth of crimes involving guns in the port city. Among other things, its members wanted to know type of guns used, the role of alcohol or drugs, relationships between offenders and victims, and the age, sex and race of criminals. The results, released Thursday, give a detailed statistical profile of the 93 gun crimes reported in the city in 1997, with one notable exception: no mention of race of the offenders. That's because the 25-member citizens advisory council coordinating the study decided that divulging race might not be fair or relevant and might distract from the role of more universal issues surrounding gun violence..."

Reuters 5/13/99 "... A day after refusing to regulate gun show sales in a controversial vote, the Senate Thursday voted 96-2 to ban minors from purchasing semi-automatic assault weapons such as AK-47s and Uzis. Under current law, people under age 18 cannot buy handguns from either a licensed dealer or through a private sale, but the restrictions on assault weapons were not as strict. The measure approved Thursday closed the loophole and also barred youths from having high-capacity ammunition clips....The Senate later Thursday will vote on a similar amendment by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, which also bans all imports of high-capacity ammo clips, for people of any age. Such clips cannot be made in the United States but are still imported..."

Reuters 5/14/99 Joanne Kenen "...The U.S. Senate Friday, reversing itself, narrowly backed mandatory background checks at gun shows but President Clinton said the Republican-drafted version was full of "high caliber loopholes." Two days earlier, the Senate had killed a Democratic measure to institute mandatory checks at gun shows and adopted a weaker voluntary system. A number of Republicans had swift second thoughts about appearing too soft on guns after the Littleton, Colorado, high school tragedy and Republicans produced their own gun show language....Republicans, while budging on guns, have tried to stress cultural factors and violence in entertainment and they hope to offer some more amendments in that area. For instance, Wayne Allard of Colorado wants to allow students or faculty of a public school to hold memorial services or place a memorial on school grounds that includes religious prayer and symbols in situations where someone is killed on school grounds. That will likely spark a debate about school prayer and separation of church and state....."

Manchester Union Leader 6/8/99 Betsy Hart "...If Americans genuinely want to restrict gun rights, then it should be done by the process laid out for amending our Constitution, not by congressional or judicial fiat. Constitutional objections aside, such new laws don't pass the common-sense test. The murderers in Littleton, Colo., had broken almost two dozen federal and state gun-control laws in their rampage. What would another law have done? Would someone with such little respect for the law that he is willing to use guns for an evil purpose have enough respect for the law to obey new gun-control measures? Nor should anyone believe that criminal minds won't easily figure out ways around the new laws. Some might argue that at least these new gun-control measures won't hurt. Oh, but they do. In fact, the way they hurt most of all, and the reason I most oppose them, is that they distract us into wrapping our thinking, our resolve, our resources and our very understanding of the issues around all the wrong things. Gun laws may make us feel we've gone a long way toward addressing the problem of gun-violence among our youths, when to the extent we believe such a thing we haven't even begun to understand the problem. Any doubts? Consider that for much of our nation's history, guns were a regular part of life for many young people and were far more available to them legally than they are today, but only in recent times have we witnessed these killing sprees...."

NewsMax.com 7/14/99 Mona Charen "…While politicians and many in the press attempted to make the availability of guns the "lesson" of the Littleton massacre, another theme just won't seem to go away. What more and more Americans are recognizing is that the Too Busy Parent is a cultural phenomenon with vast consequences for children. One researcher estimates that 50 percent of parents do not know who their adolescent children's friends are. Another has found that the average teen-ager spends only six minutes a day talking to his mother, and even less conversing with his father. American advertising is full of time-saving devices for "families on the go." Usually they are assumed to be going in different directions…."

The New York Post 7/12/99 Brian Blomquist "…Despite President Clinton's push for new gun-control laws, his own Justice Department admits it isn't enforcing all the gun laws on the books. Two federal laws, in particular, stand out as being virtually ignored by federal investigators. One makes it a federal crime for kids to sneak guns into schools; another makes it a federal offense - with a 10-year prison sentence - for felons to lie when they apply to buy a gun. But of the 6,000 kids caught sneaking guns into schools in the last three years, the Justice Department has prosecuted only 17. And of more than 400,000 felons and other bad apples blocked from buying guns, the Justice Department says fewer than 1,000 have been prosecuted for lying on application forms…."

Arizona Republic 6/9/99 Jim Gahar "...With all of the hysteria of late, we seem to be forgetting that the entire Bill of Rights is under assault, not just the Second Amendment. On the positive side, a federal judge in Texas has just ruled the Clinton-Gore crime bill in violation of both the Second and Fifth amendments to the Constitution. The government has appealed, and the case may now go before the Supreme Court. The entire issue stems from what "the people" means in the context of the Second Amendment. In a 32-page argument going back as far as A.D. 690 in English law, the judge argued that "the people" has an identical and consistent meaning in the preamble of the Constitution and in all of the amendments in which it is used. It means "the peaceable citizens" in every case, not the states or the federal government..."

NRA 8/99 "...A LIST OF CELEBRITIES RECENTLY SIGNED A NATIONAL AD Imploring the NRA to care more about the safety of our nation's children. Apparently, nobody told Barry Manilow or Bruce Springsteen that the "13 children lost to gun violence every day" cited in their ad are in fact neither children nor accidents, but 85% are suicides or murders committed by gangbangers aged 15 to 19. Clearly, Meryl Streep and Moon Zappa are unaware that countless children's lives have been saved through the single most successful, most effective and widely used gun accident prevention program in America: the NRA's Eddie Eagle program. We've distributed it to 12 million kids in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Canada at a cost of almost $20 million.... The media hasn't reported how the Eddie Eagle(r) curriculum effectively teaches youngsters what to do if they encounter a firearm: STOP! Don't Touch. Leave the Area. Tell an Adult. So Rosie O'Donnell and Tony Bennett probably don't know it's the only gun accident prevention program for kids used by 500 law enforcement agencies across the country. We doubt Madonna or Henry Winkler know that it won the National School Public Relations Association's Golden Achievement Award. Barbra Streisand and Fannie Flagg are likely unaware the National Safety Council gave the Eddie Eagle(r) program its Youth Activities Award of Merit. No one told Richard Gere or Rosemary Clooney that Eddie Eagle(r) has been officially recognized and honored by more than 35 governors and state legislatures. Jerry Seinfeld and Fred Rogers probably don't know that fatal firearm accidents among children have dropped 64% - falling 13% in Eddie's first year alone. We bet Spike Lee and Cathy Rigby are unaware that 3,500 ordinary Americans have volunteered to spread Eddie Eagle's(r) lifesaving message. It's probably news to Jack Nicholson and Brad Gooch that Eddie Eagle's(r) founder won the National Safety Council's Outstanding Community Service Award. Nobody informed Walter Cronkite and BOYS II MEN that theAmerican Legion awarded Eddie Eagle(r) its prestigious National Education Award. Nobody probably told Cher or Sting that only the Eddie Eagle(r) gun accident prevention program has won the endorsement of thousands of school systems nationwide. And probably, Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke don't know that today, fatal firearm accidents among children are the lowest in history. We won't stop until there are none. ...."

CNSNews.com 7/28/99 Lionel Waxman "...In this country, it is one of our most cherished rights to be considered innocent by the law until properly found guilty. Except in Connecticut, of course. Connecticut has just passed a law permitting police to confiscate all the firearms of anyone they believe might be considering a criminal act. All they have to do is apply to a judge for a warrant. The judge would hear the police in secret and issue the confiscation warrant if he believes the target is dangerous, if, for example, you have made threats, been cruel to animals, or abused drugs or alcohol. So in Connecticut, if you get quietly drunk at home on Saturday night, police can seize your guns. Kick your dog, lose your guns. Make an obscene gesture on the highway, lose your guns -- and probably your car....After a few years of this, Connecticut will become as safe as Cuba...."

Wall Street Journal 7/28/99 Paul Barrett "...The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is considering joining the legal assault against the gun industry, said people familiar with the situation. Such a move would sharply escalate the antigun court fight already being waged by 23 cities and counties around the country. A HUD spokesman said only that the agency is monitoring the litigation and has "no plans" to file a suit...."

NRA's American Guardian 8/99 NRA Institute for Legislative Action "... "Suing Gun Manufactures: Hazardous to Our Health" is the title of a recently released study that concludes the crime deterrent benefits of firearms ownership outweigh the societal costs of guns used in crime as much as $38.9 billion annually in the United States. In the study, H. Sterling Burnett, senior policy analyst as the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas, Texas, attempts to bring sanity to a litigious world that grows increasingly outlandish as greedy tort lawyers and anti-gun mayors try to replace legal precedents with legal theories.....Gun industry critics and anti-gun groups frequently compare the suits against the gun industry to those against the tobacco industry. But, Burnett points out, "There is much to distinguish guns form cigarettes. Guns do not cause harm to the user or third parties in normal use, and they are not addictive. That guns are potentially dangerous is widely known and has never been disputed by the firearms industry. Unlike tobacco, guns provide a multitude of tangible social goods: pleasures for those involved in the shooting sports, U.S. national security, police-led crime prevention and criminal apprehension efforts and effective personal defense against crime. Only a small fraction of firearms, less than 1%, are ever involved in violence. The clearest evidence that even the mayors suing the gun industries believe guns are beneficial is the fact that the arm the police. It is not that guns are bad, it is that some people use them badly." ...."

Associated Press (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) 8/4/99 Kate Grossman "...Treating U.S. gunshot victims in 1994 cost $2.3 billion in lifetime medical costs, an amount that matches what Americans spend on guns and firearms annually, a new study found...... The government, mostly through Medicaid and Medicare payments, paid $1.1 billion of the total cost, the study found. Private insurers and victims picked up the bulk of the rest, accounting for 18 percent and 19 percent of the total costs, respectively. The researchers speculated that victims' costs are often passed on to other patients because many victims can't afford treatment. Despite the seemingly high numbers, Cohen said the costs are not significant when compared to the $1 trillion spent on medical care annually. "If you did away with gunshot injuries, would you reduce medical costs?'' Cohen asked. "Not by much.'' He said fraud is more costly to hospitals than gunshot wounds...."

Claremont Institute 3/4/99 Medical Sentinel Timothy Wheeler, MD "...Imagine this scenario: you visit your doctor for back pain. Your doctor asks if you have firearms in your home. Then he announces that your family would be better off (especially your children) if you had no guns at all in your house. You leave the doctor's office feeling uneasy, wondering what guns have to do with your backache. Does your doctor care about your family's safety? Or instead, did he use your trust and his authority to advance a political agenda? American families may soon find themselves in this scenario. Social activists are taking their war on gun ownership to a new battleground: the doctor's office. (1) The American Medical Association (AMA) (2), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) (3), and American College of Physicians (ACP) (4) are urging doctors to probe their patients about guns in their homes. They profess concern for patient safety. But their ulterior motive is a political prejudice against guns and gun owners. And that places their interventions into the area of unethical physician conduct called boundary violations....The AAP, ACP, and AMA are members of the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) Network, based in Chicago. HELP is an exclusive advocacy group dedicated to banning guns. Physicians who disagree with HELP's anti-gun agenda are barred from attending HELP's conferences, a policy unthinkable in any scientific organization. HELP's founder and leader Dr. Katherine Christoffel has compared guns to viruses that must be eradicated. (9) The group's militant advocacy has no place for differing viewpoints on firearms, and apparently neither do the medical organizations which have signed on as HELP members...."

