Printed in the USA.
The Gottlieb-Tartaro Report
Issue 060
December, 1999
LIBERAL, ANTI-GUN DEMOCRATS ATTACK GUN OWNERS
Playing politics with gun control is a tired old game on Capitol Hill, but it will be back when Congress reconvenes in January.
House Democrats plan to file a discharge petition to force controversial gun control amendments out of committee and to a floor vote.
Rep. BART STUPAK (D-MI) and a group of his colleagues is plotting to bring the basic juvenile justice bill to the floor on its own in January. Then the discharge petitions would be introduced to try to force votes on regulations of gun sales at gun shows.
This complicated move came as a result of two different versions of the juvenile justice bill being passed, a heavy gun control bill passed by the Senate and a more reasonable version passed by the House.
The House-Senate conference committee could not reconcile the differences before Congress adjourned late last month.
The planned discharge petitions are designed to force harsh Senate language onto the more pro-gun rights House version.
But, despite this threat, House Judiciary Committee Chairman HENRY HYDE (R-IL) said it looks more and more as if the Democrats don’t really want a gun control bill at all, they want a campaign issue.
We’re already seeing signs that the Democrats hope the vote fails, or, if it passes, they hope that it will be vetoed by President CLINTON for being too pro-gun. Then they can beat up on Republicans as election day nears for being "soft on gun violence" or for "doing nothing."
The president of the American Bar Association, WILLIAM G. PAUL, recently wrote a letter to the House-Senate conferees, accusing them of "congressional delay on gun safety legislation."
"Gun safety" is the latest cosmetic buzzword for gun control.PAUL wrote, "Six months ago students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., were victims of guns in the hands of juveniles. The violence continued with the shootings at a Los Angeles day care center and a Ft. Worth, Texas, church. And now Honolulu and Seattle. Yet Congress continues to ignore the public outcry for legislation to limit access to guns."
Vice President AL GORE told a press conference, "The leadership of the majority party is frustrating the will of the American people by refusing to take up legislation that the American people support."
Congressional Democrats particularly want to remove a House measure sponsored by Michigan Democrat JOHN DINGELL mandating that all background checks be completed within 24 hours without exception, gun shows included.
Sen. FRANK LAUTENBERG (D-NJ) sponsored a provision in the Senate that allowed up to three days for background checks on gun show sales, discouraging such sales.
Anything less than the LAUTENBERG 3 day wait is "the gun show loophole," which Democrats have vowed to ask President CLINTON to veto.
G-T Report insiders say a juvenile justice bill may not happen next session. If so, expect a frenzy of Republican-bashing on gun control during the campaign.
BRADLEY FRAMES GUN CONTROL AS HEALTH ISSUE
• Following the propaganda line created by the wealthy Joyce Foundation, BILL BRADLEY has declared that shootings are a public health emergency requiring urgent federal action.
Once again, BRADLEY has outrun Vice President AL GORE to the left in his quest for the presidential nomination.
"If you look at the illnesses and the injuries and the health care cost of gun violence, it is substantial," said BRADLEY. "And that’s why when we’re thinking about health care, we have to broaden it not just to the hospital or the doctor."
BRADLEY’s first major campaign proposal was a call for a national system on registration for all handguns. He said it was "the toughest gun control measure of any candidate who has ever run for president of the United States."
There is no reason to disbelieve that campaign claim.
JOHN McCAIN PUSHES GUN CONTROL ON "LARRY KING LIVE"
• Unprovoked, from out of left field, JOHN McCAIN took a shot at gun collectors, owners and dealers on CNN’s "Larry King Live" program.
That’s what the Manchester Union-Leader said about a totally unexpected anti-gun blast from the presidential hopeful Senator from Arizona, a man who has charmed us all with his bravery as a prisoner of war and his straight-arrow image as an outsider standing on principle to clean up America’s act.
Well, so much for illusions.
All that LARRY KING asked was why congressional Republicans are held in "low esteem in national polls." McCAIN replied, "we need to pass the legislation on gun control. It was passed through the Senate. We need to do things that the American people want us to do rather than being gridlocked by the special interests and we’re gridlocked on both sides."
McCAIN himself was bowing to that most powerful of special interests, the media elite. He gave them what he thought they wanted to hear, not the brave stance that once led him to vote against gun show regulations. When the national media expressed outrage at the outcome of that vote the next morning, he panicked and demanded that the Senate do something to placate the likes of the New York Times and CNN.Looks like the principle McCAIN stands on is political expediency, not exactly what gun owners had hoped for.
denver mayor challenges candidates to push gun control
• Denver Mayor WELLINGTON E. WEBB has challenged the presidential candidates to address urban issues like gun control.
