A nationwide study conducted
by two associate professors
from Ohio State University
claims that “people who own
guns are more likely than others
to have little confidence in the
federal government.” Robert
Jiobu and Timothy Curry. Both
sociologists published their findings
in a recent issue of the journal
Social Science Quarterly.
Jiobu and Curry analyzed
data collected between 1988 and
1996 for a UC San Diego General
Social Survey (GSS), which included
interviews with a total of
6,576 people, revealing that “gun
owners had less faith than nonowners
in government, even after
they controlled for a variety of
other factors that may affect gun
ownership.”
CCRKBA last month awarded
the gun lobbyÂ’s National Inanity
Prize (NIP) to the Violence Policy
Center, because of its August
press conference attack “on Attorney
General John AshcroftÂ’s
determined assertion that the
Second Amendment to the
United States Constitution recognizes
an individual right to keep
and bear arms.”
VPC is so obviously upset by
AshcroftÂ’s statesmanship that it
even earmarked three anti-gun
political water carriers – Sen.
Charles E. Schumer of New York
and Reps. John Conyers of
Michigan and Zoe Lofgren of
California – to carry its polluted
propaganda to the public relations
market.
The California Supreme Court
has ruled that the maker of the
TEC-9 semiautomatic pistol,
Navegar, Inc., could not be held
liable in a 1993 rampage in which
Gian Luigi Ferri murdered eight
people, wounded six others, and
committed suicide during a
shooting spree in a San Francisco
law firm.
Ferri used two semiautomatic
pistols manufactured by Navegar,
which he lawfully purchased
from Nevada gun dealers, were
used in the crime. Survivors and
representatives of some of the
victims sued Navegar, alleging
common-law negligence in making
its TEC-9 available to the
general.
The Bush Administration has
backed away from the Clinton
AdministrationÂ’s landmark deal in
which Smith & Wesson agreed to
step up gun-safety efforts in exchange
for relief from costly lawsuits,
reports Gary Fields in The
Wall Street Journal.
According to company executives
and officials at the Department
of Housing and Urban
Development, the federal agency
assigned to oversee the deal,
there has been no contact between
the parties on whether its
provisions are being followed,
and the company remains a defendant
in many cases.
One HUD official reportedly
said the Bush Administration
sees the Smith & Wesson agreement
only as a memorandum of
understanding, which therefore
isnÂ’t legally binding for either
side. “HUD is not enforcing it,”
the official said. “In fact, HUD is
not doing anything with it.”
The politics of guns are
changing, reports Susan Page in
USAToday.
Some party leaders and key
strategists, she writes, are worried
that a perception of Democrats
as anti-gun is costing the
partyÂ’s candidates dearly among
white men, rural residents and
southern voters.
Frustrated gun control advocates,
however, argue that Democrats
are overreacting.
“Democrats have completely
misread the elections,” countered
Joe Sudbay, public policy
director of the Violence Policy
Center, which supports gun control.
“They are missing opportunities
to show how extreme this
(Bush) administration is and how
beholden they are to a special
interest
