Hindsight from The New Gun Week August 10, 1999
Time-Out on the 20-Year Line
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
This issue marks the start of my 21st year as editor of Gun Week. The only other person who has been working on the publication as long is my daughter, Peggy, who, in addition to her advertising management duties with Gun Week, has edited the Second Amendment Foundation's Women & Guns magazine since early 1992.
With the issue dated Aug. 8, 1979, we moved the publication from Sidney, OH, where it was started by Amos Press in late 1966.
Thinking we were marking a new beginning, my late brother, Vincent, and I changed the name on the masthead to The New Gun Week. Little did we know that we would causing grief at the Library of Congress. They immediately notified us that we had to file for a new ISSN number and that if we ever changed the name again, even if we decided to go back to just plain Gun Week, we would have to refile and get a new number, and it would play havoc with cross-referencing the publication throughout its entire history.
That is why this publication is still officially known as The New Gun Week while everyone at the office and all of our readers and advertisers still refer to it by the shorter name.
Of course, the misstep in the name change was not the only goof over the 20 years, and probably won't be the last. But it should have been a signal that nothing would ever go smoothly for a publication that is dedicated to delivering promptly the factual news that is so important to embattled American gunowners.
The news beat of 1979 was a pretty wacky one, and has continued to be over the years. But the news beat of 1999 is even crazier. You can judge by a few items mentioned in this column that didn't make the other pages of this issue.
Third Parties
The 2000 presidential campaign is still 15 months away, but it already seems to intrude through heavy media coverage. Most people know where some of the front-runners stand in both major parties. Al Gore and Bill Bradley, the leading Democrats for their party's nomination, are bad news and worse news as can be seen from their gun issue positions reported in earlier issues of Gun Week.Among the Republicans, Texas Gov. George W. Bush is the front-runner, but many gunowners aren't all that convinced about his position on guns. Several of the other GOP candidates are fairly good on the issue, particularly Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes. Elizabeth Dole, who seemed a strong contender, appears to have faded since she announced her support for several gun control measures.
Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire, who has the strongest gun-rights position of any candidate and the voting record in Congress to back it up, has dropped out of the Republican Party and may be a third party candidate.
Speaking of third parties, which make a lot of gunowners cringe because they believe strong third party showings would help the Democrats, there are even rumblings in the Reform Party started by Ross Perot.
Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura said in an interview published in late July that he could be elected president of the United States in 2000, but is not interested in the job.
Ventura's comments came as his Reform Party of the United States opened its national convention in Dearborn, MI. Ventura may say that he is not a candidate for president, but his ally, Jack Gargan of Cedar Key, FL, was elected party chairman to succeed Russ Verney, an ally of Reform Party founder H. Ross Perot.
As the party's standard bearer in 2000, Ventura has touted retired Gen. Colin Powell as well as Lowell Weicker, a former Republican US senator and former independent but unpopular Connecticut governor.
Before I move from the presidential campaign to other items, I should relate that Associated Press reported that Richard Dyke, owner of Bushmaster Firearms in Windham, ME, resigned abruptly on July 22 as Bush's chief fund-raiser in Maine, saying he wanted to spare the campaign any distractions.
"It's more important that he get elected than I help him raise a few dollars in Maine," Dyke told AP in a telephone interview.
Dyke said he phoned Don Evans, the Bush campaign's national finance chair, after learning that someone was about to "make a point of my being a gun manufacturer." AP referred to him as a "manufacturer of assault rifles."
Another hot story in recent days involved reports that three major gunmakers were in negotiations with New York state's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to avoid being named in a lawsuit he plans to file.
The first story about talks allegedly involving Colt's Manufacturing of Hartford, CT, Smith & Wesson Corp. of Springfield, MA, and Sturm, Ruger & Co. of Southport, CT, appeared in The New York Times. They followed Spitzer's accusation that the gun industry's marketing has been irresponsible, allowing firearms to fall into the hands of criminals.
The negotiations were reported to focus on whether the companies will agree to concessions, including better supervision of the marketing and sales practices for their guns, in exchange for being dropped from the planned lawsuit.
Spitzer is reported seeking participation in a system that would give bullets fired during the testing of new guns to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms so they could be entered into a master computerized file for ballistics tracing. Spitzer has long been an advocate of serializing individual bullets.
But almost immediately after the first story broke, came another from Reuters news service claiming that gun-industry representatives had backed away from a program of heightened regulation proposed by Spitzer.
The Wall Street Journal reported that a state official close to Spitzer said that the industry's reaction made it very likely New York would become the first state to add its name to the 23 municipalities around the country that have sued gun companies to recoup the public costs of firearm violence.
"The discussions have broken down," the official said. "We were stunned." The official added that a suit could be filed within a matter of weeks. But Spitzer left open the possibility that negotiations might be revived.
"To the extent the industry is willing to make meaningful changes" in the design and marketing of guns, "we will continue to seek a nonlitigation solution," he said.
The Journal said a person familiar with the gun industry's position confirmed that the industry had balked because it viewed Spitzer's proposal as reflecting "a complete lack of understanding of how the industry works."
Foes of the gun lobby took aim at the sport of Olympic practical shooting in late July, according to Associated Press.
"This is not a game. This is not paintball," said Philip Alpers, who researched the sport for the Violence Policy Center (VPC). "There is a very serious political purpose behind this, and that is to legitimize the civilian ownership of lethal firearms which are normally kept only for battlefields and SWAT teams."
AP explained that in practical shooting, participants racing against the clock use 'assault rifles,' shotguns and semi-automatic handguns to shoot human-shaped targets in simulated scenarios.
The sport is practiced in about 70 countries, according to the Canada-based International Practical Shooting Confederation, which has recently held talks with the International Olympic Committee. Greek officials have made practical shooting an exhibition, non-medal sport at the 2004 Games in Athens.
Advocates say practical shooting, formerly known as combat shooting, is strictly a sport-without political connotations. But Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the VPC, contends it presents a convenient way to skirt laws that prohibit the trade of certain weapons unless they are used for sport.
Andy Hollar, president of the 14,000-member US Practical Shooting Association, said his organization has no such agenda.
Britons considered a danger to society soon may be locked up indefinitely, even without having committed a crime, under proposals announced in July by the British government.
Under present laws, people thought to suffer from psychiatric problems can be detained only if their illness is considered treatable or if they are convicted of a crime.
The new proposals, which will be reviewed for six months before legislation is introduced, offer two options.
The first, and less controversial, would give the government greater discretion to use life sentences to detain people indefinitely in prison or a hospital after they have been convicted of a crime. The second would involve creating a new indeterminate sentence for people judged to be a danger and a special institution to hold them-even if they haven't been convicted of any crime.
Did I say things have gotten wackier in the last 20 years?
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.netAlso, check out the New Gun Week at http://www.GunWeek.com