The following article was in the Indianapolis Sunday Star on October 31, 1999. Women, like me, who believe in the 2nd Amendment must come to the front of the gun-control debate and say "NO" to more firearm legislation. We must show the country that not all women believe in gun control like the ones in the following article.
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Moms Set Cross Hairs on Gun Control
Indianapolis Sunday Star, October 31, 1999 by: David Goldstein Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON – Byrl Phillips Taylor vowed to do something about guns after a classmate of her 17-year-old son’s shot and killed him in a swamp near their Richmond, Va. Home in 1989.
Donna Dees-Thomases became a gun control activist in August after she saw televised pictures of police shepherding frightened day-care children away from a Los Angeles Jewish community center where a gunman shot five people.
Both want to make gun control an issue in the 2000 elections. Key to their efforts are women: mothers, just like themselves.
“We’re the ones who are losing our children,” Taylor said. “We just decided we would join forces – moms across America – and make people realize that it’s our children who are dying, and we want to stop it through sensible laws, not anything far-out.”
She is working with Handgun Control, an advocacy group, on Mothers Against Senseless Shootings, a drive to pass stronger gun-control laws and reduce the political influence of the National Rifle Association.
The mothers group is loosely aligned with Dees-Thomases’ project, the Million Mom March scheduled for May 14, 2000 – Mother’s Day. Organizers hope people will rally in Washington for stricter gun control legislation.
“We are going to march on Washington,” Dees-Thomases said. “We plan to get 1 million people on the mall. We think that’s what it’s going to take for Congress to realize that this is the most important issue going into November 2000.”
Political debate fires up
Female voters have made the difference in national, state, and local races in recent years. Both parties are courting them. Meanwhile, the blood spilled in 1999 in mass shootings has created fertile political ground.
Bill Powers, NRA spokesman, said it is too early to say whether guns will be an issue next year. He took umbrage, however, at the suggestion that only women are upset over gun violence and therefore pose a political threat.
“As if fathers are not against ‘senseless shootings’, as if law-abiding, peaceful citizens who happen to own firearms are not against ‘senseless shootings,’” he said. “It is possible to support the right of lawful citizens to own firearms for lawful purposes and be much opposed to violent criminals using guns. Those two concerns are not contrary.”
Others think guns probably will be part of the national debate.
Consider that for the first time, a majority of voters say gun control will be one of the issues by which they judge the presidential nominees and other candidates.
“Gun control registers on a list of problems people cite off the top of their heads,” said Andrew Kohut, director
of the Pew Research Center for the People of the Press. “People would say they would hold it against a member (of Congress) who voted against gun control at a pretty high rate, a much higher rate than say, how they voted on impeachment.”
Consider also that the number to Republican women who support more gun control is 72 percent, compared with 48 percent in 1993, according to a Pew survey.
And a GOP poll showed that fewer than one-third of voters who responded said they would be inclined to support a candidate linked to the NRA.
How the politicians stand
The current Democratic presidential contenders, Vice President All Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley, have called for more regulation, including waiting periods on firearms purchases and the banning of cheap handguns. Bradley goes further by supporting national registration of all handguns.
Republicans largely argue that more laws are not needed, just stricter enforcement of what already exists. It is a cornerstone of the gun policy of Texas Gov. George W. Bush. He also supports voluntary child-safety locks, while Sen. John McCain of Arizona would require them to be sold with every firearm.
Bush also signed a “conceal and carry” law in Texas that permits people to take guns into churches and amusement parks unless otherwise prohibited. Missouri voters rejected a proposal last spring that would have made it legal to carry concealed weapons.
Some pollsters, candidates and gun-advocacy groups think public opinion surveys show the majority of voters prefer stricter enforcement of current laws over more regulations.
In the wake of the Colorado shootings, Congress debated gun legislation and the Senate passed a bill that included mandatory safety locks, a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips, a prohibition on minors possessing assault weapons, and a requirement for background checks on all sales at gun shows by licensed dealers and others. Congressional negotiators are said to be working out a compromise.
Taylor, who is active with the Mothers Against Senseless Shootings campaign, said the murder of her son by a jealous acquaintance did not create outpourings of public grief or wall-to-wall news coverage, as did the Columbine High School shootings or the church shootings in Fort Worth, Texas.
“It was just one kid killing another one kid, but they proved in court that he brought the gun to school every day in a pickup truck,” she said. “He could have killed 50 kids. That would have made big news, but he didn’t. It was just one child; one mom losing one boy.”
If 1994, the year Republicans took control of Congress, was the year of the “angry white male” and 1996 was the year of the “soccer mom,” said Handgun Control’s Adam Eisgrau, then maybe 2000 will be the year of the “Enough, already!” voters when it comes to guns.
“It’s very sad,” Eisgrau said, “but the history of gun control is largely written in blood.”
