People on both sides of issue turn focus toward states' laws

March 19, 2001

WASHINGTON -- The national struggle over gun control has intensified in the wake of the fatal shootings at Santana High School, but with state governments supplanting Congress as the scene of the action.

In response to the killings, Michael Barnes, president of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, launched an initiative intended to convince state attorneys general that they could make headway against gun violence with more vigorous enforcement of existing state consumer protection laws.

Barnes, who has been in the forefront of efforts behind federal legislation regulating firearm sales at gun shows and to require trigger locks on handguns, explained his group's tactical shift, saying, "What we see here is a place where the state can take the lead on this -- and often the federal government will follow."

Physicians re-examine prevention of violence

But the focus on the states also reflects the political reality that Congress and the White House are controlled by Republicans who have little desire to enact more gun controls.

Gun-owner groups also are looking to the states. A spokesman for the National Rifle Association said his organization will mount an effort in the Colorado and Oregon legislatures to modify new laws requiring background checks before buyers can acquire firearms at gun shows. Voters in those states approved ballot measures closing the so-called gun-show loophole during last fall's election.

Despite those votes, Al Gore's loss in the presidential race demonstrated that the NRA still enjoys enormous clout elsewhere in the country, and particularly across what political scientist Sam Popkin calls the "venison belt." That refers to several states in the Midwest, Northeast and South where deer hunters form a powerful bloc dedicated to protecting their firearms.

Swayed by the NRA's anti-gun-control ads, those voters flocked to President Bush.

Popkin, a Gore adviser and political scientist at the University of California San Diego, and others who have studied election exit polls say the gun issue may have cost Gore the election by helping to deny him the electoral votes of Tennessee, West Virginia and Arkansas.

"It was clearly a polarizing issue," Popkin said. "I think (gun-control advocates) have been burned. I don't think anybody has confidence in a good way to hold it together."

Bill Powers, a spokesman for the NRA, argued that most voters believe the rash of school shootings in recent years stems from complex causes that defy simple gun-control solutions.

"To the majority of Americans there is something deeper going on than can be addressed through some legislative proposal," Powers said. "A lot of these ideas that the anti-gun folks kicked around for the last year or two didn't sell well with the American voter."

He also noted that Gore tried to soft-pedal the gun-control issue despite the Clinton administration's record of support for proposals to increase regulation of gun purchases.

The NRA mounted a major push to defeat Gore in Michigan and Pennsylvania, states with large numbers of blue-collar voters, many of whom are also avid hunters.

Gore won both states after local labor leaders sought to blunt the NRA.

Gore also did well in California, where support for gun control is strong.

But analysts say the lesson for future gun-control battles is a mixed one, with Bush winning some blue-collar votes on the strength of the NRA's endorsement, while a number of women cast their ballots for Gore in reaction against NRA ads.

After the election, the Michigan Legislature passed legislation designed to make it easier for residents to carry concealed firearms. Gov. John Engler has signed the bill into law, handing the NRA one of a string of similar victories in recent years. Oregon enacted such a law in 1989.

The massacre two years ago at Columbine High School in Colorado prompted an aggressive effort by gun-control forces to legislate new gun restrictions. Adding heft to the effort was the Million Mom March less than a year ago that mobilized hundreds of thousands on the Washington Mall to hear Sarah Brady of Handgun Control Inc. threaten retribution against recalcitrant lawmakers in the fall elections.

However, instead of changing laws, the movement apparently spurred what pollster Andrew Kohut describes as a male backlash that was particularly intense in rural areas.

"In the end, the single-issue gun votes were more disproportionately anti-gun-control than pro-gun-control," Kohut said.

After the Santana High shootings, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a staunch supporter of the gun-control effort, called on the NRA and the leading gun-control groups to reach agreement on a code of responsibility for gun owners. Schumer said he was moved to do so by bleak legislative realities for gun-control measures.

Barnes and others say a showdown in Congress on the gun issue has only been deferred.

"A number of us haven't given up the fight," said Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and gun-control advocate, "but we know the likelihood of passing anything meaningful has been diminished" by the election.