NRA 8/3/99 "...Immediately after last night's airing of CBS Evening News' blatantly biased "Reality Check" segment, which ignored recent scholarly research and falsely claimed that the Second Amendment is not an individual right, the National Rifle Association launched a campaign to provide CBS News with its own reality check.

** CBS FAILED to cite the 1990 Supreme Court reference to the Second Amendment in U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez that stated, "'the people' protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments ... refers to a class of persons who are part of the national community." Each of these rights are individual.

** CBS FAILED to report this year's federal court ruling from the Northern District of Texas, U.S. v. Emerson, in which the federal judge overturned a federal gun law on Second Amendment grounds and argued, "The rights of the Second Amendment should be as zealously guarded as the other individual liberties enshrined in the bill of rights."

** CBS FAILED to report that, in the last decade, scholars from across the political spectrum have concluded that the Second Amendment, from any method of analysis, protects an individual right, and that this view is now commonly referred to as the "Standard Model" (Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 1995).

** CBS FAILED to note that the nation's leading constitutional scholars such as Lawrence Tribe (Harvard), Akil Reed Amar (Yale), William Van Alstyne (Duke), and Sanford Levinson (Texas) ascribe to the concept of the individual Second Amendment right as the "Standard Model."

** CBS FAILED to report the conclusion of Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, of the University of Tennessee, that scholars adhering to an individual rights interpretation, "... dominate the academic literature on the Second Amendment almost completely," and that this view is "... the mainstream scholarly interpretation."

U S Newswire 8/3/99 "...Mohammad N. Akhter, M.D., MPH, APHA's executive director, said, "Any bill they craft must include the common-sense, gun-law-loophole-closing measures adopted by the Senate." Dr. Akhter said these provisions include the following: -- three-business day background checks for all gun show purchases; -- safety devices sold with every gun; -- a ban on importing high-capacity ammunition clips; and -- a ban on juvenile possession of assault weapons. .... The American Public Health Association, the oldest and largest organization of public health professionals, represents more than 50,000 members from more than 50 public health occupations. APHA has long recognized gun violence as a critical public health issue and since 1976 has supported efforts to reduce and prevent firearm-related injury and death...."

Reuters 8/3/99 "...It may be hard to believe, but the percentage of high school students who carry a weapon to school or engage in physical fighting is declining, according to new data released this week. Nonetheless, the rates of both weapon carrying and fighting among students in grades 9 through 12 "remain unacceptably high," Dr. Thomas R. Simon of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, told Reuters Health...."

Bloomberg - Top World News 8/7/99 Greg Wiles "...Los Angeles County and three county supervisors are suing gun makers, distributors and retailers, including Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Tomkins Plc's Smith & Wesson, claiming they illegally promoted handgun sales to criminals. The suit claims the gun manufacturers violated California's pro-consumer business law by engaging in unfair and deceptive practices, marketing the weapons to disreputable dealers and designing guns that appeal to criminals. The manufacturers also failed to sell handguns that incorporate reasonable safety features, the filing said..."

business week 8/16/99 William Symonds "...At the center of this hurricane are the world's gun manufacturers, a diverse group ranging from true-blue American brand names like Smith & Wesson and Colt's Manufacturing to foreigners like Italy's nearly 500-year-old Beretta to idiosyncratic tiny players like W.S. Daniel, a company in Ducktown, Tenn., that makes mail-order assault-weapon kits. They're all dependent on America as the world's largest consumer firearms market--and they're all running scared and increasingly divided on how best to defend themselves. ''I've been in this industry 36 years, and this is the most awesome set of circumstances I've ever seen,'' says Robert G. Morrison, chief operating officer of Miami-based Taurus International Manufacturing Inc., the U.S. arm of Brazilian handgun producer Forjas Taurus. Not since George Washington established the Springfield (Mass.) Armory to defend the young republic has the American gun industry faced a more serious crisis. Trouble looms on every front. Politically, the companies are facing the prospect of a Big Tobacco-like meltdown of their power in Washington and clout with state legislatures, a development that could lead to tough new regulations that aren't riddled with loopholes. While handgun registration is still unlikely, measures that would make it harder for criminals to buy weapons at gun shows and limit the number of firearms purchased at one time seem more viable every day. Legally, gunmakers are facing an onslaught of lawsuits they can barely afford to fight, much less lose. These cases are based on the controversial theory that manufacturers are partially responsible for gun violence. The suits seek millions to cover local government expenses for health care and policing. That's a scary prospect to many gun executives because the business is financially shaky. While 1999 will be a strong year, thanks in part to fears of new restrictions on ownership, most executives expect the market to steadily shrink over the long term. ..."

New York Post 8/12/99 Frankie Edozien "...The National Rifle Association stuck to its guns yesterday - noting the suspect in California's daycare shooting spree was an ex-con and saying it proves "guns don't kill people, bad people do." The NRA - the country's leading pro-gun lobbying group - said legal gun ownership cannot be blamed for the shooting rampage. "Our members like everyone else are concerned about this tragedy. But reasonable people know there is something else going on here, and it has nothing to do with lawful people who own firearms," said Bill Powers, the NRA ..."

Houston Chronicle 8/10/99 Nicloe Schiereck "...Imagine yourself in your office, crouched beneath your desk, trying desperately to drown out the gunfire and screams that are penetrating your every thought. Your heart is beating a mile a minute as a feeling of complete helplessness overwhelms you. Are you next? You don't have to be. Mark Barton, the gunman in the office rampage in suburban Atlanta, was obviously intent on killing as many people as possible. According to reports, Barton, armed with 9 mm and .45-caliber handguns, walked through an office complex, killing workers. Because of one deranged man's abhorrent actions, there will be cries for stricter gun control laws. But don't be led astray by gun control advocates. It is essential to realize that this tragedy might have been completely avoided, and most certainly lessened, if someone else in that office had a gun...."

Sacramento Bee 8/12/99 Steve Geissinger "...Political leaders in several states with strong histories of gun ownership say they are unlikely to toughen gun-control laws following the nation's third major multiple shooting in two weeks. "Gun laws wouldn't have helped in Los Angeles," Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a Democrat, said Wednesday. "Better enforcement would have helped." .... It wasn't immediately clear where Furrow obtained the weapon. California gun buyers must pass a background check with a 10-day waiting period, and convicted felons like Furrow are barred from possessing firearms. President Clinton immediately urged the nation to "intensify our resolve to make America a safer place," and White House spokesman Barry Toiv repeated the call Wednesday...."

The London Sunday Telegraph 8/15/99 James Langton "...PROBATION officers ignored an earlier judge's order that they should confiscate weapons belonging to the self-confessed Nazi and racist Buford Furrow, who gunned down children at a Jewish community centre in Los Angeles last week, writes James Langton. Furrow, 37, had been banned from owning guns in his home state of Washington because of his criminal record but was known to have easy access to weapons. A judge's order that his home be regularly searched was apparently ignored by probation officers.

It also emerged that Furrow, a white supremacist who also murdered a Filipino postman during his rampage, was a known psychotic whose behaviour was so violent that a policeman who arrested him for an earlier assault came close to shooting him in self-defence...."

NRA 8/14/99 Bob Evans/Republican Congressional Candidate vs Tom Lantos for 2000 "...NRA-ILA FAX ALERT 11250 Waples Mill Road - Fairfax, VA 22030 Vol 6 No 12 "...In what could prove to be an extremely important precedent- setting decision, a United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas recently dismissed an indictment against a defendant based on the opinion that the federal law he was accused of violating represented an unconstitutional exercise of congressional power that violated rights protected under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The law, which was buried within the massive 1994 Clinton Crime Bill, prohibits the possession of a firearm by anyone with a court restraining order..... "A historical examination of the right to bear arms...bears proof that the right to bear arms has consistently been, and should still be, construed as an individual right." "The rights of the Second Amendment should be as zealously guarded as the other individual liberties enshrined in theBill of Rights." "It is absurd that a boilerplate state court divorce order can collaterally and automatically extinguish a law-abiding citizen's Second Amendment rights...."

World Net Daily 8/10/99 Jon E Dougherty "...Make no mistake about it: The mainstream media is this country's worst enemy on the issue of the Second Amendment. And after another recent spate of shootings -- perpetrated not by guns alone but by deranged, psychopathic losers using guns -- the spin machine has been ratcheted up to full steam. A piece in this week's Time magazine by author Roger Rosenblatt says it all: "Get rid of the damned things!" and superficially it looks like little more than another media attempt to convince Americans that our society has outgrown the U.S. Constitution. Rosenblatt uses some familiar socialist anti-gun themes, such as never assigning blame to the criminals and social misfits who commit heinous acts and offering only one solution, the total banning of guns..... Granted, Americans should be concerned about all this gun violence. But the media is turning the debate over guns into a matter of national conscience, not simply a matter of the rule of law -- probably because liberals have discovered they cannot satisfactorily refute the simple meaning of our right to keep and bear arms. Understand one thing: These people are helping Uncle Sam come after our guns. They don't understand that if we lose our ability to defend all constitutional rights, the next one to go will be freedom of speech. God help this country then, because we all know what will happen next...."

Investors Business Daily 5/19/99 "..."There's no good reason for a child to own an AK-47,'' President Clinton said last week while pushing his kiddie gun control bill. Just as there's no good reason for a U.S. president to entertain the head of a communist entity that sells AK-47s to kids, right? Don't expect an answer from Clinton. He did just that on Feb. 6, 1996. His fund-raising pal, Charlie Trie, had invited Beijing arms dealer Wang Jun to one of Clinton's famous fund- raising ''coffees'' in the White House Map Room. Wang is the son of China's former vice president. He also runs Polytechnologies, an arms dealership owned by Poly Group, which is owned directly by China's People's Liberation Army. In May 1996, agents of Wang's dealership and another Chinese arms company, Norinco, were arrested for trying to smuggle AK- 47s into the U.S. for sale to drug gangs...."

