Printed in the USA.
The Gottlieb-Tartaro Report
Issue 070
October, 2000
GORE SILENT ON GUNS?
Democrat presidential candidate AL GORE seems to have gone silent on the gun control issue.
That would be unthinkable if it wasn't on campaign stops in the conservative Midwestern states.
GORE deflects the issue to complaints against the entertainment industry for glamorizing violence and selling it to kids. He is making family values and religious faith the highlight of his speeches. And he has virtually stopped talking about gun control or the National Rifle Association - in certain places.
Insiders say they are not surprised by Mr. GORE's effort to steal a bit of Republican GEORGE W. BUSH's thunder. Among the more conservative swing voters GORE is trying to court, there is greater political gain in criticizing the people who make movies than the ones who make, sell and own guns.
"Clearly gun control is not an issue anyone is going to ride to the White House on," said ROBERT J. SPITZER, a professor of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland, and author of the anti-gun book, The Politics of Gun Control.
"Hollywood, on the other hand," Professor SPITZER said, "is an absolute win all the way around."
GORE's aides told reporters he had not backed away from his gun control agenda, which includes licensing new handgun owners and limiting handgun purchases to one a month. GORE is still vigorously pushing gun control, but he's hiding the fact.
Privately, GORE's advisers have long acknowledged that gun control is a potentially double-edged issue. And so they have counseled him to avoid discussing gun control in rural communities and to frame his agenda as crime-fighting or child-safety ideas - terms more acceptable to gun owners. It's all word play.
The logic of GORE's strategy becomes clearer with a glance at the electoral map. His race with BUSH is most sharply contested in Midwestern and Great Lakes states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Missouri.
Many independent voters and Democrats in those states are socially conservative, pollsters said. And many own guns.
The National Rifle Association has gained a substantial benefit from AL GORE's continual potshots at the organization outside the Midwest and Great Lakes.
Membership in the gun group, which will be a crucial part of GEORGE W. BUSH's base in November, has hit more than 4 million - an all-time high.
Executive Vice President WAYNE LAPIERRE recently confirmed the figure. "And we're headed to 5 million," he says.
The gun group has gained more than 1 million new members in the last 12 months. "Americans have heard AL GORE say he wants every gun registered, every gun owner licensed, and federal testing," says LAPIERRE. "That will only hit the honest people."
NRA membership generally rises during election years and dips during off years, but this year it is off the chart. "Everything is up, up, up - programs, membership, contributions," says LAPIERRE. "Every rally we go to around the country has 1,000 people. I've never seen that before."
GUNS AND GEORGE W. BUSH
Today, Texas is one of the most gun-friendly places in America - which has gained attention for the gun policies of GEORGE W. BUSH, the Texas governor and Republican presidential nominee.
The gun issue and what gun rights should be respected always plays a significant role in presidential elections. But the tragic shootings in places like Littleton, CO, Los Angeles, Springfield, OR, and Texas' own Fort Worth have battered the public mind, making the gun control debate more important in this year's White House race than in the past.
Democratic nominee AL GORE has called for more stringent laws on the sale and licensing of handguns. BUSH has suggested a much more measured approach, a tact which accurately reflects his unquestionably pro-gun record as governor of Texas.
In the six years since BUSH took office, the concept of an armed citizenry as a deterrent to crime has taken hold in Texas. In his first campaign for governor in 1994, BUSH promised that he would sign a bill ending the state's century-old ban on the carrying of side arms by civilians - and he did. Now, to the chagrin of gun-control advocates, more than 200,000 Texans are licensed to carry concealed handguns, and the numbers are rising.
Last year, amid a nationwide blitz of lawsuits against gun makers by cities seeking to recoup the health costs of criminal shootings, BUSH was among 14 governors who signed laws barring local jurisdictions from bringing such cases. And he took a pass on an opportunity to back legislation that would have expanded background checks on buyers at gun shows in the state.
Nearly 60 percent of households in Texas have firearms, compared to 34 percent nationwide, a recent National Rifle Association survey found.
