Gun Foes Use Terror Issue in a Push for Stricter Laws

November 13, 2001

By FOX BUTTERFIELD

Gun-control organizations have seized on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to argue that any crackdown on terrorism should include tightening gun laws, particularly the so- called loophole that allows many people to buy weapons at gun shows without background checks.

Although efforts to close the loophole have failed in Congress, the gun- control groups are hoping to try again by recasting the issue as one of homeland defense. They point to several weapons-related arrests of noncitizens, some with links to terrorist groups, as examples of the urgency of changing the law.

On Sept. 10, for example, a jury in Detroit convicted Ali Boumelhem, a member of the terrorist group Hezbollah, on charges of conspiring to smuggle guns and ammunition to Lebanon. The F.B.I. had observed Mr. Boumelhem buying weapons at gun shows in Michigan.

Last year, a man accused of being a member of the Irish Republican Army, Conor Claxton, testified in federal court in Fort Lauderdale that he had gone to South Florida to buy guns at gun shows to smuggle to Northern Ireland.

And on Oct. 30, Muhammad Navid Asrar, a Pakistani, pleaded guilty in Texas to immigration charges and to illegal possession of ammunition. The authorities said that in the last seven years, Mr. Asrar, an illegal immigrant, had bought several weapons at gun shows, including a Sten submachine gun, a Ruger Mini- 14 rifle, two pistols and a hunting rifle.

Mr. Asrar said he resold the weapons at gun shows, but a federal grand jury is investigating whether he may be linked to Al Qaeda terrorists, said Daniel Bueno, the police chief of Alice, Tex., where Mr. Asrar owned a convenience store and gasoline station that carried little merchandise. Mr. Asrar has also aroused the authorities' suspicion when he asked his employees to take pictures of tall buildings and mail letters for him from Pennsylvania back to Texas.

Matthew Bennett, the director of public affairs for Americans for Gun Safety, said his group had begun a campaign to get out the message that because "terrorists are getting guns at gun shows, it is time for Congress to act on this issue."

The campaign, Mr. Bennett said, will include advertising in publications that members of Congress read, like Roll Call; working with state gun-safety groups to get voters to call their senators and representatives; and mailings of material intended to persuade local politicians to push for state laws closing the gun-show loophole.

"Now that we know for certain that terrorists have bought guns at gun shows," said John Cowan, president of Americans for Gun Safety, "basic political sense will tell you Congress needs to act in a bipartisan way to close that dangerous loophole. This could signal a historic shift in the gun debate."

Michael Barnes, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, formerly known as Handgun Control, offered a similar argument.

"You would think," Mr. Barnes said, "the Congress would have rushed to address this issue in the aftermath of Sept. 11, with terrorists having such easy access to guns in the United States."

But James Baker, the chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, called the gun-control groups' effort "a fairly crass attempt to bootstrap their agenda on the tragedy of Sept. 11."

The terrorists, Mr. Baker said, commandeered the planes they crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon "with box cutters, and I don't see anyone talking about closing down True Value hardware stores."

The gun-show loophole exists because federal law, which requires background checks for anyone buying a gun from a federally licensed firearms dealer, even at a gun show, does not require a check for someone who buys a gun from a private seller at a gun show. Buyers can acquire guns in those transactions without questions or the need to show identification.

Efforts to change the law have failed in Congress, partly because of concerns by gun-rights advocates that background checks delay transactions. They can take as long as three days, and weekend gun shows last only two. Many supporters of the right to own guns object to any restrictions on ownership.

Senator John McCain, who introduced a bill earlier this year to close the loophole, said in a telephone interview that after Congress returned from its Christmas recess, he expected to push again for passage of his bill, perhaps as part of some homeland defense legislation.

"I believe the terrorists are exploiting a loophole in our laws so they don't have to have a background check," Senator McCain, an Arizona Republican, said. "It is hard to understand why we don't change this, but the N.R.A. remains extremely powerful."

Mr. Baker, the rifle association lobbyist, said these cases showed that "the system works," because the three men with terrorist links who bought guns at gun shows were eventually arrested, even if they were not detected by a background check.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/13/national/13GUNS.html?ex=1006672454&ei=1&en =5d0b67526ff44150