Smith-Wesson.com 8/15/99 L E Schutz "...On June 3, 1999 the City of Boston and the Boston Public Health Commission joined a number of other cities in filing a lawsuit against Smith & Wesson and other members of the firearms industry. As in several of the other cases, the complaint has been signed not just by attorneys employed by the City, but by outside lawyers from New York, Washington, D.C. and representatives of an anti-firearm organization, individuals with their own social agenda. Although those bringing the suit say it is not about money, it asks for $100 million plus, and the law firms will get 25% of whatever is exacted from the firearms manufacturers as their only payment for handling this matter...The implications of the suit are that Smith & Wesson has no concern about firearms safety, whether it be applied to the handgun itself, or to safe and responsible storage of the gun. Nothing could be further from the truth. For nearly a century and a half Smith & Wesson has been, and continues to be, a leader in firearms design, innovation, manufacturing quality, safety and training. Smith & Wesson has lawfully and responsibly manufactured firearms in the State of Massachusetts since 1856. Every Smith & Wesson firearm is sold with an owners manual that clearly warns the purchaser about the dangers and responsibilities that accompany ownership. Since 1997, before the President and Congress began debating the merits of gunlocks, Smith & Wesson was providing a Master Lock gunlock with every Smith & Wesson shipped. Even before that Smith & Wesson guns were being shipped in lockable boxes and before that with lockable trigger devices that owners could lock if they were not going to secure their gun in another manner. Since 1955, Smith & Wesson has offered semi-automatic pistols that utilize a magazine disconnect which renders the gun incapable of firing when the magazine is removed. This feature has been incorporated into the training of many police departments and is responsible for saving the lives of officers every year. The similar pistols shipped to the non-law enforcement market also contain this feature. Other features of Smith & Wesson handguns include manual safeties, firing pin safeties and hammer blocks. Smith & Wesson handguns also require significant pressure on the trigger to cause the gun to discharge. In order for a Smith & Wesson gun to fire, the trigger must be pulled all the way to the rear and held, thus preventing the gun from accidentally firing if the trigger is bumped or the gun is dropped...."

Wall Street Journal 8/16/99 Vanessa O'Connel & Paul M. Barrett "...Since last fall, 26 municipalities have sued the gun industry, accusing it of flooding the market with handguns, many of which end up in criminal hands. There is an incongruity in the municipalities position, though: Most of the cities suing the gun industry are themselves, in effect, gun suppliers--and some could be accused of a degree of carelessness in how they unload police weapons and confiscated firearms... The cities say they need to sell or trade in the weapons to cut the cost of obtaining new, higher-power model--much as old police cars are auctioned off for cash...Thousands of these castoff guns have turned up in crimes, such as last week's shooting rampage in Los Angeles by neo-Nazi Buford O. Furrow Jr...[T]he confessed killer allegedly murdered a mailman of Filipino descent with a Glock 26 pistol......But it wasn't an isolated incident. Data obtained by The Wall Street Journal under the Freedom of Information Act show that at least 1,100 former police guns were among the 193,203 crime guns traced last year by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Because of inconsistencies in how the agency compiles gun-trace data, any such annual count of former police guns connected to crime "probably represents the tip of the iceberg," says Howard Andrews, a Columbia University bio-statistician who assisted the Journal in its analysis...."

Roll Call Jim VandeHei 8/15/99 "...The National Rifle Association is under fire for its lobbying tactics, but, this time, the shots are coming from Republicans and other pro-gun activists. The NRA, easily the largest and most influential gun-rights lobby in America, has been too quick to compromise and too slow to mobilize its troops to defeat anti-gun legislation in the House and the Senate, GOP leadership sources and gun activists say. As a result, several sources warned that the NRA has presented anti-gun Democrats with the perfect opportunity to score a major political victory next month when key Members of the House and the Senate convene to put the finishing touches on the juvenile justice bill, which is expected to include the first new collection of gun laws since 1994...."

AP 8/15/99 "...Attorney General Janet Reno wants a requirement that prospective gun buyers be required to prove they have the knowledge, ability and inclination to use weapons safely and legally. ``I'd have them take a written and manual test demonstrating that they know how to safely and ... to lawfully use it under state law,'' the attorney general said Sunday on CNN's ``Late Edition'' program. ``And I would have a background check that would make sure they had evidenced the willingness and capacity to do so.''..."

Jewish World Review 8/17/99 Debbie Schlussel "…SURE, IT’S A TRAGEDY that Buford O. Furrow’s bullets struck human flesh at a North Los Angeles area Jewish Community Center (JCC). The shooter said he wanted to sound a "wake up call to America to kill Jews." But what may be an even greater horror is that Jewish and other political leaders — such as the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman and President Clinton — are using this tragedy — using Jewish blood — to advance a political agenda with the goal of stripping our freedom and Second Amendment right to self-defense. The fact is, Furrow was hell-bent on rampaging. He scouted out no less than three other Jewish institutions before settling on the JCC. There was one and only one reason he decided against the other sites: Armed personnel or security made his entry unfeasible. The saying, "the best offense is a good defense," is not just a football slogan. It also applies to saving human lives. But Foxman and Clinton want to take that right — the right to self-defense — away from us, the law-abiding citizens. They want to hand victory to Furrow from the jaws of defeat. .Contrary to Foxman’s and Clinton’s ill logic, if we are to ever restore peace to our streets, the right to keep and bear arms must be fully restored, not further restricted…..My grandfather told me about how the renowned Zionist leader, Vladimir "Ze’ev" Jabotinsky, who had emigrated to Israel, visited Nazi Europe just prior to the advent of the concentration camps and witnessed the anti-Semitism that was building throughout. In Yiddish, he warned, "Yiddin, learn tzoo shissin!"—"Jews, learn to shoot!" And he told Jews to get guns— the only way to protect themselves. Though the Jewish underground agreed with Mr. Jabotinsky that guns were the only way they could protect themselves from the Nazis, they did not have access to guns and — though their efforts were valiant — they failed --- six million Jews, and eleven million human lives, having perished at the fate of the Nazis. When Mr. Jabotinsky returned, he lamented that Jewish efforts to learn to shoot and to obtain guns were too little too late….."
ABC 8/18/99 Freeper commish reports "…Last night on the ABC game show "So you want to be a millionaire" they had a contestant who won $16,000 - she was unable to answer the following question to win $32,000 WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING IS NOT A PART OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION A. RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE B. RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS C. RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH D. RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF RELIGION ….Here is the kicker - the person who could not answer this question is a HISTORY PROFESSOR at Kennesaw State College in KENNESAW, GA !!!!!! For those of you who don't know - Kennesaw was the first city in the USA to REQUIRE all homeowners to OWN at least One FIREARM - It also has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation, and has not had a Gun related murder in years! …"

Newsweek 8/23/99 Wayne LaPierre Interview "…LaPierre: People believe they have a constitutional right and a freedom to own guns in this country. And they don't want their names on government lists. They know what the next step is. It's a knock on the door confiscating their guns. And, you know, they're not going to stand in line and submit to that. What purpose is there for the government to compile a list of who has guns in their homes in this country? Why does Janet Reno need a list? Newsweek: Why do you think they want to do it? LaPierre: I think the real target is the Second Amendment. I don't think it has anything to do with crime. I don't think it has anything to do with stopping violence. I think the ultimate target is to take away the freedom and take away the Second Amendment. …"

USA Today 8/27/99 Tony Mauro "…Publication of the first volume of a revised edition of a legal treatise would not ordinarily make news. But even before it began arriving at law schools last week, Laurence Tribe's American Constitutional Law was causing a stir. Tribe, a Harvard law professor who is probably the most influential living American constitutional scholar, says he has already gotten hate mail about his new interpretation of the right to bear arms contained in the Second Amendment. Relegated to a footnote in the first edition of the book in 1978, the right to bear arms earns Tribe's respect in the latest version. Tribe, well-known as a liberal scholar, concludes that the right to bear arms was conceived as an important political right that should not be dismissed as "wholly irrelevant." Rather, Tribe thinks the Second Amendment assures that "the federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification." Tribe posits that it includes an individual right, "admittedly of uncertain scope," to "possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes." None of Tribe's new thinking changes his view that gun-control measures are "plainly constitutional," but his shift has been enough to anger gun-control advocates. "I've gotten an avalanche of angry mail from apparent liberals who said, 'How could you?'" Tribe says. "But as someone who takes the Constitution seriously, I thought I had a responsibility to see what the Second Amendment says, and how it fits." Tribe's views on the Constitution are of more than passing importance. Earlier editions of Tribe's treatise have been quoted more than 50 times in Supreme Court opinions - by liberal and conservative justices - and by the top courts of India, Germany, Russia and Canada, among others…."

The Claremont Institute 8/20/99 Larry Arnn "…In a Los Angeles suburb last week, another wicked act of violence against innocent children made national news. The response from political leaders and pundits has been predictable, and in many ways regrettable. Every demagogue in the country took to the airwaves and waved the bloody shirt, fulminating against the scourge of guns and declaiming the urgent need for special laws against crimes motivated by hatred. They turn too quickly from the suffering of these children and their parents to the political agendas which they hold most dear….. As to the first, it is important that Mr. Furrow, like the boys of Littleton, Colorado, broke existing firearms laws. Neither would have had the guns they did have, if those laws had been enforced. Instead of enforcing those already on the books, which applied very well to the circumstances of the tragedies in question, we propose instead to pass new laws that have little or nothing to do with those circumstances. This will not be effective. As to the second, "hate crimes" legislation, it is important that Mr. Furrow, and the boys in Littleton, Colorado, both committed capital crimes. By those acts they made themselves subject to the most severe penalties that the law can impose, unless we resurrect the practice of torture. It will add nothing to their punishment to convict them of a new crime based upon the "bias" they showed in the selection of their victims. Moreover, if we add to murder prosecutions the new element of "bias" or "hate" against certain groups, we make the implication that it is worse to murder one person, than it is to murder another, worse to shoot one child, than it is to shoot another. This is not good doctrine. Children who do not fit the selected groups will wonder what this means for them. And they may be subject to greater danger…."

BBC 8/24/99 "…Nato troops have warned Serbs in southern Kosovo that they must hand in their weapons or face arrest. Soldiers from the Dutch peace-keeping contingent in Orahovac have threatened to carry out house-to-house searches to find arms. They are reported to have obtained local police lists of Serbs with weapons…."

Conservative News Service 9/7/99 Ben Anderson "....More than 2,000 rank-and-file law enforcement agents from across the country are taking President Bill Clinton to task over what they say is a continued effort to exploit police officers while pushing an anti-gun agenda. The officers are also unhappy with Clinton's record on enforcing the law, citing a 46 percent drop in criminal prosecutions since Attorney General Janet Reno took control of the Department of Justice. The Law Enforcement Alliance of America will launch an ad campaign on Thursday opposing the president, congressional Democrats and other gun control advocates. "This president, almost on a daily basis, exploits the rank-and-file of the law enforcement community to further his anti-gun agenda, yet his own administration has a reprehensible record of prosecuting criminals who violate the laws already on the books," said Jim Fortiss, executive director of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America. "It is an insult to the injured and maimed police officers and all in law enforcement who risk their lives on a daily basis to even consider more gun legislation, not to mention releasing convicted terrorists for politically motivated reasons," Fortiss said....."