"What people want to know is, does a candidate have a practical view of guns, and I do," BUSH said earlier this year. "I support the, vigorous prosecution of people who break the law with guns. There ought to be vigorous prosecution for people who sell guns illegally as well."
BUSH's campaigns have not benefited greatly from gun interests. The NRA and its Texas affiliate gave Bush $6,000 for his re-election campaign in 1998, a tiny fraction of the $17.7 million he collected.
Nor is BUSH a member of the NRA, although aides say he owns two shotguns and a rifle for dove and quail hunting.
OREGON COUNTY GOP RAFFLES GUN
The lucky winner in the latest Republican Party fund-raiser won't be cruising around in a new car or flying away on a Caribbean vacation. Buy a $5 raffle ticket from the Washington County Republicans, and you could score a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver.
Part publicity stunt, part political statement, the fund-raiser was organized to stir Second Amendment passions among Republican faithful and to showcase firearms as a routine aspect of U.S. society, said JEFF GROSSMAN, Vice chairman of Oregon's Washington County Republicans and a gun-rights activist.
Some of the county's Democratic and Republican legislative candidates and the county sheriff question whether the party should have settled on a less politically volatile raffle prize.
Party leaders looking for a unique money-raising plan borrowed the idea from a few political groups in the East, where it was a success, GROSSMAN said. It hadn't been used on the West Coast before, he said, and the group knew it would turn a few heads.
CHICAGO'S $433 MILLION ANTI-GUN SUIT DISMISSED
Chicago Mayor RICHARD M. DALEY's $433 million lawsuit against the firearms industry has been dismissed! The judge said the mayor might do better to combat city crime through law enforcement methods and legislation.
Cook County Circuit Judge STEPHEN SCHILLER questioned the city's use of statistics showing that many guns used in gang shootings in Chicago have actually been purchased at suburban gun shops, many by so-called straw purchasers who bought them for resale to criminals.
SCHILLER said the statistics represent the kind of evidence that calls for legislation rather than court action.
More than 30 cities and counties across the country have filed lawsuits against the firearms industry, with mixed results. Last October, a state judge allowed part of Atlanta's lawsuit to proceed, while an Ohio judge dismissed Cincinnati's lawsuit.
DALEY pledged to appeal the decision and said SCHILLER, a former Criminal Court judge, should have understood the need for the lawsuit.
"Who in his right mind is going to be having this on the street in front of your child?" he said, holding up a rifle.
DALEY's lawsuit was filed in November 1998 following an undercover investigation by Chicago police officers who posed as "straw purchasers" - people with state firearms owners identification cards who buy guns for those who lack such cards, usually because they have criminal records and are ineligible.
Daley said the $433 million was related to the cost of police, medical and other services over a four-year period.
Named as defendants were 22 gun manufacturers, including such major names as Beretta, Colt, Smith & Wesson and Browning.
JAMES VALENTINO, an attorney for defendant Universal Firearms Ltd., said the decision was important for all businesses, not just gun makers.
"If the manufacturer of a product can be held liable because somebody uses his product illegally, then no manufacturer is safe," he said. He said police should concentrate their efforts on straw purchasers.
Daley also pledged to carry the fight to the Legislature this fall in an effort to make sure there is state licensing of gun shops and a limit of one gun purchase per month per person.
The Illinois State Rifle Association issued a news release saying, "Mayor Daley must come to grips with the fact that he stands nearly alone in his struggle to snuff out private firearm ownership in Illinois. If his real intention is to fight crime, Daley should join the majority of citizens in calling for tougher sentencing of habitual criminals, If Daley really cared about public safety, he'd express support for the unencumbered exercise of the natural right to self defense. If he really cared about the community, the mayor would abandon a gun control agenda that so often pits husband against wife, sister against brother, teacher against student, and neighbor against neighbor."
The Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence issued a statement saying it was "shocked by Judge Steven Schillers dismissal of the City of Chicago's lawsuit against the gun industry. The board and membership of ICHV find the judge's decision incomprehensible. ICHV board member BOB WILLIAMSON commented, "Firearm violence is a public nuisance, not just in Chicago but everywhere, even in Glenview where Judge Schiller lives." ELIZABETH GALLAGHER COOLIDGE, ICHV board chair feels personally affected by the judge's decision. "I am the sister of a Chicago Police Officer and the mother of two sons. I saw this lawsuit as the City's attempt to protect my family and the community. Judge Schiller's decision to dismiss the case puzzles and saddens me." ICHV is confident that the City of Chicago will be successful on appeal."
Even though the battle is not over, a crucial first step has brought a resounding victory for gun rights and a sound trashing of the anti-gun effort to bankrupt the firearms industry with a flurry of costly lawsuits.
The G-T Report will keep you informed on the appeal.
FROM A MARCH TO A (VERY RICH) MOVEMENT
The "Million Mom March" that was staged on the Mall in Washington, D.C. on Mother's Day this year is being turned into a permanent anti-gun group playing the child safety card.
These "Moms against handguns" recently gathered in Denver, CO for a national conference to arm themselves with strategy and attack gun rights. If there was any single message that gun rights supporters got from the get-together, it was: Don't underestimate this new organization.
It looks like a grass roots, chapter-driven movement. In reality, it's a big-money, grant-driven instrument of rich and powerful behind-the-scenes people who want to run your life the way they think is best. And even the members don't know.
About 300 people came to the Million Mom March National Conference at the Downtown Denver Hyatt, including a number of local pro-gun moms who could afford to pony up the $100 entry fee.
The initial reaction of the pro-gun moms was shock, plain shock at the sheer volume of full-color, heavy paper literature prepared for the conference, three professional crews videotaping the entire conference, and a retired Secret Service man to handle security - among other expensive things.
The program looked like it was put together by very savvy and very high-powered political strategists. Conference participants attended seminars with titles such as "Answers to Gun Lobby Arguments: The Second Amendment and Other Myths" and "Debate: Confronting and Countering the NRA Rhetoric." A voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaign was ready to go. A legislative agenda was in place, complete with state-level lobbying expertise.
And think about the mind-set of people who regard the Second Amendment as a myth. The whole thing was like a cult meeting, with almost-religious fervor and zealous true believers coming out of the sessions.
The funding behind this new organization is staggering, according to BOB GLASS of Partisan Magazine: $5 million from the Goldman Foundation; $1 million from the Packard Foundation, and much more.
The new Million Mom March Foundation that gets all this money was formerly the Bell Campaign, which itself was an offshoot of a San Francisco hospital trauma unit.
The media didn't look at the context of the conference - the money and power behind it - but focused on the grassroots-looking surface.
One reporter wrote that moms came to the conference to learn how to debate with facts and figures, not emotional rhetoric.
Here are a few of his takes on the conference:
"I'm uninformed," said DENA KAHAN, a former elementary school teacher from Bryan, Texas. "I want more information to give to people. I know my position is right, just don't know how to verbalize it."
At one seminar, heads nodded when a woman asked: "How do we respond to the line that registration leads to confiscation? That's one of my brother's favorite statements."
PHILIP ALPERS, a gun policy researcher from New Zealand, said that while confiscations have occurred in third-world countries, they are rare in developed nations.
"We register our automobiles, and we certainly don't worry about them being taken off the road," said speaker CHARLIE BLEK, when the same question came up in his seminar.
Outside the conference, a band of about 75 protesters circled the block. They marched behind a fife and drum corps and carried signs reading, "I have a Mom. She likes guns," and "Trigger Locks: Safe Sex for Rapists." CHRIS TREAT, 14, of Littleton, CO handed out copies of the Constitution while police officers looked on. As the conventioneers left the hotel for lunch, protesters called them "Commie mommies."
