May 26, 1999

Pistol Whipped

It's been a bad stretch for the gunslingers in Washington. The National Rifle Association and its comrades-in-arms in the gun industry -- titans of influence-peddling -- must have watched in horror as Republicans bailed on their long-term love-fest with the gun fanatics. On a series of votes in the Senate, most Republicans joined the Democrats in voting for compelling gun dealers to provide child-safety trigger locks with each new handgun, for prohibiting juveniles from possessing assault weapons like AK-47s and Uzis, and for limiting the importation of high-capacity ammo clips. Then, as a final kick, a handful of GOPers bolted and joined the Democrats to force a tie on mandatory background checks on all sales at gun shows. Vice President Al Gore broke the 50-50 vote in a photo-op custom-made to appeal to suburban moms. (By the way, gun shows proliferated after the NRA in 1986 convinced the Congress to pass what it called the "Firearms Owners Protection Act." As if poor, beleaguered gun owners needed protection.) This recent spasm of gun control was quite a change from 1997, when Senator Orrin Hatch led the GOP in smothering a trigger lock initiative. The outbreak of politically-inspired reasonableness even included House Speaker Denny Hastert, who declared his support for modest gun-control proposals. After the Republicans' idiotic vote against gun-show background checks sparked outrage two weeks ago, the GOP fell into retreat and it was bye-bye NRA -- at least for the moment.

Charlton Heston's gun-rights posse took a sock to the jaw. But there's plenty of legislative maneuvering to transpire before any of this becomes law. Those wily lobbyists of the gun lobby -- which pumped $8.4 million into congressional candidates between 1991 and 1998, with 80 percent going to Republicans -- will have angles to play in the back rooms of the Capitol, as the House takes up these various gun-control proposals. As focus began to shift toward the House -- and Democrats called for quick action to take advantage of the rout in the Senate -- Majority Whip Tom "the Hammer" DeLay remarked, "We are a deliberative body. We want to take our time and do it right." In non-Washington-speak, that means, "We're still looking for a way out of this jam without actually approving any significant gun control legislation."

The Hestonites, who decried the Democrats for passing bills that would not have prevented the Littleton massacre, are right in one sense: these measures are not likely to cause a dramatic decrease in gun violence in the United States. They are small steps. Where are the calls for regulating the gun industry? Or for registering and titling all handguns? What is shocking is how skewed to the right the gun debate remains. For instance, the authors of the trigger lock bill did not even dare to include mandatory standards for the devices. Because guns -- unlike children's pajamas -- are an unregulated product, there is no government agency that will craft such standards. And not all the gun-control measures were adopted in the recent Senate debate. The GOP was able to beat back Senator Chuck Schumer's amendment to restrict gun sales over the Internet. "Welcome. You've got guns."

Even for those familiar with the excesses of the NRA, a trip to the outfit's web site is instructive. The group posts a list of legislation it tags as "anti-gun bills." Included on the roster are a bill that bans the transfer of a gun to an "intoxicated person," a measure that offers federal assistance to cities and states that mount gun buy-back programs, legislation requiring purchasers of restricted explosives to provide identifying photographs and fingerprints, and a bill that regulates the manufacture, importation and sale of bullets that can slice through police body armor. It seems the NRA favors letting drunks handle guns containing cop-killer bullets, while it opposes turn-in-your-gun initiatives and the tightening of controls on restricted explosives. And these guys -- with their Tom Selleck and Tom Clancy ads -- portray themselves as mainstream Americans?

The derogatory term "gun nut" contains a measure of truth. I witnessed this first hand last week, when I had the occasion to go mano-a-mano on television with Senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican. Smith is a beyond-long-shot contender for the GOP nomination (in polls he places at the bottom in his own state) and a gun-rights purist. He voted against gun show checks, against restricting Internet arms sales, against an import ban on high-capacity clips, against trigger locks, and, in a 96-2 vote, against prohibiting juvenile possession of AK-47s and Uzis. He is on the NRA's dream team.

"Do you think," I asked him, "there is no problem whatsoever with easy availability of guns [for] children and [for] criminals?"

He didn't answer the question. "If my sin is to stand up for the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution," he said, "I'm glad to do it."

Again, I inquired if he believed there was any reason to worry about the availability of guns.

Again, he ducked and hid behind the Second Amendment.