NewsMax 9/7/99 Martin Fackler, MD '...Scientists who allow their intellect to be misled by their emotions fall into the trap of fooling themselves into isolating their preconceived strongly held desires and opinions from contradictory facts. When scientists allow themselves to be drawn into political agendas their heretofore rigorous scientific method is often replaced by a frenzy of fanaticism. Are they fooling themselves, or is this conscious fraud?. Distinguishing fraud from ignorance is often impossible, but whatever the motivation, the effect of the misinformation is equally deleterious. The public is most easily misled by political propaganda from highly respected sources. An extensive, carefully documented study by Kates DB, Schaffer HE, Lattimer JK, Murray GB, Cassem EH., Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda? published in the Tennessee Law Review in 1995 (62(3):513-596)* tells a sad and shocking story. In the late 1970s, physicians from the American public health community apparently saw the opportunity for publicity (which helps to obtain funding) in the emotionally charged way the media presents, and dwells upon, violence involving firearms. Despite lacking expertise about firearms and their effects, and ignoring that crime (with or without guns) is clearly in the purview of the criminologist, these physicians declared gun violence an "epidemic," and entered into a campaign to remove firearms from the hands of the citizens of the United States. To further this goal, these physicians allied themselves with anti-gun political lobbying organizations. Medical journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) became willing partners in this anti-gun advocacy. Most distressingly, the taxpayer-funded Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also joined this medical anti-gun political cabal. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the resulting public health anti-gun advocacy literature is emotionally driven and lacks scholarly detachment. Prominent "researchers" openly admit an overwhelming "hate" of firearms - yet, contrary to the basic tenets of scientific method, they continue to do "research" on a subject about which their "hate" precludes rational evaluation. .."

NY Times 9/7/99 Fox Butterfield "…In Baltimore, Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier has made going after guns rather than drugs his No. 1 priority, reversing longstanding policy. In Louisville, Ky., in a state with a strong gun culture, Police Chief Eugene Sherrard recently joined a federal program that seeks to trace all guns seized in crimes, in an effort to cut off the flow of weapons from corrupt gun dealers to criminals and juveniles. In Minneapolis, to discourage drug dealers and others with criminal backgrounds from carrying guns, Police Chief Robert K. Olson has his officers use routine traffic stops for minor violations to search for weapons. Those actions are part of a little-publicized change on the part of police executives across the nation. As Americans debate gun control, those officials, in cities large and small, have made it a major element of crime control, and have also emerged as an important voice pushing for new federal and state gun-control laws…."

AP 9/7/99 Chris Newton "…. A judge's landmark ruling that the Second Amendment gives individuals, and not just militias, the right to bear arms has touched off a furious debate among constitutional scholars that could go all the way to the Supreme Court….. U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings dismissed the charges in April, declaring the law unconstitutional based on a "historical examination of the right to bear arms, from English antecedents to the drafting of the Second Amendment.'' Cummings said the right to bear arms is a protected individual right - and not just a right belonging to a militia, as federal prosecutors had argued. It is believed to the first decision in which a judge specifically called a law unconstitutional because it infringed on an individual's Second Amendment rights ……"That decision and the opinion were a major shot across the bow,'' said Bruce Hay, a Harvard law professor who signed the brief. "For the most part, federal courts have taken a hands-off approach to federal statutes regulating use of guns. This is the first decision to say the Second Amendment prohibits Congress from imposing special laws concerning gun ownership. That is why his decision is so worrisome.'' …..The brief accuses the judge of misinterpreting the Second Amendment, which Yassky writes was meant to "preserve organized, state-based militias,'' and not intended to "empower individuals or small groups of disaffected citizens to take up arms against the established order.'' …..Scott Powe, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas, disputed Yassky's position, and charged that only three of the co-signers of the brief were "serious'' constitutional law scholars. "The brief is seeking to suck the meaning out of the words `the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,''' Powe said. "The meaning is clear. It couldn't be more clear.'' ……One expert who does not fit easily into either camp is Laurence Tribe, the liberal Harvard law professor. Tribe's recently published text, "American Constitutional Law,'' concludes that the Second Amendment assures that "the federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification.'' His position has provoked gun-control advocates, and he says he has received "an avalanche of angry mail from apparent liberals.'' …."

Knight Ridder Newspapers 9/6/99 Chris Mondics "…Every day, a computer at the sprawling FBI crime information center in rural West Virginia kicks out the names of 100 or more convicted felons and others who, though barred by law from owning a gun, tried to buy one anyway by lying on their firearms applications. In most instances, the federal government knows where to find these gun law violators, and has in its possession evidence that could lead to convictions. But this is one gun law the government rarely enforces. Of the 23,000-plus cases referred by the FBI to the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for potential prosecution since the beginning of the year, only 65 people have been arrested, according to the ATF. The Clinton administration says it doesn't have the staff to make many arrests and is focusing on more serious crimes, and that assertion has triggered a storm of criticism from Republicans and pro-gun groups. …It takes a lot of nerve to bang your fist and demand tougher juvenile gun laws while doing nothing to enforce the ones that already exist," said U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., a former federal prosecutor who has held hearings on the issue. "I must point out that doubling the size of the criminal code will not matter if the Clinton-Gore administration refuses to vigorously enforce these laws." …."

USA TODAY 8/31/99 Staff Sgt. Fulton J. Waterloo "…As an adjunct professor of American history and a member of the Maryland Army National Guard, I must comment on the "collective right" theory of the Second Amendment (The War Over Guns: Testing the right `to keep and bear arms,'" Cover Story, News, Friday). Our nation's Founders disagreed on almost every article and section of the Constitution. However, I made a standing bet with my students: I would buy dinner for any student who found a single explicit quote by a "Founder" who believed that the Second Amendment applied ONLY to the state militias. "Founders" included any singer of the Declaration of Independence or of the Constitution or any member of any state convention that ratified the Constitution - a group numbering in the hundreds. I never bought that dinner. This clear consensus will be ignored by the "collective right" theorists, who will not allow the Constitution to interfere with their agenda. In the historical profession, this is called "bass-ackwards" reasoning. A "historian" with a set interpretation will selectively utilize, distort or even manufacture evidence to arrive at a predetermined conclusion. I would like to close with a disturbing observation. Professor Laurence Tribe, as USA TODAY points out, has received hate mail for defending the individual's right to bear arms. Tribe's "sin," in the eyes of the left, appears to be intellectual honesty (Scholar's views on arms rights anger liberals," News, Friday)….."

USA Today 8/29/99 Tony Mauro "…Publication of the first volume of a revised edition of a legal treatise would not ordinarily make news. But even before it began arriving at law schools last week, Laurence Tribe's American Constitutional Law was causing a stir. Tribe, a Harvard law professor who is probably the most influential living American constitutional scholar, says he has already gotten hate mail about his new interpretation of the right to bear arms contained in the Second Amendment. Relegated to a footnote in the first edition of the book in 1978, the right to bear arms earns Tribe's respect in the latest version. Tribe, well-known as a liberal scholar, concludes that the right to bear arms was conceived as an important political right that should not be dismissed as "wholly irrelevant." Rather, Tribe thinks the Second Amendment assures that "the federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification."…."

"Section 1. The Second, Ninth and 10th Amendments are hereby repealed.

"Section 2. The 'right of the people to keep and bear arms' is hereby denied.

"Section 3. The unenumerated rights retained by the people shall not include self-defense. The people shall have only such rights as the federal government chooses to grant them.

"Section 4. The powers of the federal government are not limited to those delegated by, and enumerated in, the Constitution.

"Section 5. The federal government may assume such powers as it deems appropriate for the general welfare of the United States. No powers are reserved to the several states or to the people.

"Section 6. The president shall have power to make war without consulting Congress, and to assume emergency powers when he declares an emergency to exist.

"Section 7. The courts of the United States shall have power to nullify any state or local law."

CNSNews.com 8/30/99 Bruce Sullivan "….A new study shows that there has been a steady decline during the Clinton administration of federal prosecutions of firearms-related criminal cases. The study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University said that the number of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) cases referred to federal prosecutors has decreased 44 percent since 1992. According to records, most ATF referrals involve alleged weapons violations. The study may indicate, as opponents of new gun control laws have pointed out, that federal authorities are not doing enough to enforce existing gun laws. "We do not lack for laws. We lack for enforcement of laws," said National Rifle Association (NRA) President Charlton Heston when informed of the TRAC study…."

The Orlando Sentinel 6/21/99 Charley Reese "…The argument over gun-control measures is an argument over how many restrictions will be placed on the rights of honest citizens. The argument has nothing to do with the National Rifle Association. The neo-totalitarians in America are nothing if not unoriginal. They follow a fixed pattern. They create a straw man, demonize the straw man, then frame the argument as a contest between good and the evil demon. In the case of gun control, the NRA is the designated demon. In the case of the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia, the designated demon was Slobodan Milosevic. The NRA is one of America's oldest organizations, but it never intended to be a "gun lobby." That role was forced on the organization when politicians, beginning in the fatal 1960s, embarked on the continuing effort to disarm the American people. The NRA was created in the 19th century by National Guardsmen for the purpose of encouraging marksmanship and gun safety. Its main functions today remain just that. The bulk of its resources are devoted to sports shooting, gun safety, collecting and hunting. The purpose of demonization is to avoid an honest debate. Instead of proving the benefits of proposed gun-control legislation, gun-control enthusiasts simply assert that there are benefits and that only the evil NRA and its puppets oppose the bills. It is a handy technique when neither facts nor logic is on your side. Of course, unsaid by the neo-totalitarians, is that, even as a lobby, the NRA is way down on the list of lobbies both in terms of its influence and in terms of the amount of money devoted to lobbying. But, as part of the demonization, it is made out to be more powerful than itreally is…."

Jewish World Review 9/3/99 Michelle Malkin "…WHEN IT COMES to talking about guns, responsible women should adopt Johnson & Johnson's Baby Shampoo pledge: No more tears. No more mom-in-tennis-shoes proselytizing. No more irrational NRA-bashing. No more maudlin sermons. Alas, the sopping feminization of political debate continues to drown out sober analysis of gun-control laws. In the wake of the Los Angeles-area day care shooting, serious academic research is once again taking a back seat to sensational self-flagellation... "

Inside Politics (Washington Times) 9/3/99 Greg Pierce "…Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, the Mafia turncoat, was asked about gun control in an interview in Vanity Fair. "Gun control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters," Gravano said. "I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You will pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins."

Freeper Howie 9/9/99 "….According to Clinton, almost a half million felons have committed another felony by trying to buy a gun since the Brady Bill was enacted. Less than a dozen have been prosecuted, yet millions of dollars and several lives were spent to attack the Branch Davidians for essentially commiting the same sin. (breaking some gun law)WHY? …."

Intellectual Capital [www.intellectualcapital.com] 9/2/99 K Daniel Glover "…Such tongue-lashings may be justified at times. But simplistic labeling -- a la "the liberal media crucified Newt Gingrich" or "the right-wing press is out to get President Clinton" -- misses the point. Readily apparent media bias is not the problem; even casual readers recognize it and filter it as they see fit. The subtle partiality that lurks beneath the journalistic surface is far more dangerous……. University of Michigan graduate Brian A. Patrick made those dangers abundantly clear earlier this year in an intriguing, albeit dry, doctoral dissertation examining coverage of the National Rifle Association (NRA). The underlying point of Patrick's thesis, which examined NRA coverage in what he called "the elite press of the nation" -- The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor and the Los Angeles Times -- is that the NRA actually benefits from bias against it by gaining new members….."