The conference claimed that it does not want to confiscate guns. Rather, they want all handgun owners licensed, handguns registered and weapon safety standards created. Sure.
We will be seeing a lot of this new group. Brace yourself.
DID ANTI-GUN LAWS KILL THESE TWO CHILDREN?
When the man with the pitchfork came into her Merced, California home and attacked her brother and sister, 14-year-old JESSICA CARPENTER ran next door.
She didn't ask her neighbor to call 9-1-1. She begged him to grab his rifle and "take care of this guy."
The neighbor didn't, and her siblings died.
By the time Merced County sheriff's deputies arrived at her home, her 7-year-old brother, JOHN WILLIAM, was dead. So was her younger sister, ASHLEY DANIELLE, 9.
The children's great-uncle, the Rev. JOHN HILTON, said: "If only Jessica had a gun available to her, she could have stopped the whole thing. If she had been properly armed, she could have stopped him in his tracks."
Maybe JOHN WILLIAM and ASHLEY would still be alive, he said.
Their father, JOHN CARPENTER, kept a gun in the home. His children had learned how to fire it.
But he kept it locked away and hidden from his children.
"He's more afraid of the law than of somebody coming in for his family," HILTON said. "He's scared to death of leaving the gun where the kids could get it because he's afraid of the law.
"He's scared to teach his children to defend themselves."
HILTON said CARPENTER feared overregulation as well as laws that make gun owners criminally and civilly liable if their children or others are injured.
At gun shops in Fresno and Merced, people expressed similar views. Two Merced families walked into Cline's Sporting Goods and purchased guns for self-defense as a direct result of the horrific crime.
DAN HEIMAN, who works at Gilman-Mayfield Firearms in Fresno, said people are changing their behavior because of gun laws.
"The government has got the people so scared," HEIMAN said. "I agree wholeheartedly with the pastor. If there had been a gun available, maybe nobody would have died."
BILL MAYFIELD, owner of the shop, said that fear of government is very real - so real that some people are even selling their guns back. But he cautioned people to look at each case individually.
"I would like to think that she could have gone someplace, obtained a weapon and saved the two lives," MAYFIELD said.
GUN LOCK BUY-BACK PROGRAM
Takoma Park is a quiet Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. Its annual Takoma Park Folk Festival is usually laid back, with its veggie-burger booths, acoustic-guitar players and storytellers. It isn't the sort of event where gun-rights advocates have typically sought out new support.
But that's exactly what the Maryland Citizens Defense League did: it manned a "Turn in Your Gun Locks" table to protest Gov. PARRIS N. GLENDENING's gun-control legislation.
All locks turned in, according to members, will be smelted into ingots for manufacture of new firearms to be raffled at a later date.
Takoma Park, a city of 18,600, is considered one of the most liberal communities in Maryland, and the peace-loving festival was an interesting setting for such a stunt. That's why it was chosen.
"We ended up with some Million Moms coming over and haranguing us," said WAYNE ERICKSEN, president of the 2-year old gun group, which has about 30 members.
He and his colleagues were armed with statistics, fact sheets and charts to bolster their argument that government should not require the use of gun locks.
According to a press release posted on the Maryland Citizens Defense League's World Wide Web site (www.mcdl.org), gun owners should turn in their locks because "when seconds count, and your gun's locked, you're dead."
Gov. GLENDENING, a Democrat, this year advocated - and eventually signed into law - legislation requiring gun buyers to purchase external safety locks with all new handguns sold.
VIRGINIA LAWMAKERS AND SENATE CANDIDATES
Northern Virginia legislators recently pushed for a law change barring people from carrying unloaded guns onto school property in car rifle racks.
They ran into rural lawmakers fearing it could entrap law-abiding sportsmen.
Delegates JAMES H. DILLARD II (R) and JAMES M. SCOTT (D), both of Fairfax County, said their proposal reflects desires for gun control in their suburban districts, a battleground in the U.S. Senate race between gun control incumbent CHARLES S. ROBB (D) and challenger GEORGE ALLEN (R), a strong gun rights supporter.