I shifted gears and asked, "Is it OK at gun shows to sell guns without doing any background checks?"

Apparently so, for all he did was complain about the inconvenience of such checks.

Yes, as Smith demonstrated, there are gun extremists who consider trigger locks to be a government-imposed "punishment" upon the citizenry. (That's the same as claiming seat belts are a punishment.) It is telling that Smith, the most dependable gun ally in the Senate, has another cause these days: he has been talking about leading a right-wing, third-party charge on the White House. Why? Because he feels the GOP of Trent Lott and Orrin Hatch is not sufficiently conservative. And, as Smith sees it, the GOP's kowtowing on gun control is one more reason to lead a rebellion of the right. Reality check, anyone?

The NRA and its diehard allies do reside on another planet. (And I say this as someone who has enjoyed recreational rifle shooting.) They cannot for an instance concede that America has even the slightest gun problem. When Tom Selleck, a pitch man for the NRA, appeared on Rosie O'Donnell's show last week, the gum-chewing hostess tried to engage him in a debate on gun control. "We have to register cars," O'Donnell squawked, "why shouldn't we register guns?" Selleck, like Smith, couldn't take the bullet head-on. He mouthed some pap about guns being "a really contentious issue" (no shit, Magnum) and urged the country not to rush to pass legislation at a time of national mourning. (Sounds like he's in sync with DeLay's delay.) O'Donnell asked Selleck if he bears any responsibility for NRA actions since he allows the group to use his famous name and visage in its ads. He retorted with a non-sequitur, "Now you're questioning my humanity."

At least Selleck was touchy. Smith showed no shame at all. But most of the GOP can read a poll. The public mood is not on the side of the gun-huggers. (It probably didn't help the cause when Pat Buchanan's mentally deranged brother broke into the home of Cody Shearer, a Clinton loyalist, and threatened two house guests with a gun before fleeing and when Peter Robbio, then the New Hampshire manager of the Steve Forbes campaign, was arrested a month ago for brandishing a handgun at a restaurant in downtown Manchester. Is there a new threat -- Republicans with guns?) GOP leaders realize that they came to power in the 1994 elections with the assistance of the guns-'r-us crowd. With the House elections of 2000 expected to be close, the party cannot afford to blow off the gun loons. The Republicans are going to have to hold on to their trigger-happy supporters while not alienating sane voters. Bob Smith and the NRA will make that tough task even harder.


It's in the Water

As one of the presidential candidates who are mandated by law to exploit the Columbine High School murders, religious rightist Gary Bauer has whacked away at movie makers, accusing them of brainwashing kids with violent imagery. "There's a whole bunch of folks in Hollywood laughing all the way to the bank with money they've made from pollution," he huffed. "...It's just as sure pollution as a big corporation dumping chemicals into some river."

Bauer, with his reference to rivers, was on to something. As reported in Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly, a newsletter produced by the Annapolis-based Environmental Research Foundation, for 25 years tens of millions of Americans in hundreds of localities have been drinking tap water contaminated with low levels of insecticides, weed killers, and artificial fertilizers, and a group of biologists and medical researchers at the University of Wisconsin has completed a five-year study showing that when mice were exposed to a combination of these chemicals, they experienced measurable changes in their thyroid hormone levels. What has this to do with violence in schools? In humans, irritability and aggressive behavior have been linked to thyroid hormone levels. Indeed, the mice exposed to low-level mixtures of these chemicals became more aggressive. (Government scientists have tested these substances individually -- mainly looking for signs of cancer -- and have discovered no problems.) A connection between real pollution -- not Lethal Weapon IV -- and violence is not so far-fetched. A 1998 study of preschool children in Mexico detected a decline in mental ability and a rise in aggressive behavior among kids exposed to pesticides. "Because of recent violence in small cities and towns (such as Littleton, Colorado, Laramie, Wyoming, and Jaspar, Texas)," notes the newsletter (www.rachel.org), "this is a time when Americans are searching for the causes of violence in their society....No one seems to be asking whether pesticides, fertilizers and toxic metals are affecting our young people's mental capacity, emotional balance, and social adjustment." There may not be enough scientific evidence to yank out the metal detectors at schools and put in water filtration systems. But those who cry out for more school prayer and less Marilyn Manson ought also to urge more research on this front. Maybe we are what we drink more than we are what we watch.