Recent Loss Has Old Roots
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor of The New Gun Week
and President of the Second Amendment Foundation

	The loss in the House of Representatives on May 5 was not as
sudden, or surprising, as some might imagine. Nor was it inevitable.

	It is the bitter fruit of a tree which has been growing from
old roots for many years. The seeds may have been planted as early as
the 1920s and 30s, but didn't really start rooting well until the
early 1960s.

	They were watered by the social and demographic changes in
post World War II America as more and more of our rural and small-town
population crowded into cities and the people in cities fled to new
suburbs. Little cities, particularly in the South and West, became big
cities. Developers, eager to profit from this migration, built more
and more new communities in what was formerly farm land and helped
change the lifestyles and attitudes of new generations.

	As the cities became more crowded and the manufacturing jobs
of the war and post-war years began to dry up, urban planners cut
large swaths through the cities and their tax bases for multi-lane
highways that helped speed the flight from the cities where old
factories and stores began closing. Urban sprawl became a reality and
with it came not just private mobility but a total escape from
neighborhood and family community.

	There were related shifts in education and an increasingly
greater separation between peoples_along economic, educational and
racial lines. Old values and traditions underwent radical change. And
those changes are continuing.


Bedrock vs. Cosmopolitan


	There is a significant difference in the way people who live
in highly urbanized areas as opposed to rural and small town
communities (not suburban areas) view guns, gun ownership and
self-protection. Prof. William Tonso, a sociologist at the University
of Evansville, has identified this difference broadly as related to
two distinctly different cultures: one individual, bedrock and
traditional American, the other collective, cosmopolitan and more
European in character.

	Perhaps this is why Congressional_or even state_ votes on gun
legislation are clearly divided along geographic rather than party
lines or broad political philosophy. If Democrats more frequently
appear to be the party supporting gun laws in Congress and in many
states, that is because they are more frequently the party of
urbanized areas. But when you look at those Democrats who voted
against the ban, you will find that they come from less urbanized
areas, from traditionalist Democratic strongholds in the South and
West.

	A closer look at Republican votes reveals that most GOP votes
for new gun laws tend to come from urban and suburban areas. Take a
look at the roll call vote for the Feinstein-Schumer "assault weapon"
and "large capacity magazine" ban. Republicans like Henry Hyde of
Illinois and Jack Quinn of New York, as just two examples of
Republicans who voted for the ban, are urban-suburban Republicans.
They will tell you that their constituent polls showed support for the
ban, or that local law enforcement officials urged them to vote for
it. But neither reason would have applied in a different geographic
area. The police chiefs and sheriffs in more rural, bedrock areas, who
actually outnumber their colleagues in the urban, cosmopolitan areas,
did not support the ban, and did not get lawmakers who otherwise would
have voted against it to switch.

	That brings us to the influence of the law-enforcement
community on the issue, and a major root cause for the anti-gun vote.
But first, remember that the National Association of Chiefs of Police
(NACOP) polls, which survey all command level police across the
country, differ from the oft repeated claim that law-enforcement
endorsed the ban.  The police organizations which supported
Feinstein-Schumer are dominated by urban-suburban types who, while
fewer in number, are also more easily linked to the big city media and
more susceptible to political pressure.


Antis Learned in 1982


	Police opinion, as reported by the media and the politicians,
played a pivotal role in shaping public and political attitudes on the
Brady Law vote as well as the "assault weapons" vote. Like it or not,
the public tends to accept the advice of law enforcement on
crime-related issues. As crime increased, especially in urban areas,
the judgment of police officials gained even greater value than it had
before.

	Back in 1982, during the campaign on anti-gun Proposition 15
in California, which would have frozen away handgun ownership in the
state, pro-gun forces were victorious principally because they had
overwhelming police support. California voters who knew little or
nothing about guns and gun ownership were willing to vote against the
handgun freeze because pro-gun forces could advertise monolithic
police support. In those days, it was generally conceded that
gunowners and police were political allies.

	Stung by a defeat they were convinced should have been a
victory, the anti-gunners learned that they would not be able to
advance their campaign against law-abiding gunowners unless they
divide these traditional law-and-order allies.

	The place to start, of course, was in the major cities were
public attitudes would be most favorable to restrictions on guns
because there was the least knowledge and experience with guns. And
where a few police administrators, easily controlled by anti-gun
politicians who hired them, would be amenable to a sea-change on the
issue. A major part of this strategy was that the major media and the
networks were more likely centered in the same urban communities.

	By skillfully manipulating both the law enforcement leadership
and the media, the anti-gunners were able to put themselves on the
road to victory. Eleven Novembers after they were defeated in the
California referendum, the anti-gunners were able to celebrate the
victory on the waiting period vote which had eluded them for some 30
years (Brady bill was a more recent name designed to dovetail with the
Handgun Control, Inc. "victim exploitation" strategy). A few months
after that, it was the claim of law enforcement support that helped
them win the vote on the "assault weapon" ban.

	The help and active campaigning by a President committed to
the gun-grab philosophy was essential. But more important was the
backing of the attorney general, the Secretary of the Treasury, and
the many local police chiefs and sheriffs who buttonholed individual
Members of Congress, mostly urban Democrats and suburban Republicans,
to vote for the ban.


Propaganda Campaign


	The victory for the anti-gunners was not an accident. It was
the result of an anti-gun strategy designed to harvest the fruit of
the tree planted years ago. It was rooted in seven things.

	1. A major shift in the American culture and geographic
distribution.

	2. A major decrease in the traditional American understanding
of and appreciation for lawful firearms ownership which permitted the
anti-gunners to exploit public ignorance.

	3. A reversal of perceived police attitudes on civilian gun
ownership.

	4. A concerted effort to emotionalize the issue by exploiting
high profile victims of gun-related crimes, thereby avoiding a
rational debate based on facts.

	5. Successful exploitation of public fear about violent crime,
fanatical political groups and international terrorism.

	6. Neutralization of those ill-informed gunowners who had no
deeply felt commitment to the right to keep and bear arms and who did
not enter the public or legislative debate on the pro-gun side.

	7. Successful manipulation of natural "urban, cosmopolitan"
anti-gun allies in the media and big-money foundations which influence
both the media and politicians.

	This last was the most important because it permitted the
anti-gunners to dictate the public relations agenda and terminology.
Public opinion is what drives legislative and judicial changes, and
the anti-gunners won that battle years ago.

	In the last few months before the vote, many gunowners who had
been sitting on the sidelines for years suddenly realized that they
had a problem. There was also a sudden shift apparent in much of the
general media as more reporters and columnists took a new interest in
the issue and discovered that they had been conned by the anti-gunners
and the popular wisdom.

	Dormant gunowners became energized by new pro-gun strategies
designed to really take advantage of existing grass roots strengths.
These changes might have been enough_one vote changed might have made
the difference_had not the antis exploited all of their strengths.

	There is only a remote possibility that the gun ban will still
be avoided because of a protracted war over the crime bill. The anger
that most gunowners feel now should be channeled to have the greatest
impact on the November elections and to win the next battles in
Congress and the state legislatures.

	We should hope that pro-gunners will learn from the November
and May defeats as the anti-gunners did in California in 1982.