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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: long-gone who wrote (9550)	1/26/2001 2:48:52 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Yeah, Ashcroft loves guns, especially Assault Weapons!!! Ashcroft wants to make sure ex-felons get their guns back as smoothly as possible. Did you know ex-felons cannot vote in this country? But they can own and carry guns! Have fun!!! Hope you don't run into one with a gun. Article by Marie Cocco. Marie Cocco's e-mail address is cocco@newsday.com. THE MARQUEE names for the cabaret that is the Ashcroft nomination hearings are Ronnie White and Bob Jones. White is the African-American judge whom John Ashcroft, the attorney general designate, smeared as "pro-criminal" because of a few departures White made from his customary practice of upholding death sentences. Jones needs little introduction, since his university-which had banned interracial dating and promotes hatred of Catholics, among others-has been much in the news. It was a favored venue for speech-making by Ashcroft and his prospective boss, president-elect George W. Bush. These are the big-name attractions as the hearings get under way today. But there is someone else the senators of the Judiciary Committee should ask Ashcroft about: Michael McDermott. McDermott is the mentally troubled man who shot up his office in suburban Boston the day after Christmas, killing seven people in what prosecutors described as a "methodical and premeditated" assault on his co-workers. McDermott owned an arsenal. He put it to use that day. His collection included an AK-47 assault rifle; a .40-cal. rifle; a 12-gauge shotgun; a .32-cal. handgun. McDermott had no criminal record and no history of involuntary commitment to a psychiatric institution. And so, although he had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals at least three times, McDermott apparently bought all the guns, including his trusty AK-47, legally. Just as John Ashcroft would have it. Ashcroft does not believe the government has the authority to bar private citizens from owning guns. He is a champion among that infinitesimal minority of Americans who-contrary to repeated rulings by federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court-believe the Second Amendment, notwithstanding its mention of a "well-regulated militia," is a clause that effectively bans gun control and favors armed individuals as a check against government. Ashcroft agrees with people like Larry Pratt. Pratt was too extreme to be allowed to stay in Pat Buchanan's 1996 presidential campaign. When it was revealed that the head of Gun Owners of America associated with militia leaders and white supremacists, Pratt was drummed out. Two years later, according to the Violence Policy Center, Ashcroft penned a note to Pratt vowing to dilute an anti-crime measure that had been supported by no less a defender of gun rights than Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). It would have given federal law- enforcement authorities the ability to use the racketeering statutes to go after illegal gun traffickers. Not law-abiding dealers nor innocent hunters. Illegal traffickers. The provision eventually was weakened. Ashcroft sided with the gun lobby and against the FBI on the Brady Law, which requires criminal-background checks on gun purchasers. He voted, over law-enforcement opposition, to shorten the length of time officials are given to conduct the checks. He opposes current laws requiring the record of checks to be kept for six months. This is the FBI's way to ensure that the law works properly-that is, denying guns to criminals and others banned from owning them. Ashcroft is against all the usual half-measures the Congress sometimes tries to take to reduce the number of guns, or at least the deadly firepower, that is accessible to people like McDermott. He is against the 1994 ban on newly manufactured assault weapons, which expires in 2004 and will thus require the next attorney general's backing to be extended. He voted twice against banning the import of high-capacity magazines for assault weapons that remain in circulation. He voted against regulating gun sales on the Internet. He supported requiring the FBI to create a special database of felons who have won court approval to get their gun-rights back, to ensure that the felons' efforts to purchase new guns go smoothly. He supported a referendum in Missouri-a statewide ballot initiative the voters defeated-that would have allowed just about anyone, including stalkers, to carry a concealed weapon. Bush keeps talking about opposition to his controversial nominees as if it is an unseemly plot against the goodness he knows is in their "hearts." But the problem with Ashcroft is not in his heart. It is in his public record. Reviewing it makes you wonder who, of the characters on stage at the hearings this week, really has a record that can be fairly described as pro-criminal. newsday.com