WEBB said that cities have changed for the better during the past 20 years, but even with declining crime rates, they still face an epidemic of violence and guns.
"As long as we’re not safe in our neighborhoods, not safe in our places of work, not safe on out streets, not safe in our schools, a strong economy doesn’t mean much.," WEBB said.
WEBB is the vice president of the National Conference of Black Mayors and the National conference of Democratic Mayors.
He said Congress’ failure to pass gun control legislation during its last session was a major disappointment. He blamed both political parties for having fragmented agendas, and urged all presidential candidates to back gun control.
GUNS, CRIMINALS AND RESEARCHERS IN THE NEWS
GUN-RELATED DEATH RATE PLUMMETSDespite increased gun sales and more states allowing concealed carry of firearms, Americans were much less likely to die from gun-related incidents in 1997 than in 1993, according to a recent report.
The study by the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at all gunshot wounds reported at emergency rooms, whether they were intentional, accidental or self-inflicted.
CDC researchers found that there were 39,595 gun-related deaths in 1993, about 15.4 per 100,000 people. That number fell to 32,436 in 1997, about 12.1 per 100,000.
Non-fatal shootings fell from 104,390 to 64,207 in the same period, or from 40.5 per 100,000 to 24.0.
J. LEE ANNEST, a CDC statistician said, "the death rate is the lowest it’s been since the mid-’60s. This progress is really encouraging and really says that joint prevention efforts of public health officials, legislators and law enforcement should continue."
The CDC credited a strong economy that has helped reduce overall crime and suicide attempts. The strong economy enabled governments to spend more on services that prevent gun violence, such as domestic-violence shelters and youth recreation programs.
Not mentioned was the increase in armed citizens capable of self-defense that has deterred an unknown number of gun-related deaths.
The drop was not unexpected, even so. Homicide rates in the 1990s have fallen to levels not seen since the 1960s.
REPORT: SERIOUS CRIME FALLS IN 1999
The FBI has released a preliminary study of serious reported crime, which showed an unusually large 10 percent decline during the first half of 1999.
Led by drops of 13 percent in murders, 14 percent in burglaries and 12 percent in auto thefts, the FBI report extended the nationwide crime decline to 7 1/2 years.
The report surprised experts used to seeing single digit declines during the 1990s. The overall crime figure had declined by only 5 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent in the preceding three reports.
There was one discordant note: a 1 percent rise in murders among cities of more than a million residents. Criminologists did not see this as a trend that will get worse, but more probably that there is some irreducible minimum level of crime.
This year, among other violent crimes, robbery dropped 10 percent; rape, 8 percent and aggravated assault, 7 percent. In other property crime, larceny-theft declined 8 percent.
The annual FBI report gives only percentage changes between the first six months of each year.
CDC GUN RESEARCHER FIRED
The U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has fired MARK L. ROSENBERG, its head "gun violence" researcher. ROSENBERG was the creator of the CDC’s research program using the negative term, "gun violence," and generated biased reports and announcements hostile to the rights of gun owners.
Gun owner organizations have sought his ouster since he arrived in the early 1980s. Congress has cut the CDC’s budget for research on gun-related injuries and CDC efforts to treat shootings as a public health issue instead of a crime issue.
ROSENBERG was quietly fired by CDC Director JEFFREY P. KOPLAN, M.D.
ROSENBERG landed a new non-federal job at a collaborative center for childhood well-being that is run by Emory University and the Carter Center near Atlanta, where the CDC is based.
He will retain his U.S. Public Health service title of assistant surgeon general.
Replacing ROSENBERG is family practitioner STEPHEN B. THACKER, M.D.
SURVEY SHOWS AMERICAN FAVOR GUN SAFETY LAWS
Well, of course. Can you imagine a survey showing that Americans DON’T favor gun safety laws? Or favor anything dangerous — guns or cars or tuna salad? Not likely. So you rename gun control "gun safety" — magic words to use in politics.
Is that why SUSAN SORENSON, a staffer at the University of California at Los Angeles, decided to survey 1,200 adults by telephone across the nation to prove the obvious?
Could be she has a political agenda. She recently got her survey published in Science, a prestigious journal that usually filters out twaddle.
Her survey showed that 75 percent of adults would approve of rules making it harder for children to fire guns and for people to use guns not licensed to them.