Yahoo News (Reuters) 9/9/99 "…President Clinton will unveil Thursday a plan to provide $14 million in grants to police and local officials to buy back and destroy up to 280,000 guns across the country, the Los Angeles Times said. The paper said the finance, to be supplied by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), would represent the federal government's largest effort to buy firearms now in private hands. …. Since some cities have drawn fire for reselling guns purchased in buyback programs, the HUD initiative will require municipalities to destroy those weapons bought back. Only stolen guns, which will be returned to their owners, and guns needed for police inquiries will be exempt. …."

Rocky Mountain News, Denver Post 9/9/99 "….Denver Mayor Wellington Webb challenged Congress on Wednesday to cut the nation's death toll from gun violence by enacting reasonable new laws. Webb, the newly installed president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, presented a report on 556 people in 44 U.S. cities who have been shot to death since April 20 -- the day 15 died at Columbine High School. "There's more room to add more names," he said, pointing at the long rows of names printed on cardboard placards during a news conference. "And more names will be added." Webb this week is leading a delegation of mayors, police chiefs and church leaders in a last-ditch push to lobby Congress for stricter gun laws. …….Bill Powers, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association, described the event as another Democratic "media circus" and called on President Clinton to start enforcing current laws instead of trying to create additional statutes. ……."

WorldNetDaily 9/9/99 Jon Dougherty "….It's taken nearly seven years, but it looks as though -- finally -- rank and file cops are ready to publicly call Clinton the hypocrite he is regarding law enforcement and gun control. According to an article in Capitol Hill Blue Sept. 8, the Law Enforcement Alliance of America is preparing to launch an ad campaign (today) decrying Clinton's hypocrisy and informing Americans that, among other things, Clinton's "Justice" Department has had a 46 percent drop in prosecutions since Attorney General Janet Reno took over. Specifically, the LEAA's campaign will oppose "the president, congressional Democrats and other gun control advocates." Jim Fortiss, executive director of the 65,000-member strong LEAA, said that Clinton "almost on a daily basis, exploits the rank-and-file of the law enforcement community to further his anti-gun agenda, yet his own administration has a reprehensible record of prosecuting criminals who violate the laws already on the books."

"It is an insult to the injured and maimed police officers and all in law enforcement who risk their lives on a daily basis to even consider more gun legislation, not to mention releasing convicted terrorists for politically motivated reasons," he added. Amen. How many times have we heard this? And yet -- to hear Clinton, Democrats and the mainstream media tell it -- all cops hate guns and those who own them. That's just garbage….."

The Detroit Free Press 9/10/99 MELANIE EVERSLEY and SUZETTE HACKNEY "…Detroit's rising homicide rate has attracted the attention of the nation's top law enforcement officer. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno is coming to town, where she plans to meet with Detroit officials to see what she can do to help. No date has been set. …… "She's coming to the city to meet with those of us who want to attack this problem of homicides," Archer said as he and Napoleon left the White House. Representatives of the Drug Enforcement Agency along with Saul Green, the U.S. attorney in Detroit, will be part of the meeting, as will Napoleon and other officials. "We might be able to wind up with some extra tools to attack the problem," Archer said. "It might involve some money, and if it does, we look forward to accepting it." …… Usually when a city experiences such an increase in homicides, it has to do with gang or drug activity, said James Copple, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the National Crime Prevention Council, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. Measures such as restricting access to guns can help, Copple said. In fact, his group sees gun access as the single biggest contributing factor to urban homicide. ….."

New York Times 9/10/99 Eric Schmitt "….Stepping up the federal government's fight against gun violence, President Clinton on Thursday announced a $15 million program to buy back firearms from private owners.

Under the first federal effort of its kind, the Department of Housing and Urban Development would provide grants of up to $500,000 to police departments around the country to buy back and destroy as many as 300,000 weapons, mainly in and around public housing projects. The department is suggesting that authorities offer $50 per gun, either in cash, food, gift certificates, toys or tickets to sporting events. Clinton's announcement capped a day-long rally and lobbying push here by scores of mayors, police chiefs, religious leaders and other local officials who favor tighter gun controls. "Every gun turned in through a buy-back program means potentially one less tragedy," Clinton said at a White House ceremony where he was flanked by mayors and uniformed police chiefs…..Despite the anecdotal evidence, there is no definitive analysis to support that buying back firearms reduces gun violence or crime. As a result, the housing department plans to conduct a $1 million study of gun buy-back plans, including its own. Opponents argue that gun buy-backs are largely a cosmetic effort in a nation awash with more than 200 million firearms. Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, said that if the administration was serious about combatting gun crimes, it would spend the $15 million on hiring new prosecutors and prosecuting felons. "People have a right to do what they want with their own personal property," said LaPierre, who said the NRA does not oppose gun buy-backs. "But this is nothing more than a public relations gesture that means nothing to drug dealers killing people." …."

The Ayn Rand Institute 9/10/99 Andrew Bernstein "…While President Clinton’s recent recommendations for tighter gun-controls met with general approval, his move to pardon FALN terrorists is encountering widespread criticism. Yet the two proposals stem from the same mistaken belief — i.e., that the fundamental cause of any crime is the weapon used, not the person using it. Clinton endorses measures such as a requirement that all guns in the home be locked up, and a mandatory waiting period for buying a gun, even after a check of the purchaser’s records shows no criminal history. Why? Although it is true that guns can be used for crime, so can almost anything else. The overwhelming majority of gun owners are not criminals. A private individual’s possession of a gun — unlike, say, his possession of a cruise missile — may serve a perfectly legitimate purpose. People use guns for hunting, collecting and — most important — self-defense against criminals. Why should such valid activities be punishable by law? …… What explains Clinton’s attempts to restrict innocent gun owners w hile pardoning terrorists? Why is he so hostile toward guns, yet so accommodating toward actual criminals? The answer is he believes that guns or bombs, rather than the character of those who use them, are responsible for the criminal act. From this it follows that guns should be banned while perpetrators should be pardoned. Such twisted logic results in policies that consistently aid the guilty and harm the innocent…… This consequence of abetting criminals while harming the innocent is a hallmark of many of Clinton’s policies. Saddam Hussein, for example, is allowed to continue his reign in Baghdad, with his capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction unchecked. The Chinese dictatorship — which openly considers America its primary enemy, steals U.S. nuclear secrets and threatens military action against a free Taiwan — is appeased by Clinton with most-favored-nation status. The terrorist Osama bin Laden, who was involved in the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, is still free more than a year later. It is only the American citizen, seeking a gun for self-protection, who is the target of a serious crackdown by our government….."

Denver Rocky Mountain News 9/11/99 Michael Romano "….Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell will rejoin the National Rifle Association -- five years after quitting the group in disgust over what he considered its take-no-prisoners political tactics. Campbell said current efforts to restrict the constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms far outweighs past concerns over the hardball lobbying tactics of the NRA, one of the most feared and effective special-interest groups in America...."

LA Times 9/15/99 Monte Morin "....Officials had to renege on promise of amnesty from prosecution after learning it would be illegal. Number of weapons turned in falls short of goal. They aimed to collect weapons from local ne'er-do-wells and gunslingers Saturday, but in the end, Compton city officials shot themselves--figuratively, at least--in the foot. A heavily advertised gun buyback program at City Hall turned awkward when officials reneged on promises of immediate cash and amnesty from criminal prosecution. Even promised refreshments failed to materialize. Gun-toting participants from as far away as Irvine crowded the exchange table, but tempers began to rise as city spokesman Frank K. Wheaton said donors would have to supply not only their names and addresses, but also a thumbprint. The guns would also be checked for past criminal involvement, said the city's acting police chief. "This isn't what was advertised," said an irritated Yolanda Latham, 32, of Compton. She and her husband, Bernard, 36, had come to exchange two aging shotguns. "Now they tell us they want fingerprints? I don't think this is legal." In fact, what was illegal was the city's initial plan to offer gun donors amnesty--a promise that was repeated throughout the week on radio news broadcasts, in news releases and on posters....."

Denver Rocky Mountain News 9/16/99 Carla Crowder "... Gun buybacks are public relations fluff that do little or nothing to reduce gun violence, according to several researchers. President Clinton last week announced the largest buyback in U.S. history with plans to spend $15 million on used guns. It's part of Clinton's effort to curb youth violence in the wake of the Columbine High shootings. "Pretty much, globally, across the board, all of the research shows they're ineffective," said Tonya Aultman-Bettridge, a researcher with the University of Colorado's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. CU researchers reviewed two buybacks, in St. Louis and Seattle. Interviews found that young men, who as a group commit the most gun crime, did not participate. The people getting rid of their guns were older men and women. "You may have a 60-year-old man who's had a gun sitting in the back of his closet for the last 40 years. It either doesn't work or it's old," Aultman-Bettridge said. Or, the sellers have other guns at home, and just bring in the broken one. ...."

Denver Post 9/16/99 Bill McAllister "....Opponents of post-Columbine gun-control measures rolled out a new star Wednesday in their fight against proposed legislation. Rick Castaldo and son Richard - a wounded Columbine High student - appeared at a Capitol Hill news conference where Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch denounced the Clinton administration for failing to enforce existing gun laws. "Passing any law will not stop any criminal from getting a gun if he knows the violation won't be prosecuted,'' Rick Castaldo told reporters. His teenage son was shot several times during the April 20 rampage and remains paralyzed from the chest down Hatch, seeking the GOP presidential nomination, released a committee staff report that said federal gun prosecutions dropped from 7,048 in 1992 under then President George Bush to 3,807 last year. ...."

Los Angeles Times 9/16/99 Shawn Hubler "....One day you're an actor with large hands and a gun collection, the next you're the president of the National Rifle Assn. in a metropolis where even the top police chief has gone anti-gun. Still, you have to admire Heston-he's a trouper, arguing away when most advocates would be as tuckered out as a spent cartridge. Maybe that's why, its chief notwithstanding, the LAPD can't shake its fondness for guys like him. How else to explain the LAPD Police Reserve Foundation's decision to let the head of a group denounced by their own police chief chair their fund-raising banquet tomorrow night? That's right. In the strange bedfellows category, enter this tidbit: Of all the marquee names in all of Southern California, the Los Angeles Police Reserve Foundation has, for its first--ever benefit, chosen a guy who defends cop-killer bullets and whose group has derided federal law enforcement as "Gestapo" and "jackbooted thugs." A guy who has fought the closure of gun law loopholes that leave cops perpetually outgunned. A guy who, in the words of LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks, is at the helm of a movement that is "peddling something that is far more dangerous than other special interest groups, and hiding behind a constitutional issue that I don't think exists." The flap over the reserve gala--even in the hands of a seasoned media whipper-upper--is only a footnote in this season of firearm anxiety. But it does say something, both about rank-and-file law enforcement and about the way celebrity trumps politics, especially in Los Angeles. Asked why Heston was chosen from among 25 celebrity candidates as the front man for Friday's event at the Universal City Hilton, the hired promoter, Bill York, had this only-in-L.A. explanation: "To tell the truth, I was unaware until after he accepted that he was the head of the NRA." ...."

