Pro-, Anti-Gunners Drawing Major Battle Lines, for 2006

Pro-, Anti-Gunners Drawing Major Battle Lines, for 2006
Date: Jan 2, 2006 6:38 PM
The New GUN WEEK, January 1, 2006
Page 11

Pro-, Anti-Gunners Drawing Major Battle Lines, for 2006
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor

This could be a pivotal year for gun politics, as
legislatures begin meeting across the country and the 2006
campaign sea son starts heating up.

Spokesmen and women for gun rights and gun control
organizations contacted by Gun Week have pretty well defined
where the battle lines will be drawn, and what the major
issues will be. They include attempts to require
background checks at gun shows, protection of employees who
have firearms in their private vehicles at work, the
Washington, DC, handgun ban, expanding concealed carry, and
bans on semi-automatic firearms.

Two organizations, the Violence Policy Center and Americans
for Gun Safety, did not return repeated calls from Gun Week
requesting comment.

However, Peter Hamm with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
Violence told Gun Week that his organization will be pushing
its agenda more at the state level, and looking at some key
congressional races. Acknowledging that the gun control
lobby is “not going to be able to forward a national agenda"
while Congress retains its present makeup, he suggested that
state-level issues will provide some opportunity.

One big issue, he indicated, is legislation regarding the
ability of employees to have firearms in their cars on
company property. He contended that the National Rifle
Association (NRA) has blundered with this issue, because
“the only political lobby more powerful than the gun lobby
is the business lobby." Businesses, he said, will likely
fight such laws vigorously, both as a safety issue and as a
property rights issue.

Splitting Conservatives

“The guns-in-workplace-parking-lots (issue) is going to be
a hard one," Hamm said. “I don’t think that was their
brightest idea.... It splits conservatives. It turned a
lot of moderates and progressives like myself to the whole
property rights is sue.... I would think that if the NRA
had their druthers they would back off the parking lot issue
and put that back on the burner five years from now."

However, Larry Pratt, head of Gun Owners of America (GOA),
disagreed.

“Legislators who are interested in keeping that day job
know they don’t want to tick off their employers," Pratt
observed. “The idea of being fired for having a cased gun in
your car where it doesn’t do you any good anyway.... Mr.
Hamm is whistling past the graveyard."

Another issue in the Brady sights is the introduction of
so-called stand-your-ground legislation, which his camp
calls the “Shoot First" law.

The NRA’s Christopher Cox, head of the Institute for
Legislative Action, agrees.

“The castle doctrine law we had passed in Florida, we’re
going to take that nation wide," Cox said. “We’re going to
work that issue just like we did with right-to-carrv."

The NRA has been remarkably effective over the past 15
years, getting concealed carry laws passed in dozens of
states.

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the
Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), told Gun Week that
these “right-to-carry" statutes are increasingly being
passed with reciprocity or blanket recognition tenets that
allow licensed citizens from other states to carry concealed
when they visit. While gunowners may have to wait for
Congress to act on the issue of national concealed carry,
the passage of reciprocity laws at the state level will
likely speed that up, Gottlieb suggested.

Cox also noted that another of NRA’s challenges this year
will be to examine the emergency statutes in all 50 states,
to make sure that they protect, rather than usurp, the right
of law-abiding citizens to keep their firearms. That
concern grew out of what happened in Louisiana in the wake
of Hurricane Katrina, where police arbitrarily began seizing
private firearms.

“That was the most outrageous and blatant abuse of power
that I’ve witnessed in my 15 years in this business," Cox
stated. “Our opponents have been telling us that ‘the NRA
guys are crazy,’ that ‘nobody is ever going to take your
guns away’ Well, they did. We’re going through every
emergency statute in all 50 states and pursuing federal
legislation to make sure this never happens again."

Gun Show ‘Loophole’

Natalie Reber, executive director of Washington CeaseFire,
one of several state-level organizations of its type, said
her group’s main thrust this year will be passage of
legislation in the Evergreen State to close the so-called
gun show loophole. A bill introduced in the 2005
legislature is still alive, and with Washington’s
legislature firmly in the hands of Democrats, it stands a
chance of passing.

