Gun Lobbies at Odds Over Victories, Defeats Since Virginia Tech Tragedy
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
June 29, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Legislatures in several states have passed laws restricting the ownership and use of firearms since the shootings at Virginia Tech University, a gun control group said Thursday.

Gun rights advocates rejected the claim, saying the organization was "conveniently" overlooking recent Second Amendment victories.

"Elected officials at the state and local level are bearing the costs, and bearing the direct consequences, of the increase in violent crime in America," Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a news release.

"I'm pleased, but not surprised, that they're taking sensible steps to fight that crime," he stated. "They are all too aware that we make it too easy for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons in this country."

Helmke said legislative activity promoting gun control measures "has increased substantially" since April 16, when 23-year-old Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people and himself in a shooting spree on the Blacksburg, Va., campus.

For example, last week Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell signed a bill into law requiring gun owners to report to the police when a gun is lost or stolen, and the Illinois Legislature has approved a measure that would make more mental health records available to the Brady background check system, Helmke reported.

Also last week, Massachusetts lawmakers held hearings on a bill to combat gun trafficking by limiting handgun purchases to one per month, New Jersey is "advancing similar legislation," and in California, state lawmakers passed a bill "to help police track down killers based on markings on shell casings left behind at crime scenes," he said.

"While common-sense gun measures have moved forward, gun lobby proposals to weaken gun laws have foundered," Helmke said. "The gun lobby has had very few successes and a number of high-profile failures."

One such setback occurred in Florida, where a committee voted down a bill that would have prevented businesses from removing customers who bring "legal products" - including properly stored firearms - in a motor vehicle into the business' parking lot.

Helmke predicted "significant activity on gun issues in the state legislatures in 2008."

As Cybercast News Service previously reported, the Virginia Tech shootings prompted the Brady Campaign to "call for more restrictions" on purchasing firearms. Some analysts argued that greater gun rights could have offered victims of the tragedy some protection.

Dave Workman, communications director for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), Thursday disputed Helmke's assessment of legal developments in recent months.

"There were several gun rights victories this year that the Brady Campaign conveniently overlooks," he told Cybercast News Service.

Workman noted that Missouri and Texas both passed legislation strengthening private citizens' self-defense rights, and "in Washington state, gun rights activists successfully stopped an attempt to regulate gun shows out of existence."

"Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr., signed legislation to prevent colleges and universities from banning concealed handguns on campus, a major victory that will make Utah campuses safer," he said.

"And the victory that makes anti-gunners cringe was the ruling by the Federal Court of Appeals in the District Columbia that struck down the 30-year-old gun ban in Washington, D.C., and declared the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms," Workman said.

"This was a major defeat for the anti-gun rights lobby, and they are terrified over the prospect of this case going to the Supreme Court," he added.

"The Brady Campaign has their collective head stuck in the sand if they think the gun rights lobby has had 'very few successes and a number of high-profile failures,'" Erich Pratt, director of communications for the group Gun Owners of America, told Cybercast News Service.

"I'm sure they would like to forget the more than three dozen concealed carry laws have been enacted around the country in recent years - some of them in traditionally liberal states like Michigan and Minnesota," he said.

"And I'm sure they'd like to forget the Emergency Protection bills last year that were enacted in about a dozen states, and at the federal level, to prohibit authorities from confiscating firearms during a declared state of emergency."

"The Brady Campaign opposed all of these bills, and they got rolled," Pratt stated. "Now, they're crowing about a few victories - most of them in liberal states - and they think there's been a sea change amongst the American public?

"Even this year, the Brady Bunch is ignoring what has happened in states like Arizona shortly after the Virginia Tech tragedy took place. When state Rep. Steve Gallardo introduced an amendment to ban guns at colleges, it was soundly defeated by a voice vote," he said.

"Sure gun owners have experienced some defeats, but that's the history of the gun control debate," Pratt added. "But for the Brady Bunch to make it sound like there's a new 'trend' based on just a couple victories in mostly liberal states is totally dishonest."

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