Fw: NYTimes.com Article: Gun Foes Use Terror Issue in a Push for Stricter Laws

Marcel Popescu mdpopescu at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 13 09:51:26 PST 2001


> 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





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