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Future of gun control murky Movement has grown, but so have hurdles

03/27/2001

By Michelle Mittelstadt / The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – On a sun-dappled Sunday last May, hundreds of thousands of women forsook Mother's Day to crowd onto the National Mall in hopes of sending Congress a message: Pass gun-control legislation or risk a backlash at the ballot box.

The Million Mom March and the creation of a new gun-safety group bankrolled by an Internet billionaire offered high promise for a gun-control movement regularly outmatched by the powerful National Rifle Association.

Activists welcomed the grass-roots muscle brought to the cause by the marchers and the financial support the well-heeled Americans for Gun Safety began sharing with state groups accustomed to operating on a shoestring.

Yet less than a year after the emergence of the two groups – both of which have experienced growing pains – the national gun-control movement finds itself in some disarray and facing a harsher political landscape than anticipated.

Factions in the often-fractured movement are pressing competing ideological priorities. And a fight is brewing on Capitol Hill that may pit gun-control groups against each other rather than against the gun lobby.

"Is this a time of soul searching?" asks Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center. "It will be a battle for the soul of the gun-control movement."

Part of the disagreement lies in differing interpretations of the November elections, which proved a mixed bag for activists seeking to reduce gun violence that claims more than 30,000 lives annually.

Five of seven NRA-backed Senate candidates were defeated. And voters in Oregon and Colorado adopted referendums to close the so-called gun-show loophole, requiring all sales at gun shows to be subject to the same criminal background checks as are required at gun shops.

At the same time, the White House was taken by a firm defender of gun rights. And as his attorney general, President Bush tapped an NRA member who battled gun control while in the Senate.

Recognizing that Mr. Bush is likely to veto new restrictions on guns and that the congressional Democratic leadership's gun-control ardor has cooled, some activists are turning their focus to the states. There, they hope to prevail with gun-show background checks, consumer product liability protections and other measures.

Conservative Democrats who believe in gun rights have made it clear to their party leadership that they think the issue is a loser.

"We think it hurts our party's message in rural areas to have our party leaders advocating further gun control," said Rep. Jim Turner, D-Crockett. "I think you will see less advocacy by the leadership on the Democratic side of any gun-control proposals because of our concerns."

Others read the political tea leaves differently and say it's time for the gun-safety movement to press a more forceful agenda than in the past. They suggest gun control would have been a winner for Democrat Al Gore had he not kept largely silent on the issue. Noting gains in the Senate, they say their movement should be pushing strong proposals there in hopes of achieving a middle-of-the-road compromise with the more pro-gun House and White House.

And then, in a category all its own, is Americans for Gun Safety.

The group, funded by billionaire Andrew McKelvey, argues that the time has come for a third way: One that explicitly endorses the right of Americans to own guns – tantamount to near-heresy in the movement – but that also is supportive of sensible restrictions.

"We believe that for long-term success, we need a dramatic shift," said Americans for Gun Safety president Jonathan Cowan.

"We should be talking to the vast majority of Americans who have a sensible, common-sense view of this issue," he said. "They want better enforcement of existing laws. They want to make sure all the holes in the current laws are closed so we are not giving kids easy access to guns. They want individual gun owners to be as responsible as they can be with their weapons, and they respect the rights of people to own and buy guns."

The group has provoked no small level of consternation in gun-policy circles recently. Americans for Gun Safety is working closely with two stars of the 2000 campaign – Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. – to fashion bipartisan legislation to close the gun-show loophole.

The movement's traditional leaders – Handgun Control Inc., the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and others – are fearful that the legislation, which they have yet to see, will be far weaker than a measure the Senate approved in 1999. The proposal, strongly opposed in the House, ultimately foundered.

But Americans for Gun Safety, which spent nearly $3 million on its successful campaigns in Colorado and Oregon, is being well-received on Capitol Hill, where even die-hard gun-control lawmakers are voicing weariness over the predictable clashes.

The welcome mat isn't out everywhere, however.

Some critics argue that Americans for Gun Safety is engaging in a dangerous strategy by endorsing an individual's right to bear arms – a right not upheld by the courts, gun-control advocates say. And they bristle at Mr. Cowan's statement to some in the movement that "Gun control is dead."

"This is like a self-fulfilling prophecy," said the leader of one state gun-policy group that has worked with Americans for Gun Safety, speaking on condition of anonymity. "That damages the entire movement. It belittles all of our efforts all across the country."

Other gun-control activists contend Americans for Gun Safety is premised on a flawed theory: That a middle ground can be achieved and the gun-rights lobby pacified.

Joe Sudbay, public policy director of the Violence Policy Center, said advocates of a centrist approach "have a fundamental misunderstanding of the gun lobby if they think their third way is going to appeal to the NRA and their friends in Congress."

Mr. Cowan has little patience for the criticism, noting that successes have been sparse at the federal level over the past 30 years. "So obviously, we need to to be thinking about this issue, talking about this issue and working on this issue in a different way if we are going to see long-term progress," he said.

And with gun owners representing 48 percent of the electorate, according to Mr. Cowan, "You're not going to win if you alienate gun owners."

Thus far, the NRA has not differentiated Americans for Gun Safety from the rest of the pack, in literature referring to the group as the newest member of the "gun ban lobby." The NRA didn't return calls seeking comment.

Erich Pratt of Gun Owners of America also sees little difference between Americans for Gun Safety and the other gun-control groups.

"In my opinion, it may be different verbiage, but it's still the same content," Mr. Pratt said. "They are still looking at restricting peoples' rights and forcing people to lock up their safety."

