From: [v l j] at [hpfcso.FC.HP.COM] (Victor Johnson)
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1993 06:20:30 GMT
Subject: Goodman anti NRA
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns


 tpg'ers,

 I'm posting an article by Ellen Goodman for your perusal.  In it,
 you'll find much of the same tired stuff including a bit about
 the Brady bill requiring a background check.

 I plan to send off a courteous letter to EG to rebutt a few of her
 points:

 1. I believe her figure of 16,000 murders by firearms per
    year is bogus with a goodly percentage of this stat (~60%)
    being suicide "homicides".  I'm looking for a reference to
    cite.

 2. She claims that the country is now insisting that "we do
    something about those efficient tools of homicide: the guns"
    while neglecting the efficient purveyors of homicide: the 
    criminal.  The polls I have seen favor criminal control over
    gun control.

 3. The bill passed by the Colorado special session of the Colorado
    legislature was the NRA backed Adkins-Wham bill that allows
    exceptions to the prohibition of juvenile handgun possession.
    The NRA supported an almost identical bill over a year ago
    but ol' Roy vetoed it merely because it had the backing of
    the NRA.  Suddenly, now Roy is the hero?  I think not.

 4. The Brady bill *does not* require a background check, only
    a waiting period.  She admits that backers of the bill 
    realize that it will not deter the violent criminal but it
    needs to be passed anyway because it is a "referendum" and
    will break the "spell" of the NRA.  Wonderful.


 ============================ Begin Editorial ==============================

 TOLL BEGINS TO PAINT NEW TARGET: AIM AT THE GUNS

 BOSTON - There were murders over the weekend.
    Most of them ended up buried, if you will excuse the expression, in
 the paper.  When there are 16,000 murders by firearms every year, every
 homicide isn't front page news.
    We have become nearly shock-proof.  But we are not immune to anger.
 The cumulative effect of murder -- another day, another 40 deaths -- has 
 finally simmered into a heated insistence that we do something about
 those efficient tools of homicide: the guns.
    What was it Janet Reno said some months ago?  "If only this nation
 would rise up and tell the NRA to get lost."  Well, for the first time in 
 memory, the gun lobby is on the defensive.
    In New Jersey, the beleagured Gov. Jim Florio resurrected his campaign
 with an attack ad that was literally about attack weapons.  The ad
 asked:  Why would the NRA spend a million dollars to elect Christie
 Todd Whitman?
    There has been a rash of modest gun control victories in the states.
 This year, Connecticut passed a ban on assault weapons.
    In Colorado, after an infant was wounded at the Denver Zoo, Gov. Roy
 Romer called a special session to ban juvenile possession of handguns.
 Now in Massachusetts, the gun-owning hunter, Republican Gov. William Weld,
 is supporting both a ban on assault weapons and on possession of handguns
 by anyone under 21.
    Now Congress -- once a wholly owned subsidiary of the NRA -- is
 getting the message just as it is getting the Brady bill.  Again.
    This modest bill requires a five-day waiting period and a background
 check.  Friends of the bill worry that it may disappoint a public already
 skeptical about the ability of such laws to reduce violence.  But
 even enemies agree that is has become the national referendum on the
 future of gun control.
    If Brady passes, the NRA spell is broken.
    For now, another day, another murder.  Or two.  Hillary Clinton
 said it best on CNN, "I cannot bear to pick up another newspaper and
 read about another baby shot."
    There is even one thing worse.  If babies with bullets in them stop
 being news.

 Ellen Goodman
 Washington Post Writers Group

 =========================================================================

 I only have an address in care of my local rag to address correspondence
 to EG or I would post that too.

 Cheers,
 Victor Johnson
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#include <std_disclaimer.h> /* not an HP spokesman */