AP 9/16/99 "...A steep decline in federal gun prosecutions during the Clinton administration shows Clinton is ``soft on crime,'' the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said. A Justice Department official said that federal authorities are working with states to lock up gun criminals and more gun cases, state and federal, are going to court. Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who is running for president, released a Judiciary Committee staff report Wednesday that said federal gun prosecutions dropped from 7,048 in 1992, when George Bush was president, to 3,807 last year. ``It's nice to mouth off about gun control, but we've got lots of laws on the books that aren't being enforced,'' Hatch said at a news conference that also included one of the students injured during the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colo. ``Passing any law will not stop any criminal from getting a gun if he knows the violation won't be prosecuted,'' said Rick Castaldo, whose son, Rich, was shot eight times and paralyzed. ...."

AP 9/16/99 Michelle Mittelstadt "....Lamenting the latest mass shooting in the United States, Attorney General Janet Reno said today Americans must look hard at the issue of "how we handle guns, of how we deal with mental illness, of how we deal with hate." Reno, discussing the killing rampage Wednesday night at a Baptist church in Fort Worth, Texas, said, ``The thought of gunfire in a place of worship should be inconceivable. But for families, for others last night, the inconceivable became a reality.'' ...... "I would hope that people would look, not just at what handguns have done to America this year, not in the context of this case, but what handguns have done to America over the last many years,'' Reno said, ``and that this nation would listen to its people who again and again cry out for ... asking government to make sure that we take reasonable steps to ensure that guns are not placed in the hands of people who are not lawfully entitled to have them.'' ..."

Texas Dept Of Public Safety 9/17/99 http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/faq.htm "Handguns and other weapons can not be carried at schools or on school buses, at polling places, in courts and court offices, at racetracks and at secured airport areas. The law also specifically prohibits handguns from businesses where alcohol is sold if more than half of their revenue is from the sale of alcohol for on-premises consumption, and from locations where high school, college or professional sporting events are taking place. You may not carry handguns in hospitals or nursing homes, amusement parks, places of worship or at government meetings if signs are posted prohibiting them. Businesses also may post signs prohibiting handguns on their premises based on criminal trespass laws." "If you want to prohibit license holders from carrying concealed handguns on your property, state law requires you to post a sign that says: "Pursuant to Section 30.06, Penal Code (trespass by holder of license to carry a concealed handgun), a person licensed under Article 4413(29ee), Revised Statutes (concealed handgun law), may not enter this property with a concealed handgun." The sign must be written in both English and Spanish in contrasting block letters at least one inch in height, and must be displayed in a conspicuous manner clearly visible to the public." ..."

Washington Times 9/17/99 Wesley Pruden "....Let's see who we can blame now. Bill Clinton, who cut short his trip to New Zealand only to be cheated out of an opportunity to be photographed feeling somebody's pain in the wake of Hurricane Floyd, imagines he can exploit the tragedy in Fort Worth to bullyrag Congress into enacting more useless gun laws. "Yet again, we have seen a sanctuary violated by gun violence, taking children brimming with faith and promise and hope before their time." Naturally this underscores a need to enact more feel-good laws.....Ron Fornier of the Associated Press wants to blame George W. Bush: "The shooting posed a potential political problem for the two-term governor who signed a 1995 law allowing Texans to carry concealed weapons with a permit," he writes, quoting only himself. "Democrats have questioned his commitment to federal and state efforts to require background checks at gun shows . . . Yet he didn't budge from his belief that new anti-gun laws are not the answer." The Fort Worth gunman did not, in fact, have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, making the concealed-weapon law irrelevant. But when we're in the hysterical mode hysteria is all that counts....."

NRA Fax Alert 9/10/99 ".... Showing honesty and common sense that is far too rare among NRA's critics in Hollywood, actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, star of the hit TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer of the Warner Brothers Network, refused to blame firearms for the tragedy at Columbine High School in April of this year. In an interview published in the October 1999 issue of Teen People, Ms. Gellar, whom the magazine described as "the WB's hottest star," admits she "grew up around guns." She also said that she was taught not to touch them as a child. At the same time, she admits that it is impossible to fully comprehend what can lead to this sort of tragedy....."

Yahoo News 9/19/99 Reuters ".....President Clinton said Saturday the National Rifle Association and its supporters must assume more responsibility for the mass killings across the United States in recent years. The most recent shooting was Wednesday, when a lone gunman killed seven people and himself in a Fort Worth, Texas Baptist church. The attack sparked more calls by Clinton and gun-control advocates for tougher limits on the purchase of firearms. Officials of the NRA and its many supporters across the country and on Capitol Hill say mass killings will fall if the federal government would enforce existing gun laws more strictly...."

Associated Press 9/18/99 Arlene Levinson Rex Huppke ".... If you visited this central Indiana town -- if you chatted with folks who live in the Whitcomb Meadows subdivision, or ate at the Riley House Restaurant on West Main Street -- you probably would not see the guns. But they're there: in safes at home, under seats of cars, in bedroom closets. How many? No one knows. Police Capt. Danny Harrison's best guess is that there are firearms in two out of every three homes in greater Greenfield. That's roughly twice the ratio reported in a national survey released two years ago. Don't get the wrong idea, Hancock County Sheriff Nick Gulling says. Greenfield is ``not a gun-totin' town,'' full of Western bravado. Sure, he says, there are ``a lot of people who carry them that don't need to.'' They keep them for protection, even though they claim that most of the outlaws are 20 miles farther west, in Indianapolis. But they keep them for other reasons, as well. Guns for hunting. Guns for business. For family. For history. For the sensual pleasure of pearl handles, metal barrels, curly maple stock In that way, Greenfield is not unlike much of the rest of America. Yes, there is a criminal gun culture that sprays blood across the front pages. But there is also a law-abiding gun culture, woven deep in the heart of the heartland. ``Gun ownership goes with being close to rural life, whether it's your personal history, or where you live,'' says Philip Cook, a professor of public policy at Duke University. ....."

Denver Post 9/18/99 Bill McAllister Mike Soraghan "....It seems inevitable that the shooting rampage at a Baptist church in Texas will become the latest round of ammunition in a debate about guns that has ratcheted up with each deadly shooting this year. But not right away. Advocacy groups on both sides of the gun issue kept a low profile this week, waiting for details to emerge from Fort Worth. "Unfortunately, this is getting to be a ritual,'' said Joe Sudbuy, spokesman for Handgun Control Inc. in Washington. He said the group lays low out of respect for victims and families. ......Charlton Heston explained why the NRA is silent after such tragedies. "When an isolated, terrible event occurs, our phones ring demanding that the NRA explain the inexplicable,'' Heston told the crowd. "Why us? Because the story needs a villain. . . . Simply being silent is so often the right thing to do.'' After the speech and as Congress prepared to debate gun control measures, the NRA started talking more about Columbine. On Wednesday, for instance, the group posted a short item noting that Columbine survivor Rich Castaldo and his dad joined Sen. Orrin Hatch in calling for more vigorous enforcement of existing gun laws. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners is not as quiet. The group, which bills itself as Colorado's only "no-compromise'' gun lobby, was the only pro-gun group to issue a news release April 20. The group's chairman, Damien Veatch, said the Columbine shootings showed that concealed weapons should be allowed at schools so teachers could shoot back at intruders. Joe Velleco, spokesman for Gun Owners of America, parent of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, said his group will react to media calls, but it does little else after a mass shooting such as in Fort Worth. "Obviously the other side can obtain a great deal of sympathy at a time like this,'' Velleco said. "But there is nothing that any of the proposals before Congress could have done to have prevented this.'' ....Velleco also followed the tack that the Wednesday night shootings in Fort Worth might have been cut short if someone had pulled a gun and shot the gunman. "It might have had a different outcome if he had met with armed resistance,'' Velleco said....."

washington post 9/18/99 "....``Of course something horrible happened to that man's heart when he walked into that church in Texas. But we cannot use that as an excuse,'' Clinton said. He asserted that the solution is a sharing of responsibility and a refusal to duck facts, not a search for scapegoats or an attempt to blame all gun murders simply on human evil. ``The NRA (National Rifle Association) and that crowd has got to stop using arguments like this to avoid facing our shared responsibility,'' the president said. He said tragedies such as this year's spate of school shootings and the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City has made the search for answers imperative. ``I think the killing of innocent people en masse in America has been the most painful thing that (the vice president ) and I and our families have had to endure in discharging our duties for America,'' Clinton said...."

Reuters 9/19/99 "....President Clinton said Saturday the National Rifle Association and its supporters must assume more responsibility for the mass killings across the United States in recent years. The most recent shooting was Wednesday, when a lone gunman killed seven people and himself in a Fort Worth, Texas Baptist church. The attack sparked more calls by Clinton and gun-control advocates for tougher limits on the purchase of firearms. Officials of the NRA and its many supporters across the country and on Capitol Hill say mass killings will fall if the federal government would enforce existing gun laws more strictly. During a speech to the annual dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus, Clinton said: "The NRA and that crowd have to stop using arguments like this as an excuse to avoid our shared responsibility" to end the killings. ....."

New York Times News Service via St. Louis Post-Dispatch 9/19/99 "..... No one blamed guns. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the shooter, Larry Gene Ashbrook, bought his two weapons - a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol and a Ruger 9 mm semiautomatic pistol - from separate vendors at a flea market more than seven years ago. "I don't remember going into too many houses when I was a kid where there weren't guns. We respected them, we knew what they were for, not like now," said Kay Persinger, 43, the homemaker, who lives a few blocks from the Baptist church where the shootings occurred....... The region is an overwhelmingly Christian corner of the country, home to one of the largest Protestant seminaries in the world, where the house next door could easily be a house of worship. Some say they see the massacre at Wedgwood Baptist Church as the making of martyrs and a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. They point to the reports that the shooter shouted antireligious obscenities as he attacked. Like many other Christians, Karla Turner, who is enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, linked the shootings in the church to the shootings at a prayer group in a school in West Paducah, Ky., and to the shooting of Cassie Bernall at Columbine in Colorado. Bernall is now spoken of by many evangelicals as a modern-day Christian martyr, because she was asked by one of the gunmen whether she believed in God, to which she defiantly answered, "Yes, I do," and was instantly shot. Her story is being passed among many churches and youth groups, her parents have written a book that was just published, and there is a campaign to have students wear T-shirts to school saying, "Yes, I believe in God." Turner said that like Cassie Bernall, those shot at Wedgwood Baptist were killed for their faith. "It is the enemy, conducting spiritual warfare," Turner said. "It's an attack on Christianity in general, on Christians, and it's Satan trying to stop God's work in the Earth. He'll use whoever he wants, whoever he can. The guy who did this was obviously angry. Satan uses anger ...."Why don't they just kill themselves and be done with it, like people used to do. Why do they have to take a whole bunch of people with them? Because then nobody would know their names." ..."

