[url] http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011206/pl/attacks_gun_campaign_1.html[/url]

Gun Control Group Launches Campaign Home - Yahoo!

Thursday December 6 6:25 PM ET
Gun Control Group Launches Campaign
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Gun sales are up since Sept. 11 and some manufacturers are
pitching models by alluding to the terrorist attacks. Gun control advocates
accuse the firearms industry of trying to profit from tragedy.
Nan Aron, president of the Washington-based Alliance for Justice, Rep. Henry
Waxman, D-Calif., and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., held a news conference
Thursday to draw attention to gun-makers' marketing efforts.
The Ithaca Gun Co. is selling a line of ``Homeland Security'' pump-action
shotguns ``in our current time of national need,'' according to the company's
Web site. Another Web link Aron and Waxman displayed came from Tromix Corp.,
which is advertising a .50-caliber ``Turban Chaser'' rifle on its site.
The gun-maker Beretta is offering a ``United We Stand'' 9-millimeter pistol,
similar to the sidearm U.S. soldiers have carried since 1985. A limited edition
sold out in a day, spokesman Jeff Leh said.
The Italian gun maker, which has its American headquarters in Accokeek, Md.,
donated $100,000 to relatives of the victims of the attacks in New York and at
the Pentagon from sales of the limited edition. It is sending another $50 for
each additional United We Stand gun it sells.
Leh said the company's marketing link to the terror attacks is based on its
customers' patriotism and the jump in demand.
Gun control groups ``seem to be ignoring the fact that the right of self defense
is the very right that this country is exercising right now,'' Leh said.
Aron criticized the link between gun sales and donations. ``We shouldn't seek to
help the victims of one senseless tragedy by increasing the likelihood of more
senseless tragedies,'' Aron said.
Gun makers, dealers and FBI statistics all indicate that more Americans have
been buying guns since the attacks. Attendance is up at National Rifle
Association gun safety classes, NRA spokeswoman Trish Gregory said.
The alliance has put up 135 billboards in the Los Angeles area warning about the
dangers of guns in the home, partly to respond to the 300 billboards the
California Rifle and Pistol Association put up in October.
A ``pop quiz'' on the alliance billboards asserts that guns bought for
self-defense lead to more domestic violence, suicides and accidental shootings.
``This campaign is a direct reaction to the gun industry's effort to boost gun
sales in the wake of September 11,'' Aron said.
The California gun group's billboards carried the message, ``Society is safer
when criminals don't know who's armed.'' The campaign was conceived and paid for
before Sept. 11, said Chuck Michel, the association's spokesman.
But the message was even more relevant following the attacks, Michel said.
``I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about making people think about one of
the tools that's available to ... respond to certain threats - threats that were
every bit as real before Sept. 11, but threats people are much more aware of
since Sept. 11,'' he said.
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On the Net:
Alliance for Justice: http://www.afj.org
National Rifle Association: http://www.nra.org

Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Moe-rons....

[>(]babies!!

Did anyone show other than reporters?