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 -------------- #include /* not an HP spokesman */