SORENSON found strong backing for making firearms childproof (87.9 percent) and for personalizing firearms (72.2 percent). She found 74.9 percent favored government safety regulations for the design of guns.
Now why would she frame a question that way? Could it be she designed the survey to push for gun control?
Here’s a clue: in her report, she cited studies that show personalized firearms "could" help stop shootings by adolescents, who are more likely to use "borrowed" guns in committing murder and other crimes. All her "survey" questions appear designed to convince politicians to stop gun ownership.
With the juvenile justice bill currently hung up in a congressional conference committee, it seems a little too convenient for such a "survey" to appear with questions framed to touch so many political issues in the proposed legislation.
BUYING GUNS MAKES YOU COMMIT SUICIDE
That’s what irreverent jokesters are saying about the latest "study" from the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.
The study, which tracked more than 238,292 people from 1991, when they first bought their firearms, through 1996, said that gun buyers are more likely to kill themselves than are people in the general population, especially during the first week after the purchase.
If buying a gun doesn’t make you kill yourself after the first year, the suicide rate goes down, but it is still double the rate among the general population through the remaining five years of the study.
As the Los Angeles Times pointed out, this study could refocus the gun control debate on whether firearm regulation is needed more for public health purposes than for crime control purposes.
That will come as no surprise to gun rights defenders when they hear that the lead author of the study was long-time anti-gun activist GAREN WINTEMUTE, M.D.
WINTEMUTE said, "There’s good evidence here that reducing access to guns across an entire population lowers rates of suicides."
WINTEMUTE’s study used the California Justice Department’s gun records to identify the buyers and state death records to determine which ones died and how they died. Under California law, purchasers had to wait 15 days for the background check before they could take possession of the gun.
PAUL BLACKMAN of the National Rifle Association’s lobbying arm said, "It’s not clear that any conclusions can be drawn beyond the fact that the 15-day waiting period didn’t stop suicides, and that it undermines the anti-gun argument that suicide is a spur-of-the-moment thing that requires a waiting period. If a person is determined to kill himself, he will find a way."
If WINTEMUTE is right, an entire population that has zero access to guns should have a suicide rate approaching zero.
We can test that theory in Japan, where guns are totally banned.
Japan’s suicide rate is double that of the United States. None of its 32,000 suicides last year was with guns. Maybe not buying guns makes you kill yourself.
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL NEWS
CANADA: When the Firearms Act was passed in 1995, it required all 3 million firearms in private ownership to be registered with the Canadian Firearms Centre.
Canadians aren’t lining up very fast.
But the cost of the program is stacking up very, very fast.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police recently circulated a confidential document to government officials warning that substantially more funding must be added to the $720 million for the gun registration program.
The RCMP admits that the program has inspired "very low public compliance, less than 10%."
RCMP officers described the system as inefficient and said the remedy required "more human resources than initially projected."
Officials predicted that registration fees paid by gun owners would match startup costs of $120 million and the annual $60 million operation costs of the program.
However, the government has received less than $3 million in the first six months of implementation, and only 160,000 license applications have been received.
More than two million gun owners are holding off, even though possession-only fees jump to $45 on Dec. 1 from $10.
Things will get worse if gun owners decide to obey the law, says the RCMP: they don’t have enough people to operate the system now, and if everybody registered that is supposed to, there would be chaos.
MASSACHUSETTS: Attorney General THOMAS F. REILLY has instructed police chiefs across the state to revoke the licenses of most gun dealers to enforce a state law banning home-based dealerships.The instructions demand that a 1998 law banning the sale of guns from private homes be enforced. Of the 966 licensed gun dealers in the Bay State, more that 700 were licensed home-based dealers.
Because so many gun dealers operate out of their homes, the law comes close to a total ban on the sale of handguns in Massachusetts.
A gun-control advocate wants all home dealers shut down. "I’m a business person and a gun owner, and my interest is not in banning all guns," said JOHN ROSENTHAL, founder of Stop Handgun Violence, a Newton-based group that lobbied the gun control measure through the legislature last session.
"The point is when you live in a residential neighborhood, you want to be insulated from potentially dangerous businesses. And that’s what this law does."
Why does that sound like baloney?
GERMANY: German authorities were baffled by a 16-year-old boy who went on a shooting rampage in an Alpine spa town, and killed four people including himself and his sister.The boy, identified by police only as "Martin P.," broke into one of two gun cabinets where his father, a former army sergeant and sport shooting club member, kept his firearms. Several of the weapons, all legally registered, were used during the 45-minute shooting incident.
The boy’s parents were in shock the day after the incident, and police said they would wait until they were in "better psychological condition" to question them.
