Gun Owners

A nationwide survey for the Johns Hopkins University has found strong public support -- including that of many gun owners -- for more gun control. Substantial backing was found for legislation to regulate firearms, make guns safer and reduce access to weapons by criminals and children.The survey was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago in collaboration with the Hopkins Center for Gun Policy. It surveyed 1,200 U.S. adults by telephone and had a margin of error of three percentage points.

Maryland State Police have failed to make expedient background checks as far back as 1995, resulting in recalls of weapons accidentally sold to convicted criminals -- including, recently, an attempted rapist.A 1995 audit of the police agency's criminal background check system commissioned by Del. Cheryl C. Kagan, a Montgomery County Democrat, revealed delays of up to 97 days on some checks for potential gun owners."The state police are frantically trying to recover from an embarrassing mismanagement issue," Kagan said.

A national survey of more than 5,000 households found that one in three has a gun, and offers more evidence that many gun owners are not storing their weapons safely.At least one gun is kept loaded and unlocked in about 20 percent of households with firearms, according to the survey published this month in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.The researchers discovered that in 11 percent of homes with both a firearm and a child younger than 18, a gun is stored loaded and unlocked.

EACH YEAR, more than 5,000 children die from handgun wounds. If current trends continue, handguns soon will be the No. 1 cause of childhood death in the United States.The statistics are stunning. More than 800 people die annually from guns fired by children; 1,300 children, ages 10 to 19, commit suicide with firearms each year.And yet there is no requirement that owners lock up guns or disable firearms when not in use. Efforts just to mandate the sale of safety locks with each gun purchase prompt angry outbursts.

WASHINGTON -- Against long legislative odds, President Clinton unveiled yesterday what he called the most sweeping package of gun-control measures in a generation, hoping that the tragedy at a Colorado high school will counter the gun lobby's power in Congress.At an event suffused with the potent symbolism of Columbine High School, Clinton proposed an array of new regulations, including extending background checks to purchases of explosives; banning the importation of high-capacity automatic weapon clips; raising the legal age of handgun and assault weapons possession from 18 to 21; requiring child-safety locks to be sold with all guns; and limiting the purchase of handguns to one a month.

SUDDENLY, everyone from gun control advocates to big-city mayors is talking about using futuristic technology to make guns safer. Their idea is to encourage the design and sale of "personalized handguns" that can be fired only by their owners. Ideas for such guns include a computerized chip that recognizes the handgun owner's fingerprints and a radio transponder that would detect a ring worn by the user.Proponents argue that this "smart gun" technology would stop the misuse of firearms by children and render stolen weapons useless.

THE NATIONAL Rifle Association has done itself a good turn by making Charlton Heston its president. Mr. Heston is a powerful actor who believes in the cause.Despite the stridence of what he said at the NRA's meeting in Philadelphia, Mr. Heston is a comparative moderate within the leadership of that organization. It fronts for the interests of gun manufacturers and distributors while purporting to speak for some 2.8 million hunting, target-shooting, farming, antique-collecting legitimate gun owners and enthusiasts.

Shot at gun clubs misses real target of dangers in nationOnce again you have found it necessary to attack gun owners (Mike Lane cartoon, March 27).Yes, I have taught my child about guns, trained them on the safe handling of guns, reviewed the laws concerning guns and done everything I could do to give my child a lesson in life that I feel she would need. I did the same thing for vehicles, fires, self-defense, baseball and fishing. I, unlike you, feel that safety and responsibility on usage of items is a parent's responsibility.

Taking aim at the nation's mayors, a prominent gun owners organization issued a threat yesterday to Baltimore and the dozens of other cities considering suits against America's firearms manufacturers: If you sue gun makers, we'll sue you.Officials with the Second Amendment Foundation, a Bellevue, Wash., group that claims 600,000 gun owners as members, say they have begun drawing up lawsuits against New Orleans and Chicago. This fall, those two cities became the first to pursue the gun makers in court, where they seek damages for the police, emergency and medical costs associated with gun violence.

The executives of Maryland's two most populous counties said yesterday that they will propose local laws requiring gun dealers to include a childproof trigger lock with every handgun they sell.With national gun control advocate Sarah Brady by their side, Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan and Prince George's County Executive Wayne K. Curry said at a news conference that children must be protected from shooting themselves or others with guns they find at home."Surely if we are going to require child safety seats in cars, we should require child safety locks on handguns.

Roughly 10 years after Columbine and two years after the Virginia Tech massacre, the families of shooting victims were back on Capitol Hill on Tuesday pleading for Congress to close the gun show loophole. All they seek is for all gun purchasers to be required to pass background checks that help keep guns out of the hands of criminals, terrorists and the mentally ill. Is that really so much to ask? Too many states continue to allow individuals without a dealer's license to sell firearms at gun shows and thereby skirt the 16-year-old federal background check requirement.