The ROBB-ALLEN race reflects on a larger scale the statewide gun debate on the DILLARD and SCOTT proposal.
The Washington Post recently did a survey of 1,013 registered voters in Virginia and found that ALLEN was leading ROBB by 53 percent to 45 percent.
Guns are prohibited at Virginia schools, but current law contains an exception for some weapons on school property, including an unloaded shotgun or rifle kept in a firearms rack of a car or truck or in a closed container.
Every year, General Assembly members debate proposals to tweak the state's gun laws, with suburbanites and rural lawmakers fighting as much about hunting rights and a sport-shooting culture as about urban crime.
As governor, ALLEN said he had concentrated over the years on tough law enforcement measures aimed at getting armed criminals and their guns off the street while preserving others' constitutional right to own firearms.
"You can incarcerate all the guns you want, but if you don't have the criminals incarcerated, it's not going to do any good," ALLEN said.
MO ELLEITHEE, ROBB's campaign spokesman, said gun control "is clearly an issue that we're going to talk about. Virginians want to know that their leaders are beholden to public safety interests, rather than NRA interests."
ELLEITHEE said he was uncertain whether ROBB will mount an expensive TV ad campaign against ALLEN over guns, as Handgun Control Inc. did earlier in the campaign.
The House committee delayed its final votes on pending gun legislation.
CORRECTING MISINFORMATION ABOUT S. 2099 CIRCULATING ON THE INTERNET
Here are accurate facts about S. 2099, the Handgun Safety and Registration Act of 2000, introduced by anti-gun U.S. Senator JACK REED (D-RI):
S. 2099 seeks to do the following:
• Treat handguns similarly to machine guns, short-barreled shotguns and rifles, or destructive devices by amending the National Firearms Act (NFA) - which established the strict controls regulating machine guns, short-barreled shotguns and rifles, etc. Photographs, fingerprints, and background checks are required on all handgun transfers, as well as registration of the firearms and those who own them, etc. Registration information would be available for online access by state & local law enforcement officials.
• Tax all handgun transfers at $5 per transfer (the current tax on machine guns and other NFA-regulated items is $200.00). The tax on making handguns would be $50, again as opposed to the current $200. Handguns could still be imported.
• Allow current handgun owners one year to register all of their handguns. Registration forms would be available at Post Offices and on the Internet. Unlike machine guns, multiple handguns could be registered on a single form. A public awareness campaign would encourage compliance.
S. 2099 does not seek to do the following:
• It does not require the IRS enforce the new regulations. The only reason people think the IRS would be involved is that S. 2099 seeks to amend the Internal Revenue Code, which happens to include the NFA. The NFA is enforced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (BATF).
• It does not require that handguns be listed on Form 1040 income tax returns.
• It cannot be enacted immediately by the Senate Finance Committee. The Constitution requires legislation to pass both houses of Congress and to be signed by the President, and S. 2099 is just like any other piece of legislation.
GUN NEWS TICKER: SHORT TAKES ON GUNS
• Texas has signed reciprocal agreements with Florida and Tennessee, allowing citizens with concealed handgun licenses issued by Florida or Tennessee to legally carry concealed handguns in Texas, and vice versa.
Col. THOMAS A. DAVIS Jr., director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, signed the reciprocity agreements with the State of Florida and the State of Tennessee through which their licensees can visit Texas with their concealed handguns.
"This agreement will allow licensed Texans to travel freely in the states of Tennessee and Florida, while enjoying the same or similar privileges their licenses give them at home," DAVIS said.
These reciprocity agreements - the fifth and sixth Texas has reached with another state - were made possible by 1997 changes to the state's concealed handgun law. Texas also has reciprocity agreements with Arkansas, Louisiana, Arizona and Oklahoma.
• The headlines said, "Charlton came to Carleton, and half of the audience wore black." It wasn't a fashion statement.
