Word: guns
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Most of the gains for the gun lobby have been quiet ones. Attorney General John Ashcroft has expanded the government's view of the Second Amendment, stating explicitly that it protects an individual's right to possess and bear arms--a departure from the longstanding view that this right was limited to state militias. Ashcroft has also proposed shortening the length of time the FBI is required to keep records of background checks. He wants it reduced to a single business day; the Clinton Administration required 90. And while the National Rifle Association wasn't pleased with Bush's statements...
When it comes to guns, politicians are figuring out what clay pigeons have known for a long time: it's safer to be a moving target. So it is that President Bush can win points with gun-control groups by sticking to his campaign promise to sign an extension on the assault-weapons ban when it expires next year, while House majority leader Tom DeLay can make the gun lobby happy by suggesting, as he did last week, that no such bill will ever reach Bush's desk. And Democrats can fuss and fume over how Bush and the Republicans...
...pantomime will continue, for behind it lies a new reality: two years into the Bush Administration, the gun lobby is on a winning streak. Bill Clinton muscled through the most significant new gun laws in 30 years, including the 1994 assault-weapons ban and the 1993 Brady Law, requiring background checks for gun buyers. But gun groups got some revenge in the 2000 election, when they were credited with costing Al Gore at least three states, including his home, Tennessee...
Part of the reason for the gun lobby's success is that the political landscape shifted right after 9/11, when the nation lost its sense of security and gun sales soared. Whereas married women were long thought to be the constituency most sympathetic to new restrictions on guns, they were the group most supportive of allowing pilots to be armed in the cockpit, according to focus groups conducted by Republican pollster David Winston...
Many Democrats are nervous about putting the gun issue on the front burner. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called upon Bush to pressure G.O.P. House leaders to bring the extension of the ban to the floor, but she conceded that Democratic leaders would be leery of strong-arming their own members on such a sensitive issue. "We would probably lose some votes," she said. When guns came up during the first debate among the 2004 Democratic presidential contenders earlier this month, the candidates--with the exception of Al Sharpton--were virtually silent...