By Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources, (www.originalsources.com)
March 21, 2000
Last week in a mocking broadside, President Clinton attacked the National Rifle Association (NRA) for what he said was its ``knee-jerk reaction to any gun-safety measure.'' NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, responded to Clinton's absurd accusations, since the NRA has long been the major gun-safety advocate in the nation, by accusing Clinton of exploiting gun deaths for political purposes.
``I've come to believe that he needs a certain level of violence in this country,'' LaPierre said. ``He's willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political agenda and his vice president, too.''
Predictably, that statement caused considerable consternation in gun-control circles. It has also brought invitations on talk shows to LaPierre to explain his charge. Last night on Fox News Hannity and Colmes show LaPierre was given the opportunity to explain his point more fully:
Six years ago for some inexplicable reason the Clinton Administration decided to launch a military attack, complete with helicopters, sharpshooters and a tank against a religious group in Waco, Texas that earned their living selling guns. The explanation given at the time was that the group had "illegal" guns and, although its leader routinely went to town, often alone, to buy things and could easily have been picked up, the Reno Justice Department claimed that it had to launch the attack to safe the public from the Davidians.Sean Hannity: You know what really, really bothers me, Wayne, ...Tim Russert didn't hammar any Democrat or Sen. Frank Lautenberg when he said that the Gun Lobby has blood on its hands after the Jonesboro shooting. Or, what the President said, that precipitated some of your comments, when he talked about the child in Michigan would be alive today, he said, had that gun had had a trigger lock on it, then the six year old couldn't have fired the gun.
The only problem is - that child and the gun came from a crack house where crack was being dealt. Isn't that just as outrageous?
Wayne LaPierre:I think if anyone ever doubted there is a double standard in this country all they would have to watch is what the Clinton spin machine aided by the national media tried to do to me this past week.
The President on the Today show and started all this by saying that the NRA is responsible for all the gun deaths in the United States. And the national media just sat there. He then said the NRA has never done anything for safety. We spent $20 million on firearm safety in the last five years!
Sean Hannity:I'll put up some statistics in a couple of minutes but before I do I'll just put up a couple of others. Prior to Columbine - a year and a half prior - 6000 kids were caught bringing a gun to school - that's a federal crime - and the Clinton Administration and the Reno Justice Department only prosecuted 13!
One hundred and seventy nine people were denied access to purchase a weapon. Wayne, you supported the instant background check. That's a federal crime. They could face ten years in jail. The Clinton Justice Department didn't prosecute one of them.
According to the Senate Judiciary Committee, in 1998, possession or discharge of a firearm on school grounds - there were only 8 prosecutions of possession of handguns by a juvenile and Brady background check - that's all the prosecutions they had. Your point is right! What good is the 21,000th gun law if we don't enforce the laws on the books?
Wayne LaPierre:Well, I used some very strong words to try to center the debate on the complete lack of enforcement of the federal firearms laws on the books now against the people who are doing the killing. The violent felons with guns, the drug dealers with guns and the violent gang members with guns.
The current federal gun laws are the metal detectors at the airport. If the President would only instruct Janet Reno to enforce those laws and pick those people up that are breaking federal laws. They could pick them ALL up right now, hold them without bail and send them to penitentiary for five years.
Alan ColmesThis is your favorite liberal, Alan Colmes. We all want the same thing, right? Can we acknowledge we all want to reduce violence. We want children to be safe. We want to reduce murders and gun use in the commission of crime. We all want the same thing, right?
Wayne LaPierre:The problem is, Alan, and what I don't understand is - I would hope so - but I don't understand why the president, who has the power to change this policy that is actually getting people killed. Why doesn't he walk down the hall and tell Janet Reno to change it?
Alan Colmes:But, he wants the same things as you. You don't think that you and the President both have the same goals for America which is fewer gun crimes? You would agree with that, right?
Wayne LaPierre: I would hope so, but what I can't understand is why he doesn't enforce existing laws? During the height of this debate last week when I was being ridiculed by the national media, you had that Sheriff's deputy, Ricky Kinchen, shot and killed by H. Rap Brown - a violent convicted felon, picked up in 1995 in a shooting case in Atlanta. The local authorities couldn't make the shooting case because they lost their witness. But they had the violent convicted felon with a gun in his hand. The local authorities called the Clinton administration and said, "Please take this guy off the street. He's dangerous. They declined prosecution!
