[url]http://www.nationalreview.com/nr_comment/nr_comment081701a.shtml[/url]
National Review article:
Dems for the IRA
Rep. McCarthy opposes the Second Amendment, defends the IRA.
By Jaime Sneider,
n recent months, a resolution
has been put forward in the
House to honor the memory of
the IRA terrorists who died
during a 1981 hunger strike.
Among the bill's Democratic cosponsors, Rep. Carolyn
McCarthy of New York deserves to be singled out.
Somehow, in spite of her support for rigid gun-control
measures, McCarthy has decided to ally herself with the IRA.
McCarthy entered the political scene following the murder of
her husband, who was shot to death by a crazed killer on a
commuter train on December 7, 1993. By her own account,
she "turned the incident into a public campaign against gun
violence" — and eventually, a run for office.
As a member of Congress, she has been ruthless in her
pursuance of gun-control measures. Last month, she issued a
statement against gutting the ineffective Housing and Urban
Development Agency gun buy-back program — even though
such payouts are known to rarely, if ever, involve illegally
owned firearms. McCarthy is also a firm supporter of trigger
locks (which under many circumstances do more harm than
good) and of "smart" gun technology (which has failed trial
after trial). In fact, since the beginning of the year,
McCarthy's office has issued no fewer than 12 press releases
endorsing further gun-control measures.
And yet, despite her tireless efforts to make guns harder to
obtain for the law-abiding, she nevertheless does not take
issue with the hunger strikers — among them Bobby Sand,
who was convicted on two different occasions of illegal
possession of firearms, and who was linked to a 1976
bombing of a furniture company.
Another hunger striker, Francis Hughes, was convicted of
murder. (Hoping he had killed two soldiers, he anxiously
asked his first visitor in prison: "How many did I get?")
According to a website commemorating the hunger strike, "It
is believed that somewhere between 20-30 British soldiers
and police officers died at [Hughes's] hand."