A new city law requiring gun owners to notify police when their weapon is lost or stolen will help police track down the "bad guy with guns" Baltimore City Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said yesterday. "This is an added tool," Bealefeld said. "I am hoping that other people throughout the state will take notice." The law, which takes effect Nov. 11, requires gun owners to alert police within two days from the time they notice their weapon is missing. Failing to report a missing weapon will be a misdemeanor carrying a $500 fine for a first offense.

Gun owners in Baltimore whose firearms are stolen would be required to report the theft to police under legislation approved by the City Council yesterday - despite questions about whether the proposal is legal. Supporters, including Mayor Sheila Dixon, say the bill will help police track stolen weapons used in crimes, but the city's law department has questioned whether Baltimore can legislate gun control, typically a state issue. In a June memo on the bill, the law department recommended the City Council hold off on advancing the measure until the Maryland attorney general issues an opinion on the bill - but that opinion is not finished.

Homicides increased in Baltimore and in many other parts of the state during 2007. Appropriately, Baltimore officials have made getting illegal guns off the streets a priority, and the city Police Department's Gun Task Force has been recovering guns from criminals and investigating people suspected of supplying guns to criminals. But these new efforts to hold gun traffickers accountable for supplying criminals with guns are being hampered by legal loopholes. These loopholes could be fixed easily with little cost to law-abiding gun owners.

PHILADELPHIA -- In a hospital emergency room, a young man winces as doctors try to determine how badly he has been injured. His name is Karim Williams, he is 27, and he is this city's latest shooting victim. He says he was hit about 12:30 a.m. by a shot fired while he was walking from his girlfriend's car into a bar. Williams was fortunate. The bullet went through his leg without hitting bone or major blood vessels, and after a shot of morphine and a few hours' observation, he will be discharged from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania back into the West Philadelphia night.

A gun-owners group says Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. hasn't danced with the ones who brung him. So now, they're staying home.Members of Marylanders for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership have been boycotting political fundraisers headlined by administration officials. "In response to your kind invitation to the 8 November event with Lt. Gov. Steele, we send regrets and our hope that you will not misinterpret our absence," PAC Chairman Jim Norris recently wrote to Sen. Andy Harris, a Republican who represents Baltimore and Harford counties.

RACINE, W.Va. - In a few short weeks, just as the clock ticks down on the last days of the presidential race, West Virginia's fall hunting season will begin. Thousands of people around this important swing state will take their guns and head for its verdant forests and broad valleys in search of fowl and other wildlife, just as their fathers and grandfathers did before them. And some of John Kerry's supporters here hope the Massachusetts Democrat will be among them. Democrats in West Virginia know that many of their state's voters guard their gun rights jealously, and that their fear in 2000 that Al Gore was out to take their weapons - stoked by Republicans and the National Rifle Association - helped seal the former vice president's defeat.

Maryland gun owners must unite as a potent political force to fend off left-wing attacks on their constitutional rights, a conservative state lawmaker says. That's why Sen. Alex X. Mooney of Frederick has helped form the Second Amendment Coalition, a pro-gun organization nicknamed the 2AM coalition, that aims to register gun owners to vote. Yesterday, the group launched a weekend voter registration drive at the Silverado Gun Show at the Frederick Fair Grounds. Many gun owners distance themselves from politicians, and want little to do with government, Mooney said, explaining the need for the effort.

WASHINGTON - In a victory for gun control advocates yesterday, the Senate rejected a popular bill to protect gun manufacturers, wholesalers and dealers from liability lawsuits when guns are used in crimes. The bill had broad support in the Senate and was a priority for gun rights groups - and President Bush had said he would sign it - but when Senate Democrats added two gun control amendments, supporters decided to kill the bill instead of accepting the amended version. Before the final vote, Sen. Larry E. Craig, an Idaho Republican who was the chief author of the liability protection legislation, said that once the gun control amendments were added, the House of Representatives would never accept the bill, so there was no point trying to pass it. `Wounded' bill "This was a very important bill, a substantial move in tort reform.

Making her second impassioned plea for tougher gun control laws, the mother of one of last fall's sniper victims appeared before a Senate committee yesterday and described the pain of losing her son to gun violence. Sonia Wills, the mother of slain Montgomery County bus driver Conrad Johnson, urged the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee to support three measures that would require reporting of lost or stolen handguns, expand ballistic fingerprinting to include all firearms and ban all assault-style weapons such as the one allegedly used by the snipers to kill her son. "I am in Annapolis again today because I am still outraged," Wills said.