The various state CeaseFire groups are loosely knit, she
said, and essentially their common link is that all work
cooperatively with the Brady Campaign and “Million" Mom
March."

Ironically, a high-profile shooting that occurred at the
Tacoma Mall in November did not involve a firearm purchased
at a gun show. The suspect in that case obtained a
semi-automatic rifle in a private transaction through a
classified advertisement, and allegedly bought his other gun
from a street source.

Gottlieb noted that gun control groups historically seize on
such shootings and “dance in the blood of the victims" to
push their agenda.

“You can kiss gun shows goodbye," said GOA’s Pratt.
“Registration and licensing is the next thing on their
agenda, and that’s what the Brady folks have wanted for
years. These guys have an agenda, unlike the Republicans.
Democrats, their religion is the power to tell us what to do
with our lives."

NRA’s Cox concurred, noting, “They (Congressional
anti-gunners) are biding their time, hoping that gunowners
get complacent and political winds shift. We all know
that’s what they’re waiting for."

Pratt suggested that Republicans could have real troubles in
the November congressional elections “if they don’t clean up
their act."

“It’s entirely possible," Pratt said.

Gun shows are a big concern of CCRKBA Executive Director Joe
Waldron. He’s also president of the Washington Arms
Collectors, which conducts the biggest gun shows in
Washington state.

“Gun shows are always going to be under attack," he said.

He expects anti-gunners to go after them at the state level,
same as they will pursue bans on semi-autos.

DC Gun Ban

One big issue for both Cox and Gottlieb is ending the gun
ban in Washington, DC. The ban is being challenged in
court, and Congress could act on the issue as well.

“The DC gun ban is another thing we’re continuing to
pursue," Cox confirmed. “It’s about self-defense (and) the
Second Amendment that the overwhelming majority of people in
this country support. People believe lawful people have a
right to own a firearm for self-defense."

Gottlieb wants Congress to vote on ending the District’s
30-year-old prohibition because it would put every member of
the House of Representatives on record as supporting or
opposing a gun ban during an election year.

Bans at the state level are a concern to Cox, particularly
because he knows that’s where anti-gunners plan to take
their fight this year.

“They will use tragedies to push their agenda," he said.
“They have taken a beating but their agenda has not
changed. Their talking points have changed."

In Washington state, another subject that CeaseFire has
broached in recent weeks, and is indicative of a quiet
effort that is going on in other states, is a push to have
newspapers voluntarily stop accepting classified advertising
for firearms, especially handguns. That effort actually
began with a gun control group based in Iowa. Waldron has
suggested repeatedly to Gun Week that the reason they do not
want to push for a mandatory ban through legislation is
because of the potential media backlash.

Newspapers, he noted, have long been sympathetic to the
anti-gun cause, but they might become less so if some group
pushed for legislation against their right to accept
advertising.

Elections 2006

No doubt there will be plenty of posturing in preparation
for the election cycle. All 435 House members must stand
for re-election, and there are 36 Senate races, 33 state
governors are up for re-election and there will be elections
in state legislatures.

Gun rights groups are hoping that lawmakers at all levels
remain convinced that, at least in most regions, gun control
is a losing political proposition. Rarely during an
election year do politicians push gun control measures,
especially after the 1994 Congressional elections in which
gunowners, infuriated by passage of the Brady Law in 1993
and semi-auto ban in September 1994 played the pivotal role
in shifting control on Capitol Hill.

This year’s election could provide Hillary Clinton with a
launching pad for an anticipated 2008 run for the White
House. Cox believes she would be a formidable candidate,
and also “the most dangerous politician when it comes to our
Second Amendment freedoms in this country."

“It will probably be the fight of our life," he said. “There
is so much at stake. It’s not just being able to speak from
the bully pulpit of the presidency, but the tens of
thousands of government jobs, the (potential) UN treaties
and international negotiations, regulatory changes they can
make. This is high stakes and we are already preparing for
the fight."

But long before that happens, there are legislatures in
session, or convening soon. Gun rights and gun control
activists will be probing, sparring and flexing whatever
political muscle they have. And, remembering that political
winds have a way of shifting almost in a heartbeat; all it
might take is one highly-publicized incident, one
significant turn of events and one side or the other could
find itself swimming against a riptide.