April 18, 2000
The Los Angles Times
Gun-Control Movement Split by Ambition to Ban Handguns
By ERIC LICHTBLAU, RICHARD SIMON, Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON--One year after the Columbine High School shooting, newly
energizedgun-control forces are grappling with a potentially critical split
within their ranks over a key strategic decision: How far can they hope to go
inreining in guns?
For all the recent talk of "smart" guns, trigger locks and other innovations
in weapons safety, an increasingly vocal minority in the gun-control
community is arguing that nothing short of a ban on handguns will stem gun
violence. They maintain that the current array of half-step advances in
gun-safety technology could actually fuel violence.
The gun-control movement has achieved only sporadic legislative victories in
the last year. Yet the mere mention of a much more ambitious agenda--a
handgun ban--has expanded the national debate and generated both enthusiasm
and division within a gun-control community that is enjoying unprecedented
visibility and financial backing in the year sinceColumbine.
"Historically, if you talked about banning handguns, it was political
suicide. I don't think that's true anymore," said Eric Gorovitz, policy
coordinator in San Francisco for the Bell Campaign, a new victims-rightsgroup
that has taken no position on a handgun ban.
"There's a split in the gun-control movement about it," Gorovitz said.
"There's some resistance to even talking about bans because it's been taboo
for so long. But [backers] sense that there's momentum now thatwasn't there
even a couple of years ago, and they want to take advantageof that."
One leading advocate of a handgun ban, the Washington-based Violence Policy
Center, warns that technology such as "smart" weapons, whose development has
been pushed by President Clinton, will increase gunsales.
They cite a survey by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, which found
that among people unlikely to buy a standard gun, one-third would consider
purchasing a "smart" weapon--one that can only be fired by its authorized
user. Gun maker Colt estimates that "smart" guns could add 60million new
firearms owners.
"After the horror of Columbine, for gun-control advocates from the White
House on down to say [safety reforms such as trigger locks and smart guns]
would have any real effect is laughable," said Josh Sugarmann, head of the
Violence Policy Center. "Not only will smart guns have little effect on
decreasing gun deaths and injury, we think it will actually increase gun
deaths. It will put more guns on the street."
Moreover, Sugarmann said his research shows that the "smart" gun initiative
is misguided because it would do nothing to prevent the large numbers of gun
deaths caused by people firing their own weapons--oftenspouses in domestic
disputes, for instance, or suicides.
Talk of Bans Seen as Folly by Some
The National Rifle Assn. contends that the new push for a handgun ban
reflects a dangerous affront to the 2nd Amendment and the hidden agendaof the
gun-control movement.
Even some leaders in the gun-control community say that advocating a handgun
ban is political folly. Congress has been deadlocked for more than eight
months over much more modest gun-control measures, such as expanding
background checks at gun shows and requiring trigger locks on new handguns.
And, although polls consistently show a majority of Americans back tougher
gun laws, only about a third want an outright banon handguns.
Some also dispute the notion that smart or personalized guns will lead to
increased firearms sales and more deaths. "Sure, some people will bring a gun
into the home who wouldn't have," said Jon S. Vernick, associate director of
the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. "But we believe that,
on balance, if you have to have a gun inyour home, a personalized gun is the
safer alternative."
But advocates of a ban say activists need to seize the momentum generated by
Columbine and other shootings, including the attack on a LosAngeles Jewish
day care center last August.
Columbine was a defining moment in the gun debate, a number of expertssaid.
The tragedy last April 20 in Colorado, which claimed the lives of 12
students, a teacher and the two teenage gunmen, has permeated the public
consciousness well beyond the political arena. An Internet company pulled a
television ad that showed a computer blasted by gunfire. And Sears stopped
selling "the villain," a gun-toting action figure dressed in ablack trench
coat.
Since the shooting, gun violence has gained unrivaled attention, from the
presidential candidates down to the mayors of towns such as Waterloo, Iowa,
whose Republican mayor recently traveled to Washington to support a Clinton
administration plan to steer police gun purchases to"responsible" gun makers.
But Sugarmann decries what he called the "cautionary movement" in
thegun-control community.
More moderate activists, he said, "are really afraid to face some of the hard
truths" about what needs to be done. And the unwillingness among some
moderates to debate a handgun ban "has hurt the movement in that, all too
often, many in the gun-control movement are willing to trade the perception
of short-term political success for long-term public policy goals."
A few cities, most notably Washington and Chicago, already have bans or
severe restrictions on private ownership of handguns, and the Maryland
attorney general embraced the idea of a "farewell to arms" last October.
Other groups have begun talking up the idea in recent months as well, but the
gun-control movement's most visible player, Handgun Control Inc.,doesn't
think a ban is necessary.
Joe Sudbay, the group's political director, downplayed any divisions over the
handgun-ban issue. "It's a growing movement and there's going to be debate
within the movement." The important thing is, he said, that gun-control
advocates, whatever their differences, work together to elect lawmakers who
are in favor of gun control.
While the gun-control movement is still well behind the gun lobby in
political and financial muscle, observers said that it is becoming
aninfluential force.
Gun-control supporters in the last year have generated more money than ever
before for research, violence prevention and advocacy, including tens of
millions in grants from philanthropic groups such as George Soros' Open
Society Institute, the San Francisco-based Richard and RhodaGoldman Fund and
the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation.
At Handgun Control Inc., membership has surged nearly 20% in the last year to
about 475,000, and the "Million Mom March" for gun control, set for next
month in Washington, is expected to draw more attention to theissue.
"What changed after Columbine was that people who long believed we should do
something started to speak out," said Gorovitz of the BellCampaign.
But with the NRA mobilizing a strong counterattack in recent months--its
membership has soared to a record 3.5 million--the legislative results have
been mixed.
"There has been more talk than action," said Kelly Anders of the National
Conference of State Legislatures. "You can overhear people talking about gun
control just about everywhere, on elevators, in the Legislature, on
television. But when it comes to actual laws that are passed as a result of
these concerns, they are minuscule."
States Approve Few Firearms-Related Bills
Anders estimated that about 1,100 firearms-related bills were introduced in
statehouses last year. Fewer than 150 passed and most of those dealt with
administrative issues such as whether a sheriff couldkeep his gun when he
retires.
There have been key victories for gun-control advocates in states, including
California and Maryland. Massachusetts this month began regulating guns as
consumer products, a move with far-reaching implications.
But a new study released last week by the pro-gun-control Open Society
Institute found a "striking . . . lack of uniformity" in state firearms laws.
The study concluded that 42 states "fall below minimum standards forpublic
safety, since they lack basic gun laws such as licensing andregistration."
Even in California, where gun-control advocates pride themselves on the
state's get-tough gun laws banning assault weapons and limiting handgun
purchases to one a month, the study found that the state lacksbasic licensing
and registration of rifles and handguns.
The state ranked third in the study's analysis, well behind Massachusetts and
Hawaii. "There are some crucial measures missing," saidstudy director Rebecca
Peters.
"It's an indictment of the rest of the country that California is considered
to have strict gun laws," Gorovitz said, "because everyoneelse is so weak."
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