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"Scam" ads the norm Trail Mix: Hillary haters spam cyberspace Gunning for the center Democrats make Hillary legit The blundering pundit Don Giuliani Campaign video: |
Gunning for the center | page 1, 2, 3 Notified that President Clinton would be talking about gun violence on "Good Morning America" last Friday, Bush quickly scheduled an appearance on "Today" where, in reference to the Million Mom March, he said, "Like them, I'm concerned about gun violence in our society." Bush then announced that he was going to spend $1 million a year in Texas to give away trigger locks, and that he would, as president, preside over a five-year $325 million "Project ChildSafe" that would make safety locks available for each of the estimated 65 million handguns in the United States. "This is a proactive approach that will help many parents make their homes safer," Bush said, which makes one wonder why he didn't propose it in any of his previous six years as governor. Or why he thinks trigger locks should still be "voluntary." According to Republican pollster Linda DiVall, an April poll of voters indicated that approximately 66 percent support the mandatory use of trigger locks on handguns. In March, New York Gov. George Pataki proposed mandatory trigger locks in his state. If trigger locks on guns will "make their homes safer," why not make it mandatory to use them? "His trigger-lock giveaway certainly can be contrasted with his comments on the issue during the L.A. Times/CNN debate, when he was telling people to fear the 'trigger-lock police,'" notes Sudbay. On March 2, during the last GOP presidential debate, Bush said that he didn't "mind trigger locks being sold ... but the question is, How do we enforce it? Are we going to have trigger-lock police knock on people's doors saying, 'Show me your lock?'" "The trigger-lock issue, I've got no problem with it," says TSRA's Talbot. "I guess what we're concerned about, firearms owners, is not the trigger-lock issue, it's what comes beyond the trigger lock, it's the trigger-lock police." So even when Bush is attempting to seem moderate on the gun issue, he still diverges not at all from the gun lobby's positions. The fact that Bush would ape NRA rhetoric about "trigger-lock police" is no surprise, Sudbay says. And he wonders about the efficacy of Bush's new trigger-lock program. "I haven't seen any specifics about it, and the devil is sometimes in the details," he says. In 1995, for instance, Bush signed a "child access prevention," or CAP, law making parents responsible for keeping loaded guns safely away from their kids. "But when you read it," Sudbay says, "you see the specific provision in the law saying schools should start gun-safety programs modeled on the NRA program 'Eddie the Eagle.'" Sudbay notes that the "Eddie the Eagle" program has been criticized as "basically an indoctrination program for kids and guns. It claims to be about gun safety but basically it's a marketing program for kids and guns. Also, it puts all the responsibility on the kids and doesn't put any responsibility on the adults." Bush is fond of telling reporters to check his record. Fair enough. Bush has one of the most pro-NRA records of any governor in the nation. He has understandably been trying to gloss over that fact, but it's indisputable. Instead, his campaign offers bogus attempts to seem moderate on the issue. His gun policy, outlined on his Web site, reads like a list of NRA-approved talking points. For example, Bush's spokespeople are quick to point out that Bush's gun platform breaks from the NRA by supporting "banning juveniles from possession of semi-automatic 'assault' weapons, ... increasing the minimum age for possession of a handgun from 18 to 21 ... [and] banning the importation of foreign made, 'high-capacity' ammunition clips." "It appears to me that what George W. Bush's people have done is to take a look at the federal law and say that we'll just apply these across the board to juveniles," says Talbot. "But these [three] laws are already on the books, and I think Gov. Bush realizes that; he's a pretty astute man." Even so, Bush's commitment to passing these laws seems tenuous. Bush has never taken one step in Texas to get any of these three passed as law. Texas, in fact, is one of the only states in the nation with no minimum age for handgun possession.
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