Much of the thousand-strong crowd at Carleton College in Northfield, MN, was protesting the appearance by CHARLTON HESTON, President of the National Rifle Association. HESTON told his audience to ignore political agendas in favor of freedom.
"When you call a friend and tell them to vote for freedom first, your words will echo in the spirit of PATRICK HENRY and THOMAS PAINE," he said. "They won our freedom with bullets so we could defend our freedom with ballots."
He spoke less than 15 minutes and left without taking questions.
Protesters used the old gimmick of laying out shoes - 178 pairs - to represent the number of Minnesotans shot to death in 1999.
• Professors PHILLIP COOK and JENS LUDWIG have a new book out which claims "gun violence" (today's standard propaganda phrase) costs the country $100 billion per year - if you count "the devastating emotional costs experienced by relatives and friends of gunshot victims, and the fear and general reduction in quality of life that the threat of gun violence imposes on everyone in America."
Prof. GARY KLECK of Florida State University, who has described himself as a "doctrinaire Liberal," and has determined that privately owned guns are used about 2.5 million times per year to prevent crimes, scoffs that the COOK-LUDWIG study is "too hypothetical and too reliant on subjective judgments" to be taken seriously.
He points out that their study gives no consideration to the value of gun ownership, only the costs.
• In a letter dated September 11, 2000, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is advising all Florida Firearms Dealers that the State Legislature allocated $400,000 to the Firearms Purchase Program so that the fee for firearms purchasers could be reduced from the current $8.00 to $5.00.
• Federal appellate judges want the California Supreme Court to answer a question it has managed to avoid: Can cities and counties in the state pass their own gun-control laws? Confronted with county ordinances that would effectively ban gun shows at county fairgrounds, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it needed to know how much leeway California law gave local governments to regulate firearms. That is a question for the state's highest court, the final authority on the meaning of California law, the federal panel said.
• An armed, off-duty Rochester, NY police officer recently went to get a magnetic resonance imaging test. Clinic workers told it was all right to keep his handgun with him.
As soon as he entered the room, the device's heavy-duty magnet yanked the .45-caliber gun right out of his hand and the gun discharged. The bullet lodged in an exterior wall and no one was hurt. It took three hours to power down the magnet and free the weapon.
An MRI is four times as powerful as magnets used to lift cars in junkyards, said Sgt. WILLIAM BENWITZ, who runs a firearms training unit.
WE'RE NOT MAKING THIS UP
Every now and then something comes along that's so preposterous we have to reassure readers that it's true.
This is one of those times. This really happened.
It happened in New Zealand. Rural New Zealand, where people still have guns.
It seems that a rural New Zealand school has a new anti-gun program for kindergarten kids. Yes, kindergarten kids.
These are the kids who have imaginary shootouts in a game of cops-and-robbers. Or have make-believe safari hunts. And who use toy pistols, rifles and shotguns.
Now kindergartners with play guns will have to carry permission cards modeled after real-life weapon permits.
It was the anti-gun school teachers and administrators who dreamed this up to get even with kindergarten kids after students continued to stage mock gun battles despite rules against them.
Now those kids must justify their need for a toy gun and agree to abide by the rules for its use, such as not pointing it at another person.
Educators facing outraged parents have a nifty excuse: The purpose of the licensing system for toy guns is to teach children that firearms must be used with great caution.
Helen Durbridge, the head teacher, said, "They have to tell us the rules of guns and the first rule is that you never point a gun at anybody."
Applicants for a license must say why they want one.
Those who say they want to shoot endangered animals are told why this must not be done.
Youngsters who want to play cops and robbers are told the New Zealand police are usually unarmed, so shooting is forbidden.
But children who want to put down a seriously injured pretend horse, or hunt possums, which are seen as a pest, may be granted a license.
Of course, these teachers are not allowing kids to bring real guns to school and teaching them that real guns must be used with great caution.
What they're actually doing is teaching kids that toy guns must be used with great caution at school because their teachers are a little nuts.
And maybe that it's easier to get forgiveness than permission.
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