No apparent motive could be determined.
The youth opened fire at midday from a window, shooting people outside a hospital across the street. He killed two people and injured 8 others.
After six hours with no shots fired, commandos stormed the house and found the boy and his 18-year-old sister dead. The girl had a bullet wound to the head.
German media have covered American shootings with a "can’t happen here" attitude because German gun control laws are very strict.
One newspaper blared, "The American Nightmare - Now right here in Germany!"
Does Germany need tougher gun control laws?
WACO PROBER SEEKS FBI FIREARMS
Somehow the Waco incident just won’t go away. JOHN DANFORTH, the special counsel re-investigating the 1993 Branch Davidian siege has asked the FBI to turn over the firearms carried by its on-scene personnel to determine whether federal agents fired shots during the standoff’s final hours.
The FBI has maintained that its agents fired no shots during the seven-week standoff, which ended when the Davidians’ compound was destroyed in a fiery inferno.
While the FBI and Justice Department have always claimed the Branch Davidians killed themselves, independent filmmakers, lawyers for survivors suing the government, and others skeptical of the claim contend government agents fired at the compound.
DANFORTH was appointed in September by Attorney General JANET RENO to investigate the revived controversy.
He asked the federal judge presiding over the Davidians’ wrongful-death lawsuit to order a simulation of the FBI’s infrared videotaping during the siege to see whether bursts of light captured on the original tapes were made by gunfire from federal agents.
DANFORTH is now asking the FBI to turn over hundreds of firearms for ballistics tests.
The government rejected the independent test and has proposed its own test. Lawyers for the plaintiffs rejected the government’s offer as a "shell game."
SCHOOL RIFLE TEAMS IN THE CROSSHAIRS
In Lynnbrook, New York, the high school rifle team was kicked out of its basement practice range in the Marion Street Elementary School because high levels of lead showed up in test results. That got the attention of parents, who began a petition campaign. School officials headed it off by sending the rifle team to an off-campus target range.
But school rifle teams in Chicago, IL have been less lucky: they’ve been shut down permanently.
The Chicago public school system dropped riflery training and competition offered as part of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. The shutdown affected 33 schools that offered the training.
Public schools chief PAUL VALLAS said, "We don’t want to send a contradictory message in the school by on the one hand discouraging the use of firearms and being tough on violence and then on the other having a marksmanship curriculum."
RICHARD PEARSON, president of the Illinois State Rifle Association, blasted the move, saying, "Mr. Vallas’ decision is short sighted and, quite frankly, tinged with a bit of hysteria. For decades, the Junior ROTC program has developed good soldiers and good citizens who have served our nation with great distinction. The discipline and sense of accomplishment offered by marksmanship training builds the level of maturity required of those who, some day, may be called upon to defend their country. By overlooking that fact, Mr. Vallas shows that he is more in tune with Chicago politics than he is with the value system that made this nation great."
Cook County State’s Attorney DICK DEVINE has issued statements showing that 71 percent of juveniles illegally possessing firearms admit gang affiliation.
Chicago Police Department reports showing that 79 percent of murderers and 64 percent of murder victims had previous criminal records at the time of the killing.
No records indicate that Junior ROTC members are a threat to the community.
PEARSON said, "The real victims are the young cadets. They’ve trained hard, developed their skills, and performed admirably when in competition. In return, they’re being eyed with suspicion and have had their accomplishments trivialized by those who haven’t the faintest idea what the program is all about. Any attempt by Vallas to draw a connection between these fine young people and those who would engage in firearm violence is unfounded and disgraceful."
There is no appeal to the decision to abolish the Junior ROTC marksman program.
GUN NEWS TICKER: SHORT TAKES ON GUNS
• Maryland Gov. PARRIS N. GLENDENNING has recommended that within two years built-in mechanical locks be required on all handguns sold in Maryland and that more sophisticated devices limiting gun use to their owners be mandated once the technology is developed.
• The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago voted recently to ask its members to consider removing handguns and assault weapons from their homes and cars, especially if there are children present. The resolution was written in response to the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado.
• A private school in North Carolina, Hobgood Academy in Halifax County, is raffling five hunting rifles and shotguns. The school will use the money to buy new equipment for the Future Farmers of America group of high school students. Hundreds of tickets have been sold, far surpassing expectations. Gun supporters are buying tickets to show their opposition to anti-gun advocates who used the Columbine massacre to criticize the Hobgood raffle.