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Refuse to be a "helpless" victim.
[This message has been edited by Blueyedog (edited November 02, 1999).]
___________________________________________
Moms Set Cross Hairs on Gun Control
Indianapolis Sunday Star, October 31, 1999 by: David Goldstein Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON – Byrl Phillips Taylor vowed to do something about guns after a classmate of her 17-year-old son’s shot and killed him in a swamp near their Richmond, Va. Home in 1989.
Donna Dees-Thomases became a gun control activist in August after she saw televised pictures of police shepherding frightened day-care children away from a Los Angeles Jewish community center where a gunman shot five people.
Both want to make gun control an issue in the 2000 elections. Key to their efforts are women: mothers, just like themselves.
“We’re the ones who are losing our children,” Taylor said. “We just decided we would join forces – moms across America – and make people realize that it’s our children who are dying, and we want to stop it through sensible laws, not anything far-out.”
She is working with Handgun Control, an advocacy group, on Mothers Against Senseless Shootings, a drive to pass stronger gun-control laws and reduce the political influence of the National Rifle Association.
The mothers group is loosely aligned with Dees-Thomases’ project, the Million Mom March scheduled for May 14, 2000 – Mother’s Day. Organizers hope people will rally in Washington for stricter gun control legislation.
“We are going to march on Washington,” Dees-Thomases said. “We plan to get 1 million people on the mall. We think that’s what it’s going to take for Congress to realize that this is the most important issue going into November 2000.”
Political debate fires up
Female voters have made the difference in national, state, and local races in recent years. Both parties are courting them. Meanwhile, the blood spilled in 1999 in mass shootings has created fertile political ground.
Bill Powers, NRA spokesman, said it is too early to say whether guns will be an issue next year. He took umbrage, however, at the suggestion that only women are upset over gun violence and therefore pose a political threat.
“As if fathers are not against ‘senseless shootings’, as if law-abiding, peaceful citizens who happen to own firearms are not against ‘senseless shootings,’” he said. “It is possible to support the right of lawful citizens to own firearms for lawful purposes and be much opposed to violent criminals using guns. Those two concerns are not contrary.”
Others think guns probably will be part of the national debate.
Consider that for the first time, a majority of voters say gun control will be one of the issues by which they judge the presidential nominees and other candidates.
“Gun control registers on a list of problems people cite off the top of their heads,” said Andrew Kohut, director
of the Pew Research Center for the People of the Press. “People would say they would hold it against a member (of Congress) who voted against gun control at a pretty high rate, a much higher rate than say, how they voted on impeachment.”
Consider also that the number to Republican women who support more gun control is 72 percent, compared with 48 percent in 1993, according to a Pew survey.
And a GOP poll showed that fewer than one-third of voters who responded said they would be inclined to support a candidate linked to the NRA.
How the politicians stand
The current Democratic presidential contenders, Vice President All Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley, have called for more regulation, including waiting periods on firearms purchases and the banning of cheap handguns. Bradley goes further by supporting national registration of all handguns.
Republicans largely argue that more laws are not needed, just stricter enforcement of what already exists. It is a cornerstone of the gun policy of Texas Gov. George W. Bush. He also supports voluntary child-safety locks, while Sen. John McCain of Arizona would require them to be sold with every firearm.
Bush also signed a “conceal and carry” law in Texas that permits people to take guns into churches and amusement parks unless otherwise prohibited. Missouri voters rejected a proposal last spring that would have made it legal to carry concealed weapons.
Some pollsters, candidates and gun-advocacy groups think public opinion surveys show the majority of voters prefer stricter enforcement of current laws over more regulations.
In the wake of the Colorado shootings, Congress debated gun legislation and the Senate passed a bill that included mandatory safety locks, a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips, a prohibition on minors possessing assault weapons, and a requirement for background checks on all sales at gun shows by licensed dealers and others. Congressional negotiators are said to be working out a compromise.
Taylor, who is active with the Mothers Against Senseless Shootings campaign, said the murder of her son by a jealous acquaintance did not create outpourings of public grief or wall-to-wall news coverage, as did the Columbine High School shootings or the church shootings in Fort Worth, Texas.
“It was just one kid killing another one kid, but they proved in court that he brought the gun to school every day in a pickup truck,” she said. “He could have killed 50 kids. That would have made big news, but he didn’t. It was just one child; one mom losing one boy.”
If 1994, the year Republicans took control of Congress, was the year of the “angry white male” and 1996 was the year of the “soccer mom,” said Handgun Control’s Adam Eisgrau, then maybe 2000 will be the year of the “Enough, already!” voters when it comes to guns.
“It’s very sad,” Eisgrau said, “but the history of gun control is largely written in blood.”
------------------
Refuse to be a "helpless" victim.
[This message has been edited by Blueyedog (edited November 02, 1999).]