Some gun-control activists believe that Americans for Gun Safety and the Million Mom March raised the bar for the movement last year by energizing the NRA without delivering immediate results, the marchers in particular turning their focus inward on organization.

Others, however, welcome the groups with open arms.

"You have to think of it as a dry desert getting the rain," said Nina Butts of Texans Against Gun Violence.

The president of the Million Mom March acknowledges her organization, which recently laid off most of its paid staff, has gone through some turbulence. But she says the group, with 230 chapters in 46 states, is going strong and that its volunteers represent the "missing ingredient" in the cause.

"This is not a sprint," said Mary Leigh Blek. "This is truly a marathon. And we are not going to change gun policy in America overnight. It's going to take a sustained, constant effort."

The problem, many say, is that the movement has done little to rally people to its cause – instead preaching a hodge-podge of policy proposals, many of which fail to touch a chord with the public.

The Second Amendment Sisters, a gun-rights group established to answer the Million Mom March, views the disparate proposals as a sign of a cause in search of a mission. "What they are doing is trying to find an issue they can actually speak on that we cannot refute," said Maria Heil, the group's spokeswoman.

The various gun-control groups support a variety of options, including licensing and registration of weapons. Others support going after firearms manufacturers to ensure that guns are regulated as a consumer product, while yet others favor trigger locks or closing the gun-show loophole. And most provocatively, the Violence Policy Center presses for a handgun ban – a high-stakes concept in a country with 65 million handguns.

"It would seem to me this would be the time for all the groups to pull together and come up with a common strategy," said Michael Beard, president of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Dissension aside, ultimately the gun-control activists think they will prevail.

"The number of people who want to do something about this terrible problem of gun violence in our country and want to try to enact sensible laws, the number is growing," said Brendan Daly of Handgun Control Inc. "This is a time to not lose hope and to keep focus. And in the end, we are going to win."

Gun-rights believers, such as Mr. Pratt with the gun owners group, are equally convinced they will succeed.

"For the most part over the decades we've seen, even at the polls, people really aren't in favor of restricting constitutional rights," Mr. Pratt said.

http://www.dallasnews.com/national/322293_guncontrol_27n.html

-------------- Related Article Follows --------------

Usual allies may be heading for feud Groups fear moneyed newcomer may be aiming for a bad compromise

03/27/2001

By Michelle Mittelstadt / The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – A showdown may be brewing on Capitol Hill over gun-control legislation.

But unlike past battles where gun control advocates squared off against the National Rifle Association, this time the fight may be in the family.

Americans for Gun Safety, a new face in the gun-control movement, is working closely with two Senate celebrities – Republican John McCain and Democrat Joe Lieberman – to draft a measure that would require criminal background checks for all sales made at gun shows.

While applauding efforts to close the so-called gun-show loophole, other gun-control groups fear that the draft being worked up by the senators and Americans for Gun Safety amounts to a tepid version of a measure narrowly approved by the Senate in 1999. That bill, authored by former Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, died in the face of strong House resistance.

The Million Mom March and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence recently issued "action alerts" asking supporters to contact Sens. McCain and Lieberman to express concern over the gun-show proposal. They want the senators to support the Lautenberg measure, which Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said he would reintroduce this year.

The gun-control activists are particularly troubled because Americans for Gun Safety has been working behind closed doors with Senate aides to craft the legislation – declining to share details with others in the cause, as traditionally has been the case.

"I am personally greatly concerned that no one else in the movement has any idea what McCain and Lieberman are up to," said Michael Beard, president of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "It's sort of strange to have a major piece of legislation that most of the major players in the field haven't had a chance to review."

Americans for Gun Safety officials and congressional aides familiar with the as-yet-unfinished legislation deny that the measure would weaken the 1994 Brady law requiring criminal background checks for potential buyers at gun shops.

But the reports emerging from Capitol Hill have some in the gun-control movement concerned. They are particularly worried that the McCain-Lieberman proposal might reduce from three business days to one the time given the FBI to complete the background check. And, they fear the legislation might create a new class of people eligible to gain access to the FBI's background check system – the first step, some contend, toward creating a new class of licensed gun dealers.

Those proposals would be "completely unacceptable for us and for what I would say is the bulk of the gun-violence community," said Arinn Dixon, associate director for violence prevention at Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Aides to Sens. McCain and Lieberman wouldn't discuss the proposal, which is expected to be unveiled within weeks. But, said Lieberman spokeswoman Leslie Phillips: "We hope this strikes the right compromise that will enable it to pass."

Americans for Gun Safety comes to the debate with some credentials, having spent $3 million on successful campaigns in Colorado and Oregon for gun-show background checks.

The group is pressing for a new, centrist approach to gun issues, arguing that most Americans have become turned off by the polarized gun debate. By espousing a "third way," the organization believes it can bridge the divide and enact common-sense measures.Any gun-show compromise probably would face an uphill climb with the gun-rights community. "We would still consider it unconstitutional," said Erich Pratt of Gun Owners of America.

While many in the gun-safety movement are welcoming Americans for Gun Safety's involvement, they are worried that the group and its Capitol Hill allies may bargain away too much to secure Senate victory.

"We are at a point where we shouldn't be compromising in the Senate," said the Violence Policy Center's public policy director, Joe Sudbay, contending that the election strengthened the movement's hand in the Senate. "We already know when it gets to the House it will be gutted and eviscerated. We should come in with the strongest possible position."

Jonathan Cowan, president of Americans for Gun Safety, says such thinking is missing the point. "Last I checked, Republicans controlled the entire federal government," he said.

http://www.dallasnews.com/national/322317_gunsider_27nat.html

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

Answers

Response to Future of gun control murky

Education is key. Banning guns is not.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001