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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (239201)	3/17/2002 10:29:46 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Yes, the NRA is certainly the friend of law enforcement... For years, the NRA has successfully blocked the computerization by ATF of gun sale records from out-of-business gun dealers. Thanks to the NRA-imposed restrictions, when a gun is traced as part of a criminal investigation, the files must often be retrieved manually from warehouses where the records are kept. As a result, hours or even days are added to the time needed to complete the successful trace of a crime gun. As a result, criminals avoid detection and criminal investigations are impeded. The NRA has maintained its steadfast opposition to waiting periods for handgun purchases, despite the need for a "cooling off" period to prevent impulse crimes and suicides. Because of the NRA, the waiting period included in the original Brady Law expired in 1998, and the gun lobby is fighting efforts to reinstate it. The NRA likes to talk tough when it comes to criminals. But in 1999, the NRA spent almost $4 million to try to pass a referendum in Missouri that would have allowed almost anyone, even convicted criminals with misdemeanor records, to carry a concealed weapon almost anywhere in the state. The referendum would have even permitted people convicted of stalking and child molestation the ability to carry a hidden handgun into bars, stadiums, parks, school yards and other public places. Fortunately, Missouri voters rejected the NRA's intense lobbying effort to put more guns on our streets, voting the measure down. At every opportunity, the NRA has sought to decrease or eliminate the funding of the ATF, the law enforcement agency whose mission it is to oversee gun crimes and trace the guns used in the commission of crimes. Because of NRA-sponsored legislation, investigators seeking to trace the path of the guns used in the Littleton school massacre were forced to plod through paper records stretching among numerous states, culminating in a dead end at Colorado gun shows. Only through legwork and luck were investigators able to piece together how the four weapons ended up in the hands of the teenage shooters. The NRA continues to vociferously oppose any record-keeping system that would allow law enforcement to easily trace guns used in crime. In 1986, the NRA got legislation passed which restricts ATF inspection of gun dealers to once a year. Even dealers who are the source for hundreds of crime guns cannot be routinely inspected more than once a year without a special court warrant. Of course, this is consistent with the 1995 NRA letter describing ATF agents as "jack-booted thugs," which caused former President George H.W. Bush to publicly resign his NRA life membership in protest.