Denver Post 9/19/99 David Olinger "....Colorado police agencies have supplied the consumer market with hundreds of used guns equipped with high-capacity magazines banned from manufacture by the 1994 federal assault-weapons law. The banned weapons delivered to gun stores and distributors by recent police sales range from pistols with 15-round clips to SWAT team assault rifles. One agency also sold handguns confiscated from criminals for as little as $5 apiece. Another agreed to sell 10 rifles classified as machine guns, then canceled the deal upon receiving a request to ship them to a Miami gun wholesaler. "I didn't realize they were selling things that were considered to be assault weapons,'' said Colorado House Minority Leader Ken Gordon, a Denver Democrat who has called for stricter gun controls. "I have a problem with that. They shouldn't be putting them in the stream of commerce.'' ....."

The Regina Leader-Post 9/8/99 Dr Laura Schlessinger "...Sadly, it's time for good Americans to get guns I'm right in the middle of a big change of attitude about a very important subject. And I know a lot of my readers and listeners to my radio program may be shocked. But people who have known me over time know that I'm someone who evolves in public..... The first event that caused me to rethink my position on this topic was the shootings in Atlanta, where a man went into two office buildings and gunned down total strangers, then killed himself in his car later that day. I thought about the difference it might have made - lives saved instead of lost - if someone in one of those offices had been armed. The murderer might well have been foiled in his reign of terror before so many innocent people died. That thought caused me to remember a time several years ago when I felt completely safe in my hometown of Los Angeles. It was after the major earthquake in 1994, and the National Guard was everywhere. There they were, it seemed, on every corner - uniformed, armed, ammunition slung across their chests, ready. As I recall, there was absolutely no crime in Los Angeles at that time - no break-ins, no holdups, no car-jackings. Nada. The bad guys obviously didn't want to risk getting shot...... In thinking about the difference an armed civilian or security guard might have made in Atlanta, I thought back to my trip to Israel this summer and how many people walking around, especially on the West Bank, were armed out of a genuine and persistent need to protect themselves. No one was shooting. There was no display of firepower or anything like that. It was just taken for granted. ..... Even before the horror of the most recent attack on children in a Los Angeles Jewish centre near my home, I was in the process of making up my mind to find a nice police officer or sheriff to teach me how to responsibly fire a gun. I can hardly believe I'm saying this, because I have been opposed to the idea that everyone should be free to bear arms. But the unpredictability of where danger strikes next, coupled with the frequency with which it happens, has led me to think that we "good guys" need to have more of the mentality of the beleaguered Israelis. And, of course, we need to have their attitude as well. No one is gun-happy over there. They don't show off, do stupid things. ....."

Los Angeles Times 9/23/99 Nicholas Riccardi Jeffrey Rabin "....Attorneys for what is billed as the nation's largest gun show filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday to stop a ban on the sale of firearms on county property, arguing that it infringes on their free speech. The Board of Supervisors passed the ban last month after a gunman killed a postal worker and fired into a day-care center in the San Fernando Valley. The ordinance targets the Great Western Show at the Pomona Fairplex, where hundreds of vendors sell antique guns, Civil War memorabilia and modern fire-arms and ammunition..... In its lawsuit, the Great Western Show 'alleges that the ordinance "irrationally criminalizes" gun sales in violation of the Constitution's guarantees of equal protection , due process and free speech. The argument is similar to one used successfully in Santa Clara County.. ...."

Congressional Record 9/22/99 James Rogan "....Mr. ROGAN. Mr. Speaker, first I want to say to my friends on the other side of the aisle who have been reading a list of names: I think that is entirely appropriate that we remember the names of children who died by gun violence at the hands of criminals. But that tells part of the story. Perhaps it would be appropriate today if we also read the names of liberals in this Chamber who have consistently voted against building more prisons to house violent criminals; the names of liberals who consistently vote against tough-on-crime measures, the names of liberals who today support a President of the United States who grants clemency to terrorists. We ought to read the names of innocent victims who have defended themselves against gun violence over the years. Let us read the names of women who have defended themselves against rape, or defended children in their home. Let us remember the names of the Founding Fathers who intended every law-abiding American to have that right of defense against gun violence. Let us hold people accountable for illegal actions, and let us hold politicians accountable that talk about gun control out of one side of their mouth, then consistently refuse to do anything about crime control. ..."

CNSNews.com 9/22/99 Susan Jones "....Last week's deadly shooting at a Baptist church in Fort Worth, Texas is prompting a new gun-crime initiative from Texas Governor George Bush - who's come under fire from Vice President Al Gore and others for opposing tighter gun controls. Under the Bush plan, the state will spend $1.28 million to pay for the appointment of eight special prosecutors who will more vigorously prosecute criminals who use guns. Another $360,000 will be used on an advertising campaign that will spread the word that "Gun Crime Means Hard Time," in Texas. At a news conference Tuesday, Bush repeated his contention that new laws are not the way to reduce gun violence. "The best way to protect our citizens is to vigorously enforce the tough laws we have on the books," Bush said. ....."

Los Vegas review-Journal 9/19/99 Vin Suprynowicz "... One year ago, Australian gun owners were forced to surrender for destruction 640,381 personal firearms (including semi-automatic .22 rifles and shotguns). This program cost the Aussie government more than $500 million and produced heart-stopping photos as veritable boneyards full of Browning A-5 shotguns and other beloved collector's items were surrendered up to be crushed by steamshovels in a kind of steel-and-walnut charnel field. Now, Keith Tidswell of Australia's Sporting Shooters Association reports the results are in. Drum roll, please. Mr. Tidswell reports, based on a full 12 months of data: Australia-wide, homicides up 3.2 percent. Australia-wide, assaults up 8.6 percent. Australia-wide, armed-robberies up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent.) In the state of Victoria, homicides-with-firearms are up 300 percent. (Up until the government gun grab, figures for the previous 25 years had shown a steady decrease in homicides with firearms, as well as armed robberies, Mr. Tidswell notes.) Although at the time of the victim disarmament order, the Aussie prime minister decreed "self-defense is not a reason for owning a firearm," there has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly, now left with no means to protect themselves. (One wonders whether the prime minister's personal bodyguards gave up their military-style weapons.) ....Mr. Tidswell reports: "Australian politicians are on the spot and at a loss to explain how no improvement in 'safety' has been observed after such monumental effort and expense to successfully 'rid society of guns.' " ....."

Associated Press 9/26/99 Adam Gorlick "….Before Columbine High School, before the Atlanta day trader offices, before the Jewish community center in Los Angeles, there was Matthew Beck. In March 1998, the 35-year-old accountant went on a suicidal shooting spree in his offices at the Connecticut Lottery headquarters. Four people died before Beck put the gun to his own head. Lawmakers reacted with one of the toughest gun-seizure laws on the books. Starting next month, Connecticut police will be allowed to confiscate guns from anyone determined to be an immediate danger to himself or others. The law is rooted in the notion that rampages such as Beck's are preceded by a detectable descent into madness. Critics say the law tramples the Second Amendment and fear it could lead to unwarranted searches and seizures. Supporters say the standards for seizing guns are so high the law will seldom be used. …… Legally seizing a gun will require more than suspicion, said state police Lt. Robert Kiehm. There must be evidence that the person recently tortured animals, threatened to kill himself or others or acted violently. A police investigation must conclude there is no other way to keep the person from doing harm, and a warrant must be issued by a judge. The law also requires a hearing within 14 days to determine whether the gun should be returned….."

Associated Press; FOX Peter James Spielmann "….The U.N. Security Council on Friday endorsed sweeping gun-control measures, including a ban on private ownership of assault rifles, in a bid to curb civil wars, ethnic massacres and terrorism. At the end of the first ministerial debate on small arms, council members unanimously supported a report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on ways to reduce the global stockpile of some 500 million handguns, rifles, shotguns and assault weapons. While not legally binding, the action is intended to increase the pressure on world government to impose stricter gun control measures and reduce the arms trade. At least 200 million firearms are owned by American citizens….."

Providence Journal 9/24/99 Mackubin Thomas Owens "….Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas has now joined Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado as well as schools in Springfield Oregon, Edinboro, Pennsylvania, Jonesboro, Arkansas, West Paducah, Kentucky, and Pearl, Mississippi as a tragic site of carnage and death. As in the earlier cases, politicians and pundits have fingered the culprit--guns and the gun culture. If only there were fewer guns, goes the argument, things like this wouldn't happen. The identification of guns as the source of all this mayhem has the virtue of simplicity, a single concrete factor apparently common to all these cases. But while all these tragedies involved the use of guns, to blame the proliferation of such violent incidents on the availability of guns alone is not so much simple as simplistic. Basic logic bears this out. For example, access to firearms was once much greater than today, and not just in rural areas. High schools in many large cities had shooting clubs as late as the 1960s. It was not unusual for participants in these clubs to take their weapons to school on the subway on shooting days. Additionally, there were far fewer gun regulations and laws than there are now. But such events as Columbine were unheard of. These facts call into question the claim that greater restrictions on firearms will prevent such tragedies as Wedgwood Baptist Church or Columbine High School. Indeed, the young murderers who ran amok at Columbine were in violation of nearly two dozen federal and state firearms laws. Perhaps we should enforce the laws on the books against those who commit crimes with guns before we rush to restrict further the rights of law-abiding citizens. …"

Providence Journal 9/24/99 Mackubin Thomas Owens "….For example, the conventional wisdom notwithstanding, studies cannot establish any positive causal relationship between private gun ownership and the crime rate. Indeed, some studies show a negative correlation between gun ownership and crime--areas with high gun ownership often experience less crime than comparable areas with low firearms ownership. This makes sense. What criminal relished the prospect of confronting an armed citizen? It is much easier to prey on the defenseless. Similarly, there turns out to be no consistent global correlation between gun availability and violent crime rates. Finally, there is little to support the contention that gun control laws reduce the rate of violent crime. Indeed, the 28 states and the District of Columbia with the most stringent gun control laws still account for 73 percent of all violent crime and 70 percent of murders in the United States. The reason for this is that gun control laws do not get at the "root cause" of crime, which is criminals. Gun control affects only law-abiding citizens, not the very small percentage of the population responsible for committing the vast majority of crime in the United States.

This brings us to one of the most important reasons for treading carefully when it comes to gun control-the right to protects one's person, family, and property. In 1993, Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz conducted the landmark National Crime Self-Defense Survey which documented that between 1988-1993, American citizens used guns in self-defense between 2.2 million and 2.5 million time per year, saving between 240,000 and 400,000 lives each year. On the basis of their research, the authors estimated the defensive uses of guns to be three to four times that of illegal gun uses. …."

