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Revealing remarks by the Republican
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Check out their usual slant "While many Republicans and Democrats are sympathetic to the NRA's efforts to block passage of strict gun control legislation this year ..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48328-2000Mar20.html

NRA Gains Critics for Comments, Popularity for Policies
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 21, 2000; Page A02

Despite escalating signals of alarm among Republican lawmakers about the National Rifle Association's incendiary denunciations of President Clinton, NRA activists said they are emboldened by recent polls that show that the group's focus on the need to crack down on gun-wielding criminals is a winning political issue.

Several recent polls by conservative organizations and the GOP show that a majority of voters respond more favorably to arguments promoting strict enforcement of existing gun laws than they do to the idea of new gun-control laws, NRA officials and Republican activists said.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz said that even after the Columbine school massacre last year, in which 12 Colorado school children and a teacher were killed by two students who then killed themselves, few Americans said stronger gun-control laws were the answer. Instead, he said, they blame the violence on "the moral decay of America."

"The public is saying to Washington, 'Put the bad guys away and help us prevent the conditions that create bad guys,' " Luntz said. Citing a recent focus group of 40 Chicago area residents, he added that "people are saying gun control won't solve the problem, but a return to values will," including harsh punishment for criminals.

Demanding that the Clinton administration step up enforcement of existing firearms laws "is a winning issue for the right and the Republicans," said anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, who is running for the NRA board of directors. "But the left and the Democrats, like moths to a flame, keep returning to [an embrace of gun control] again and again."

Meanwhile, Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said statements by NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre that Clinton "has blood on his hands" because of lax enforcement of firearms laws were not "terribly helpful to trying to reach a consensus on a very difficult issue."

Hyde added that "I think it's an extreme statement. . . . I wish it hadn't been said."
Former president Gerald R. Ford said on ABC's "This Week" that gun control requires "reasonable compromise. . . . You can't take the hard-line, NRA position. That's a loser."

While many Republicans and Democrats are sympathetic to the NRA's efforts to block passage of strict gun control legislation this year, some said LaPierre hurt the NRA's credibility in attacking Clinton. "Most Republicans think [LaPierre's comments] were a little over the top," John Feehery, a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said yesterday.

New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R), facing attack from rival Hillary Rodham Clinton for taking contributions in his Senate campaign from gun interests, endorsed a gun-ownership licensing system akin to the one governing drivers of motor vehicles. He said people wanting to own a gun should "have to pass a written exam that shows they know how to use the gun, that they're intelligent enough and responsible enough to handle a gun."

Last week LaPierre said the president is "willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political agenda." Days later, LaPierre added that Clinton "has blood on his hands" in the death of former Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong. Byrdsong was shot to death last year by a white supremacist who had flunked a gun background check but was not arrested. LaPierre blamed what he claims is weak law enforcement by the Clinton administration.

"The NRA's on the short side of a double standard," spokesman Bill Powers said. "Where's the outrage" when Democratic members of Congress accuse the NRA of responsibility for killings?

With some advocates of gun control insisting that the NRA's tactics might help revive the moribund talks between the House and Senate over juvenile justice and gun control legislation, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) yesterday refused to be drawn into the controversy. "That's a Washington shootout," Lott said.

Congressional Democrats intend to jump into the controversy today by introducing legislation to hire more Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agents and federal prosecutors, and to provide them with added authority to crack down on dealers who illegally supply guns to criminals.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), the chief sponsors, will also release a study by Handgun Control Inc. and the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence saying that the NRA has systematically fought to underfund ATF enforcement and to block or weaken laws that would have strengthened the federal capacity to fight gun crimes.

"Let's see if the NRA is willing to put its money where its mouth is," Schumer said. "Will they support a real enforcement bill when in the past they have done everything they could to undercut enforcement?"

NRA critics said that while LaPierre's angry attack seems to contradict the moderate tone the group has cultivated for several years, it is in step with the shrill style the group's leaders employ to address members, especially in election years.

After the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, when the NRA was linked in the public mind with right-wing militias, the group sought to moderate its public style. Its membership soon swelled and finances improved.

But all along, NRA leaders have used angry language to make their points in speeches or direct-mail solicitations to conservative audiences. NRA president Charlton Heston, in a December 1997 address to the conservative Free Congress Foundation, said a "culture war" is being waged against "God-fearing, law-abiding, Caucasian, middle-class, Protestant . . . admittedly heterosexual, gun-owning" Americans.

"It's wrong to say they turned a corner and became more moderate," said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the pro-gun control Violence Policy Center.

© 2000 The Washington Post Company




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