Word: handguns
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...these problems looms the question of whether local efforts would remain test cases or would spread beyond a few isolated communities. To predict this would require weighing negative voting trends like the rejection of Proposition 15 and Reagan's reelection, against the public opinion polls that have supposedly supported handgun control. The weight of the negative voting trends has tipped the scales against the Coalition's plan. The shift to local level politics would create a vulnerable focus for the NRA's politically powerful, three million-membered, $52 million machine--a focus that would only grate on new nerves...
Reagan's reelection climaxed a streak of setbacks to handgun control activists that includes a series of stymied gun control bills introduced during the seventies by legislators such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.), Reagan's election in 1980, and the resounding defeat of California's handgun-restricting Proposition 15 in 1982. The NRA has shot down the activists on all fronts. Seemingly they have nowhere to turn...
...into real gains in political clout or actual enforcement--a gap that threatens to turn the target communities into experimental guinea pigs, instead of the puzzle pieces that the Coalition wants to eventually fit into an overall plan. Given that the Coalition could persuade communities to restrict or ban handguns, they will be most valuable as test cases, both for the purposes of the activists, and for the understanding of the handgun problems. The results of such piecemeal bans may not support the goals of control advocates, but could shed light on the peculiarly American phenomenon of civilian-owned guns...
...entire scheme rests on enforcability. Activist Roy says that police would prohibit citizens from taking handguns outside their homes. No easy matter, considering that one of the original problems is that a handgun fits nicely in a briefcase, a purse, a cost pocket. Furthermore, this answer leaves unaddressed the very real dangers of having a gun in the home: they cause an overwhelming number of accidents. More than half of the 10,000 people who were killed by handguns in 1983 were shot by relatives, friends, or acquaintances, according to the FBI. If a policeman were to transgress the rights...
...more than sobering to note that several towns have reacted to Morton Groves' handgun ban by swinging to the opposite extreme. A 1982 law in Kennesaw, Georgia, requires the head of every household to possess a gun and ammunition. In fact, the town went so far as to "supply just about any sort of firearm" to those who couldn't buy them. It is a wonder that they did not enact mandatory target practice. This law represents not just a legal response to local gun control, but an armed response. It is as if the NRA is readying itself...