Editor's Note: In 1967 H. Rap Brown, former Black Panther "minister of Justice" was charged with inciting a riot in Cambridge, Maryland, where he had told about 400 blacks: "It's time for Cambridge to explode, baby. Black folks built America, and if America don't come around, we're going to burn America down." In an shoot-out at the time a white police officer was shot in the neck, face and hand. No one was killed. The next morning, a fire burned a school and two city blocks.
In 1995 Brown was accused of aggravated assault, carrying a concealed weapon and possessing an unlicensed pistol after a man claimed he was shot by Brown, who now goes by the name of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. William Miles, then 22, told police he was walking home from a park when one of four shots struck him in the leg. Federal authorities said Al-Amin was carrying an unlicensed pistol and a large knife when he was arrested.
Alan Colmes:Wayne, you don't believe - maybe there should be more prosecutions. Look, in Texas, the Houston Chronicle reported more than 600 felons were turned down for gun permits in Texas since 1996. Not one of them has been prosecuted. This is not a problem indigenous to the Clinton White House or the Democratic Party - it happens in states all over the country - including George Bush's Texas.
Wayne LaPierre:Look, I don't run the Bush campaign. I don't run the Gore campaign. I am going to be vindicated when we change this federal policy to zero tolerance on the streets of America on violent felons with guns, drug dealers with guns and gangs with guns.
Alan Colmes:Can't you admit we all want the same thing? Both you and President Clinton - Democrats and Republicans - want to reduce gun crimes, right? We all want that.
Wayne LaPierre:You would think so. But, why doesn't he do it then?
I was down in Richmond, Virginia walking the streets, walking the neighborhoods. We got a zero tolerance program going down there. We at the NRS supported it with hundreds of thousands of dollars. We reduced gun deaths by 60% the very first year! Yet the Clinton Administration has fought expanding that program nationwide for three years. They've slammed doors in my face every step of the way.
If he wants to make America safe, why doesn't he do it?
I wondered aloud at the time that, if that was a legal and proper method of getting rid of illegal guns (and it is still questionable whether any of the Davidians guns were illegal), why they picked on a remote religious group who never had broken any laws or used weapons improperly. Why didn't they use military force, helicopters and sharpshooters to clear out crack houses and armed gangs in Los Angeles?
Not only has the Reno Justice Department never used the same tactics on, for example, a crack house such as the one in which a six year old picked up, brought a gun to school and shot a classmate to irritated him, they have not even used readily available gun laws which make it a felony for a felon to own a gun.
As if to punctuate LaPierre's points last night, during the show it was announced that H. Rap Brown had been arrested in a gun battle in Alabama. LaPierre, a few minutes before the news announcement that Brown had been captured had said: "The local authorities called the Clinton administration and said, "Please take this guy (H. Rap Brown) off the street. He's dangerous. They declined prosecution!"
One of the deputies ambushed by Brown was dead, the other seriously wounded. Why did the Clinton Administration decline to prosecute Brown? Is the push to get guns "off the street" designed to disarm the American people, or to disarm the felons?
It's obvious from the lack of prosecution of gun related felonies that the Clinton Justice Department has very little interest in disarming criminals.
This does, indeed, appear to be part of the Clinton legacy. A year ago he demanded that the Serb police and army leave Kosovo. When they didn't, he bombed Yugoslavia for 79 days. Finally, Milosevic withdrew not only the army, but the entire Kosovo police force to allow NATO forces total control. In the meanwhile, the Serbs and other law-abiding citizens, including Albanians, Montenegrins, Roma, Egyptians and even Croatians, were disarmed and most fled Kosovo because there no longer was ANY protection for them. They had neither police or their own weapons - so they fled.
Today those in control are the lawless elements of the KLA which not only have guns, but also grenades, missiles and other weapons.
Certainly in the H. Rap Brown case we see a very similar scenario. A dead deputy. And, a felon with a gun and the Clinton Administration trying to blame someone else for the situation.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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