• The Boston Police Department has come under scrutiny after city councillors ordered a hearing into its policy on used and confiscated guns. Reports said that former police weapons had been used in crimes elsewhere in the country. Police spokespersons said confiscated weapons are melted in a foundry and used police weapons are traded to gun distributors with the provision that they be sold only overseas.
• A Florida State Representative has proposed that voters in the November 2000 election be asked to ban the sale and possession of all "assault-style" weapons in Broward County. A second proposal would require gun dealers to keep "assault weapons" under lock and out of public view after business hours.
• The NAACP has filed a second lawsuit against the gun industry, this time seeking to require firearms distributors to monitor retail gun sellers in an effort to identify those involved in illegal sales. The lawsuit by the civil rights group alleges that manufacturers negligently market handguns and that such action has led to a disproportionate number of injuries, deaths and other damages among minorities.
• Maryland lawmakers recently gave a tongue-lashing to state police, sheriffs and court officials, blaming them for bureaucratic lapses and mistakes that could allow people accused of domestic violence to buy guns. The problem came to light in September when RICHARD WAYNE SPICKNALL II was charged with killing his two young children with a handgun that he mistakenly was allowed to buy, even though his estranged wife had obtained a restraining order against him.
• MICHAEL BEARD, president of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said the 6th Annual Citizens’ Conference to Stop Gun Violence went better than the first five. He said he detected a significantly greater sophistication among this year’s participants. "One of the things that impressed me with this group was how many more professionals in the field we had," he said. "In the past, we’ve tended to have more victims and just people who were interested in the subject. I’ve seen it move from being a totally grassroots kind of conference to one where professionals are coming to get training and information and connections."
• Another CLINTON lie has emerged: the President recently told a Democratic Committee fund-raiser in Atlanta, GA, "I once had a lifetime membership in the NRA. I’ve even got my jacket there." Not really, says NRA Executive Vice President WAYNE LaPIERRE. "President Clinton never had a lifetime membership, he never had a jacket. He made it up," LaPIERRE said.
• California State Senator JOE BACA (D), has won a special election to fill out the unexpired term of the late Rep. GEORGE BROWN, Jr. BACA is a pro-gun legislator. Also in California, Los Angeles City Councilman MIKE HERNANDEZ proposed a measure that would ban the sale of ammunition in Los Angeles.
• Arizona gun show troubles: Mesa City Councilman JIM DAVIDSON has proposed an ordinance banning gun shows from city-owned property. Since the city convention center is the only facility large enough to house the half dozen annual shows, it would literally put the shows out of business within the city limits.
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
Kmart may have noticed that a lot of folks have been buying less at their stores, particularly guns and ammunition, and particularly since big-mouthed anti-gun daytime TV talk-show host ROSIE O’DONNELL became their spokesman.
And especially since she harangued TOM SELLECK on her TV show for appearing in an "I’m the NRA" ad.
Well, ROSIE O’DONNELL is out as Kmart’s top pitchman.
Her vociferous anti-gun stance made it difficult for her to continue hyping the gun-selling retail giant.
Now she’s decided not to continue doing Kmart commercials because, ROSIE says, "It’s only fair to Kmart that I stop doing commercials."
Her spokeswoman LOIS SMITH explained, "It was important for her to take herself out of commercials so neither she nor Kmart would be further criticized."
According to New York Daily News gossip columnist MITCHELL FINK, Kmart insiders are saying she was "given her walking papers because it had grown tired of the negative publicity her gun stance was bringing them."
O’DONNELL and Kmart deny the charges and emphasize that they have not severed ties. ROSIE will appear in two final holiday commercials and Kmart will continue to support her For All Kids Foundation, Kmart said.
Amid all this sweetness and light, NBA star KARL MALONE of the Utah Jazz became the latest celebrity to lend his name and face to NRA’s "I’m the NRA" ad campaign.
MALONE says that ROSIE O’DONNELL has told him he is not welcome on her show.
It’s that wonderful attitude of intolerant malevolence that makes ROSIE as charming as a cobra.
And given the bottomless pit of ignorance she displayed on the gun issue when she excoriated TOM SELLECK, she may not be too eager to have anyone on her show that might be able to provide some real debate.
It’s nice that ROSIE and Kmart have parted such good friends.
But it’s much nicer that they have simply parted.
We think the boycott of Kmart by gun owners was taking its toll. Kmart denies it, but do you believe them?
It’s sad that gun rights defenders are not welcome on ROSIE’s show, but it’s her show.
It’s sad that until ROSIE learns some manners, her show is not welcome in our homes, but it’s our TV.
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