Not sure how long the
AP Link will remain valid, so here is the text:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Reno Wants Proof Buyers Can Use Guns
By Laurie Asseo
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, August 15, 1999; 3:10 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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.''
She said her proposal was based on common sense, adding, ``I think it would have a real impact, because now people can possess a weapon without knowing how to use it.''
Reno told of a friend who got a gun for self-protection.
``I said, `Do you know how to use that thing?' She said no. I said, `Take it back. You're going to be more dangerous with it than without it,''' the attorney general said.
Reno, who offered the idea of licensing gun owners in April after the Colorado school shootings, could not say if such a law would have prevented last week's shootings at a Los Angeles Jewish community center.
``But if we have one law that focuses on the user, ensures that they have the capacity and the knowledge to use it safely and lawfully, then we can really go after people who possess a gun without a license, because there is no excuse,'' she added. ``Be licensed, know how to use it, and I think we could have a far greater impact in the whole area of gun violence.''
President Clinton has been seeking to strengthen the nation's gun laws and expand hate crimes legislation, but he has made no formal proposal regarding Reno's idea of licensing gun owners.
Asked about the gun lobby's argument that the Constitution's Second Amendment protects an absolute right to bear arms, the attorney general said: ``We have freedom of speech ... but not freedom to yell `fire' in a crowded theater falsely, and I think that we have got to look at each of our constitutional rights and make sure that they are balanced.''
Reno would not say whether federal or state charges would be pursued first against Buford O. Furrow Jr., the white supremacist accused of wounding five people at the Los Angeles Jewish center on Tuesday and of killing a Filipino-American postal worker later that day.
The attorney general said the Justice Department would confer with local authorities to determine a course of action. She also said it was too early to say whether her department would seek the death penalty in the killing of the postal worker.
Asked whether the Justice Department should investigate more aggressively groups likely to be involved in hate crimes, Reno said her department would vigorously use its authority to pursue investigations that appeared to involve criminal conduct.
``But I don't think we should go after somebody if there is no indication of criminal conduct,'' she said.
Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, appearing on CBS' ``Face the Nation,'' said the Justice Department needs to ``see whether or not we are doing all that we can to effectively monitor these hate groups.''
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press[/quote]
------------------
Aye an' a bit of Mackeral settler rack and ruin Ran it doon by the haim, 'ma place. Well I slapped me and I slapped it doon in the side and I cried, cried, cried.
The fear a fallen down taken never back the raize and then Craig Marion, get out wi' ye Claymore out mi pocket a' ran doon, doon the middin stain picking the fiery horde that was fallen around ma feet.
Never he cried, never shall it ye get me alive ye rotten hound of the burnie crew. Well I snatched fer the blade. O my Claymore cut and thrust and I fell doon before him round his feet.
Aye! A roar he cried frae the bottom of his heart that I would nay fall but as dead, dead as 'a can be by his feet; de ya ken?...and the wind cried back.
Thank you.