NRA 9/23/99 Wayne LaPierre "….The monster began killing his two small children and his wife while they slept. Mark 0. Barton smashed their heads with a hammer, inflicting blunt trauma. But the massive skull and brain injuries were not enough. Barton carried his little son, little daughter and wife into the bathroom where he held their faces under water in the bathtub until he felt life flow from their bodies. The kids were named Mychelle and Matthew. She was 8. He was just 11. …… He went on to murder others-this time, using a handgun. A trader in high-risk stock ventures, a loser at gambling, Barton went on a shooting rampage at two brokerage houses, then killed himself. An Associated Press dispatch on Barton never mentioned the bludgeoning deaths. The murdered mother, the murdered children didn't fit the story. It was all about hardware- about which guns to ban. It was the same with The New York Times and with news outlets all over the country. You read all those stories and you can't even find the names of the kids. It's as if nobody in the media cares about them. The lives of two kids and an innocent mother were swept aside. Their existence, their suffering, the loss to their friends, schoolmates and family just didn't count with the national media and the politicians. Nobody called for hammer control……"

NRA 9/23/99 Wayne LaPierre "….They blamed NRA. They blamed all of us. They screamed about 200 million guns. It was the same old ghoul show. The deepest shame on them. No law would have stopped Barton, and they know that. Hammer control wouldn't have stopped him. Neither would any form of gun control ever dreamed of. Right after the Littleton school murders, there was another assassin of school children who took the life of little kids. It was brutal. Bill and Hillary Clinton didn't talk about it. There was no Rose Garden speech. No national outrage. No laying blame on hardware. The story got just a passing nod. Just like the Barton family killings, it served no larger cold-hearted political purpose. Ask just about anybody the name of the school or the name of the man who intentionally crashed his automobile through a playground fence killing a 3-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, and maiming four other children ….. Nobody remembers, because they never heard about it in the first place. Those things are not on the lips of news anchors, nor will they likely be the next time a madman kills kids with anything but a gun. So that you know, the man charged in the May 4,1999, killings in Costa Mesa, California, was Steven Allen Abrams. The name of the school was South coast Early Childhood Learning Center. Abrams was charged with two counts of murder and four counts of assault with a deadly weapon. His weapon of choice-a Cadillac.

Why did Abrams do it? Abrams reportedly told police, "I was going to execute these children because they were innocent." Nobody said all Cadillac owners should pay the price. Nobody said the car was the cause. Nobody demanded people stop driving. Nobody said every car owner was at fault. Nobody called for a ban on heavy, full-sized luxury automobiles. By the way, the car was registered and the driver licensed. Nobody said the Triple-A was at fault. No law envisioned by anyone could have stopped that act of madness…..And no one can stop the next act of madness-be the weapon of choice a Cadillac or a hammer or a gun. …."

Wall Street Journal 9/24/99 "….High at the top of media orthodoxy is the idea that opposition to gun control is a loser at the ballot box, especially in wake of high-profile killings like Columbine. But a special House election in California should help pop this liberal balloon. The race was between Marta Macias Brown and State Senator Joe Baca. Both sought the Democratic nomination for the seat held by Mrs. Brown's husband, liberal icon Rep. George Brown, until he died in July. Though Mr. Baca was well known, Ms. Brown had going for her the longest winning streak in American politics: 35 out of the last 36 widows who've run to succeed their husbands in office have won. She also brought her own qualifications to the job, having worked as a close aide to her late husband for a decade.

It soon became clear, moreover, that the two candidates agreed on almost every issue except one: gun control. But Mrs. Brown's constant mailers attacking Mr. Baca as "the radical gun lobby's favorite Democrat" quickly transformed her into a media darling. According to her campaign manager, Bobi Johnson, the "No. 1" point in her platform was "reducing gun violence." Though Mr. Baca muted his staunch support for gun rights slightly, and sensibly voted to ban unaccompanied minors from gun shows, the National Rifle Association stood by him.

National reporters touted the race as a leading indicator of how the gun issue would affect the 2000 election…… As it turned out, the anti-gun frenzy was all for naught. Even though the Tuesday election came within a week of the senseless shooting of churchgoers in Fort Worth and a day after voters received a Brown brochure with photographs of assault rifles and a school crossing sign shot up with bullets, Mr. Baca prevailed. He will face Republican Elia Pirozzi in a November runoff. But you won't see many headlines about Mr. Baca's victory, because it goes against the liberal belief that gun control is a winning issue. And the media buys into the myth because polls consistently provide incomplete data……In 1994, for example, just before the stunning GOP takeover of Congress, polls found 89% of Americans backing the Brady Bill's five-day waiting period for gun sales. But a closer reading found that only 33% thought the Brady Bill would reduce gun-related crimes. The point is that gun owners are highly motivated voters, and when given the chance to make them, their arguments are often persuasive. They cite studies such as those which have found that states with concealed-carry laws show greater decreases in crime, which helps explain why 31 states have passed them in the teeth of liberal opposition……"

Wall Street Journal 9/24/99 Paul Barrett "….Efforts to settle litigation against the gun industry are intensifying, as representatives of the industry and the municipalities that have sued it prepare for a meeting scheduled for Monday in Washington. Also at the table, either in person or by means of a representative, will be public officials who have threatened to sue the industry but so far have held off, saying they would prefer to negotiate curbs on the marketing and distribution of handguns….."

Libertarian Party, IL 9/17/99 "…Today, Chicago Libertarian Party Chairman Matt Beauchamp sued Cook County Sheriff Michael F. Sheahan in Federal Court for illegal gun trafficking. Beauchamp alleges that Sheahan's Gun Buy Back Program conducted under the so-called "Safe Streets Safe Schools 2000" program, does not have the required Federal Firearms License. Beauchamp further alleges that Sheahan purchases these guns with no requirement for identification and therefore is accepting weapons, many stolen, in violation of federal law….."

Scripps Howard News Service 8/12/99 Bill Straub "….When the 12 major party presidential contenders talk about gun control, they know what they're talking about: all but one has been in control of a gun. Each of the 12 candidates, except for Republican Elizabeth Dole, has owned a gun in private life or used one in the military. Nine of the candidates own a gun now for sport or protection, counting a pellet gun owned by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. …."

American Academy of Family Physicians' website 9/16/99 "….Yesterday, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) adopted a new gun policy, opposing private ownership of assault weapons and supporting background checks and waiting periods for all firearm sales. Meeting today in Orlando, the AAFP Congress of Delegates debated, then adopted a new policy on gun safety…… The following is the final language adopted by the AAFP Congress of Delegates: RESOLVED, That the American Academy of Family Physicians support and encourage legislation targeting the ongoing improvement in firearm safety requirements, and be it further RESOLVED, That the American Academy of Family Physicians support background checks and waiting periods for all firearm sales, and be it further RESOLVED, That the American Academy of Family Physicians develop, promote and distribute patient education materials on firearm safety, and be it further RESOLVED, That the American Academy of Family Physicians adopt policy which opposes private ownership of assault weapons….."

F.R. Duplantier 10/3/99 "....In a recent issue of Foundation Watch, published by the Capital Research Center, editor Patrick Reilly offers "a list of key elements in the anti-tobacco campaign that are repeated in the current campaign for gun control." The first element he cites is the proclamation of a public health crisis. "Americans are generally less suspicious of government programs that appear to address health concerns, even when individual behavior and legitimate business practices are restricted," Reilly observes.....The focus on children is another element borrowed from the anti-tobacco campaign. "Many foundation grants awarded to gun control advocates are used to address the impact of gun violence on youth and children's access to guns," Reilly reports. "In truth," he points out, "the problem of youth access to guns is not as large as it has been portrayed, especially among young children. In 1996, only 40 children under age five died from accidental gun wounds." .....Making their case in courts rather than legislatures is another key element. "Foundations learned from last year's failed effort to pass federal tobacco-control legislation that lawmakers are hesitant to dramatically expand legal and regulatory constraints on major industries," says Reilly. "The courts, however, are not so reluctant..... Blaming the product and its manufacturer, rather than the negligent consumer, is yet another element common to both the anti-tobacco and anti-gun campaigns. "Anti-tobacco lawyers have argued that tobacco companies are guilty of negligent marketing, especially to minors," Reilly remarks. "Anti-gun forces have followed the same strategy, accusing the gun industry of negligence for failing to adequately prevent gun violence and for marketing in high-crime communities." The case against gun makers is patently absurd, of course, but then so was the case against tobacco merchants. Alan Gottlieb takes the threat seriously, and he's responding to it -- by suing the suers! His Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is sponsoring a "damage action" against the NAACP and various anti-gun mayors for "conspiracy to violate civil rights, abuse of process, and undue burden on interstate commerce. The anti-freedom politicians and the NAACP want to blame everyone but themselves for creating all the gun violence," Gottlieb contends. But the real purpose of their lawsuits, he claims, is "to win in the courts what has been rejected at the polls and to destroy gun makers," thereby effectively restricting gun ownership...."

Roll Call 10/5/99 John Bresnahan "....Another tough issue that will face Members in coming weeks is gun control. While the House voted against any new handgun legislation during the fight over the juvenile justice bill this summer, the Senate did approve some new controls on such weapons. House and Senate negotiators have been going back and forth for weeks in search of a compromise, and it now appears the House could see a final juvenile justice bill this week even though the handgun issue has yet to be resolved. House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) said he expects a final deal on the juvenile justice package, which includes the gun control measures, to be unveiled as early as today. ...."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_metcalf/19991004_xcgme_racist_gun.shtml 10/4/99 Geoff Metcalf "....The legislative mania, which is sweeping the country to disarm law-abiding citizens, is fascinating. There is an overwhelming abundance of facts and figures, which document that guns, as tools, are good. Two incontestable axioms are: 1) Take guns away, and make it ponderous to own guns, and crime increases; and 2) Permit and encourage lawful gun ownership, and crime decreases. I have written and talked about those two facts a lot ... as some complain, too much. ..... Notwithstanding the disingenuous, duplicitous tripe we hear from the myopic ideologues about the imperative to disarm America (and if Kofi Annin had his way ... the world), the stark realities of gun control should gag even the most devoted bleeding heart, anti-constitutionalist, socialist liberal. Gun control is racist and elitist. The Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy (Winter 1995) includes "The Racist Roots of Gun Control." The article documents the "historical record provides compelling evidence that racism underlies gun control laws -- and not in any subtle way." The realization that gun control is racist and, tangentially, a means of weakening and making vulnerable to the whim of the power elite any and all "ordinary" people is significant. The vast left wing conspiracy has consistently and routinely positioned themselves as "the protectors of the downtrodden." However, what they inevitably fail to acknowledge is that by denying anyone and everyone the most basic inalienable right to protect and defend self, family and property, the presumed "protectors" are in fact, oppressors..... Can you see a common threat here? Vladmir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Bennito Mousellini, General Tojo, Emperor Hirohito, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, Josef Broz Tito, Nicolae Ceausescu, Ho Chi Min, Deng Zhou-Ping, Idi Amin, Muimar Qadaffi, Saddam Hussein, Zheng Ze-Min, Fidel Castro all were or are despotic rulers. They ALL forced civilian disarmament. Collectively they are responsible for the deaths of over 56 million people. The most recent example of the inherent racism of gun control can be seen in Kosovo. Imagine yourself as a resident of Kosovo when some armed "legal authority" knocks (or kicks) on your door requiring you and your family submit to summary execution. Before you discount the possibility as creative writing hyperbole, consider some Americans already have family experience similar to that "what if." Families of American Jews, Africans and Cambodians have already been there ... done that. Germany, China, Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Congo, Turkey, Burundi, Burma, Angola, Somalia, Russia, Ir