Here is a sample of what is fed to the masses.
The New York Times
August 2, 2003
Capitol Hill Cross-Fire
Editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/opinion/02SAT1.html
The gun lobby in Congress, as brazen as it is shameless, recently scored an alarming coup among compliant lawmakers by jamming a routine appropriations bill with amendments to undermine federal laws that track illicit firearms. The legislative blitz, engineered by the National Rifle Association, took the House Appropriations Committee by surprise last month. Yet it was approved 31 to 30, in bipartisan homage to the N.R.A.'s power to stir politicians' fear and obeisance.
The amendments would take a wrench to the existing powers of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to close in on unscrupulous gun dealers by checking on their licenses, sales records and inventories. The rifle linked to last year's fatal sniping attacks on 13 people, most of them in metropolitan Washington, came from just such a questionable dealer, who claimed that 238 firearms were somehow "lost" from his inventory. This retreat from sanity should be stopped in the final House-Senate budget resolutions. The gun lobby is pushing additional retrogressive legislation, emboldened by such developments as the failure last week of a Brooklyn lawsuit accusing gun manufacturers of tolerating shady dealers who figure in the nation's rampage of handgun killings.
Senator Orrin Hatch, always happy to do the bidding of the gun lobby as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has proposed the repeal of the handgun ban that Washington, D.C., has had in place for a generation. Erroneously proclaiming Washington the murder capital of the nation, Mr. Hatch, the Utah Republican, would make it easier for residents to brandish handguns at home and in the workplace. He would loosen rifle and shotgun regulations and water down the machine-gun ban to accommodate semiautomatic war weapons that only compound America's domestic mayhem. Senator Hatch says he worries for citizens who cannot "legally reach for a firearm" when confronted by a gun-wielding predator. A proposal for federally subsidized fast-draw holsters can't be far behind in his priorities.
It is stunning that anyone who lives and labors in Washington sees the city's gun problem as a Second Amendment campaign tableau rooted in the O.K. Corral. Almost half the guns used in the District's crimes have been tracked to the neighboring states of Virginia and Maryland, where the laws are far easier for buyers to circumvent. Washington should be applauded for its greater attempt at law and order. Of course, the smell of campaign money can be as pungent as the smell of burnt gunpowder to politicians who witnessed the N.R.A.'s propaganda power in last year's elections.
The New York Times
August 2, 2003
Capitol Hill Cross-Fire
Editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/opinion/02SAT1.html
The gun lobby in Congress, as brazen as it is shameless, recently scored an alarming coup among compliant lawmakers by jamming a routine appropriations bill with amendments to undermine federal laws that track illicit firearms. The legislative blitz, engineered by the National Rifle Association, took the House Appropriations Committee by surprise last month. Yet it was approved 31 to 30, in bipartisan homage to the N.R.A.'s power to stir politicians' fear and obeisance.
The amendments would take a wrench to the existing powers of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to close in on unscrupulous gun dealers by checking on their licenses, sales records and inventories. The rifle linked to last year's fatal sniping attacks on 13 people, most of them in metropolitan Washington, came from just such a questionable dealer, who claimed that 238 firearms were somehow "lost" from his inventory. This retreat from sanity should be stopped in the final House-Senate budget resolutions. The gun lobby is pushing additional retrogressive legislation, emboldened by such developments as the failure last week of a Brooklyn lawsuit accusing gun manufacturers of tolerating shady dealers who figure in the nation's rampage of handgun killings.
Senator Orrin Hatch, always happy to do the bidding of the gun lobby as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has proposed the repeal of the handgun ban that Washington, D.C., has had in place for a generation. Erroneously proclaiming Washington the murder capital of the nation, Mr. Hatch, the Utah Republican, would make it easier for residents to brandish handguns at home and in the workplace. He would loosen rifle and shotgun regulations and water down the machine-gun ban to accommodate semiautomatic war weapons that only compound America's domestic mayhem. Senator Hatch says he worries for citizens who cannot "legally reach for a firearm" when confronted by a gun-wielding predator. A proposal for federally subsidized fast-draw holsters can't be far behind in his priorities.
It is stunning that anyone who lives and labors in Washington sees the city's gun problem as a Second Amendment campaign tableau rooted in the O.K. Corral. Almost half the guns used in the District's crimes have been tracked to the neighboring states of Virginia and Maryland, where the laws are far easier for buyers to circumvent. Washington should be applauded for its greater attempt at law and order. Of course, the smell of campaign money can be as pungent as the smell of burnt gunpowder to politicians who witnessed the N.R.A.'s propaganda power in last year's elections.
