Word: controllers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...presidential moment of high drama, so when Al Gore sat up particularly straight in the Senate president's chair and called twice for the recorded vote tally, it was clear he was relishing this one. For two weeks Senate Democrats had had their Republican rivals in retreat over gun-control legislation. Gore, the presumptive nominee, was called in to deliver the final blow. A Democrat-backed measure to impose restrictions on firearm sales at gun shows had been given new momentum by news of another school shooting that morning, but when the votes were counted, the 100 Senators had split...
...national political landscape that had seemed settled on gun matters in recent years has suddenly been given a new topography in the wake of the Colorado and Georgia shootings. Democrats like Gore and his rival, former Senator Bill Bradley, are sure that gun control is a winning issue. And their best evidence is perhaps the confusion in the enemy ranks. First the majority of Senate Republicans voted against requiring mandatory background checks at gun shows. They then voted for it. Elizabeth Dole applauded herself for her move advocating controls two weeks ago. "These events demonstrate why it's so important...
...microconfusion inside the camp of her party's front runner for President, Texas Governor George W. Bush. His staff started the week quashing rumors that Bush, fearful of being labeled the presidential candidate of the pro-gun party, had urged his brethren in Congress to embrace gun control. Bush had talked to Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, the N.R.A.'s main defender in the Senate, but it was only to deny the claim made by the Democrats that Bush favored their party's amendment supporting mandatory background checks at gun shows. It was true, Bush told Craig, that...
Funny thing about being a front runner though, someone is always trying to give you a role in their debate. So far, Bush has resisted being drawn into national moments, like this one on gun control, choosing instead to sit on his lead until mid-June, when he plans to take his first presidential trips. But Dole, his closest Republican challenger, is trying hard to prick him into action. In a speech she was scheduled to deliver this Monday, she said, "Leadership requires more than sitting on a front porch measuring which direction the gunsmoke is blowing." Until he began...
...Gore and other Democrats are salivating at the prospect of painting the Governor as a tool of the gun lobby in a general election. After the Senate vote, Bush joked that if he were in office, his Vice President would have voted for the Republican version of the gun-control measures. He also defended his concealed-carry law as the kind of "reasonable" legislation that he might support as a President. "There are people in our society who feel threatened," he said, "and they feel like they want to protect themselves...