P. A-6

San Diego Union-Tribune

Saturday, April 1, 1995

GOP draws a bead on gun control

Associated Press

WASHINGTON--Store clerks, business owners, a computer
programmer and a couple of gun merchants told lawmakers
yesterday how they used firearms to defend themselves.

They testified as the GOP-controlled Congress opened its
attack on gun-control laws. A senior House Democrat called
the hearing "a smoke screen" for the National Rifle
Association.

Republicans have made repeal of the ban on assault-style
firearms, which was part of last year's $30 billion anti-
crime law, a top priority. Democrats have pledged to fight
that move, and President Clinton has indicated he would veto
any such repeal.

At the hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime,
Sharon-Jo Ramboz recalled her response to intruders at her
Walkersville, Md., home.

"I woke up as the assailants broke in and I calmly walked to
our closet where the firearm was stored," Ramboz said. "I
grabbed my Colt AR-15 semiautomatic rifle... I inserted the
magazine while I was in the closet. I walked to the top of
the stairs. Then I pulled back the bolt and letting it go,
chambered a round."

"That distinctive sound... was all I needed to protect four
innocent lives and send multiple perpetrators scurrying,"
she said.

Charmaine Klaus, a grandmother from Waterford, Mich., used a
handgun to wound an assailant who had shot and killed a
clerk in her store; David Joo, a gun merchant, said he
defended himself with firearms during the 1992 Los Angeles
riots.

Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who led the House fight for
the Brady handgun control law and the ban on assault-style
firearms, called the hearing "a smoke screen for the NRA and
the gun lobby."

"This is an extremist pro-gun agenda in congressional
disguise," said Schumer. "We're here today because the NRA
and the gun industry spent a lot of money in the last
election and now it's payback time."

The House plans to vote in May on legislation to lift the
assault-style weapons ban. And Senate Majority Leader Bob
Dole, R-Kan., a consistent gun-control opponent, told an NRA
official in a recent letter that he hoped to have such a
bill on Clinton's desk by summer.

The ban, which prohibits the manufacture, sale and
possession of 19 specific types of assault-style firearms
and scores of copycats, is popular among law enforcement
officials and the public at large.

There also were witnesses on the other side: Thomas
McDermott, who was shot in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road
massacre, and others whose family members were accidentally
killed by guns.

Carlyn McCarthy, whose husband, Dennis, was killed and whose
son, Kevin, was partially paralyzed in the Long Island Rail
Road massacre, said the ban is "not taking away people's
guns or their right to own a gun to protect themselves."

"The American people want an assault-weapons ban," McCarthy
said in an interview. Colin Ferguson used a 9 mm
semiautomatic pistol to kill six people and wound 19 others
in the Dec. 7, 1993 attack. He recently was sentenced to a
minimum of 200 years in prison.

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