🚀 go-pugleaf

     March 4 Update -- Maria Kennedy Shriver and NBC Dateline
tonight did yet another presentation of the bad side of guns --
accidents, suicides, murders, drug dealers and drug deals gone bad;
a cop's son who used his father's duty gun to kill a cop, and was
killed by cops; even a mother who cold-bloodedly killed her three-
year-old so the father couldn't have court-ordered custody.

     It was the gun's fault.

     The closest the program came to showing the positive side of
guns -- a life possibly saved by a gun used in self-defense -- was
an armed robber, carrying a shotgun, killed by a convenience store
clerk.  Incredibly the armed robber was counted as another of
the 35 "victims of guns" during this same week last year.

     The only words of balance were extracts of an argument between
Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) whose
husband was killed and son wounded by a black racist killer on the
Long Island Railway, described only as "crazed."

     Roscoe is a nice guy, but not a debater.  Wonder why they
didn't put on Texas Rep. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, whose parents and 19
others were murdered at Luby's Cafeteria because Texas law required
her to leave her gun in her car.

     In that same week last year, guns were used about 40,000 times
to prevent, rapes, murders, and robberies, usually without the gun
being fired -- according to Florida State University criminologist
Dr. Gary Kleck.

     But Dr. Kleck's findings, or that of Yale Law School
researcher Dr. John Lott, weren't discussed.  It might cause someone
to doubt that guns are evil.
-----------------

     The low point of a rally of over 400 gunowners at the Missouri
Capitol Rotunda in Jefferson City Wednesday wasn't my speech -- it
was the Capitol Police-demanded removal of an outstanding display
of Hawken plains rifles.

     The guns, made over 150 years ago in St. Louis, couldn't
possibly have been fired for collector/dealer Greg Grimes had
removed their percussion cap nipples.

     Ironically, the Capitol's Missouri history displays a few feet
away included 42 complete antique guns.  That included numerous
tiny hideout pistols which, a placard said, travelers were recommended
to carry for protection.

     Protection was the principal reason for the rally, sponsored
primarily by the St. Louis-based Second Amendment Coalition of
Missouri and Kansas City-based Western Missouri Shooters Alliance.
They continue to press for a "shall issue" licensed carry law
despite the 52-48 rejection of a licensing initiative in 1999.

     Two pro-gun Democrats, Rep. Wayne Crump and Sen. Harold
Caskey, trying to balance gunowners' demands with the opposition of
Gov. Bob Holden, have introduced similar "needs based" bills with
broader than usual definitions of "need."  Both said the bills are
"works in progress," and negotiations with gun rights leaders are
continuing.

     Gunowners at the rally ranged from dubious to hostile to the
proposals, although appreciative that the governor sent a spokesman
who said their arguments would "be considered."  The governor
hasn't "signed off."

     A hearing has been set for Tuesday.

     The gunowners concerns were underscored when a newspaper
reported Rep. Maida Coleman said that she and other gun control
advocates didn't object to people having guns "if they need them."

     Who does the deciding?  Aye, there's the rub.
---------------

     More than 80 members of Congress have signed on to a letter
from Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) to new Housing and Urban
Development Sec. Mel Martinez asking him to kill the "Communities
for Safer Guns Coalition created by your predecessor, Secretary
Andrew Cuomo, ... the coercive mechanism" by which HUD has urged
local governments and public housing authorities to give
preferential treatment to Smith & Wesson products.

     The HUD 2001 appropriations bill contains an amendment by Rep.
Hostettler prohibiting funding that effort, but CSG still exists.
The Hostettler amendment passed 218-207 without the support of NRA
(which argued that it only prevented the use of one name; never
mind that the Clinton White House threatened veto because of it).
----------

     Gun-hating groups routinely claim that there is less "gun
violence" in the industrialized nations with what they call
"reasonable gun laws" -- at least registration and licensing.

     A new international study, the International Crime Victims
Survey, conducted by Leiden University in Holland, found that 30
percent of Australians had been victimized by violent criminals.
England and Wales ranked second overall in violent crime among
industrialized nations.

     While there has been an overall decrease in crimes with guns
in those nations since they banned lawful handguns and repeating
long guns, the total armed crime and murder rate has sharply
increased.

     Despite its high murder rate -- with and without guns -- the
United States was well down in overall crime rates, with 21 percent
of the populace victimized by violent criminals.

     British Home Secretary Jack Straw, a prime mover in
prohibiting all licensed handguns, admitted that "levels of
victimization are higher than in most comparable countries for most
categories of crime," according to an article by Jon Dougherty in
World Net Daily.
(http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21902)

     Burglary rates in England and Wales are among the highest
recorded, and almost half are "hot burglaries" -- where the victims
are home and vulnerable to assault -- though that type burglary is
rare in the U.S. except in areas with extremely restrictive gun
laws.
-----------

     American Lawyer magazine reported this week that lawyers
and their firms gave $106.4 million to politicians and parties
during the 2000 Federal elections.  That was more than any other
group, yet lawyers are rarely identified in the press as a "special
interest."

     They're only interested in good government -- and blocking any
tort reform legislation that might interfere with their becoming
obscenely rich.

     Contributions were almost equally divided between George W.
Bush and Albert Gore in the Presidential race, at about $6 million
each, but in Congressional elections almost 75 percent went to
Democrats.

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