Let see if it will post when I try it, here it goes!
March 11, 2001
New Gun Control Politics: A Whimper, Not a Bang
By JAMES DAO
ASHINGTON -- In the days following shootings at schools in California and Pennsylvania last week, the new reality of gun
control politics became starkly clear. Unlike in 1999, when Democrats reacted almost immediately to the massacre at
Columbine High School in Colorado with demands for tough new gun restrictions, there were few calls to action. Senator
Charles E. Schumer of New York, one of Washington's most aggressive gun control proponents, simply suggested a voluntary "code
of ethics" for gun owners and their families.
It was a strikingly muted response from a movement that, less than a year ago, thought it had finally reached the gates of political
power. "You are the future now," declared Sarah Brady of Handgun Control, Inc., to the hundreds of thousands at the Million Mom
March. "We must either change the minds of lawmakers on these issues or, for God's sake, this November let's change the
lawmakers."
But the laws didn't change, and neither did many of the lawmakers. Instead, a strongly anti-gun control governor was elected
president. The euphoria of last year's march is a distant memory (one of its offshoots, the Million Mom organization, laid off 30 of its
35 employees on Friday) and the gun control movement, despite far-ranging efforts to match the National Rifle Association in raw
political power, seems to have fallen farther behind.
"I don't think views have changed in the Democratic Party on this issue," said Laura Nichols, spokeswoman for Representative
Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the minority leader. "But the political reality has changed dramatically."
What happened? Obviously, the election of President Bush, a long-time ally of the N.R.A., put a towering obstacle to gun control
legislation in the White House. As governor of Texas, he signed laws making it legal to carry concealed weapons and difficult for cities
to sue gun manufacturers.
But many centrist and conservative Democrats have also concluded that gun control has become their party's albatross, costing it
crucial votes among white, male, rural voters in key states across the South and Midwest. And their concerns have touched off a
roiling debate within the party over whether to play down or even discard the issue.
"Gun control," lamented Steve Cobble, director of Campaign for a Progressive Future, a liberal political action committee, "has
become the shorthand for why Democrats don't do well."
Even President Clinton, a staunch advocate of gun control, offered what for gun control advocates was surely a dispiriting
post-election assessment of the rifle association's strength. "They probably had more to do than anyone else in the fact we didn't win
the House this time, and they hurt Al Gore," he said.
Not surprisingly, the rifle association has been taking major credit for electing Mr. Bush. "With a new presidential administration in our
nation's capital, we'll be actively working to root out gun-hating bureaucrats deep in the heart of the federal government, especially in
the Treasury and Justice departments," a recent N.R.A. fundraising letter says.
The N.R.A. certainly had its successes, pouring enough money into major races to help prevent Democrats from retaking control of
the House. And it claims, and many Democrats agree, that gun contro