Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 13:59:55 -0700

Liddy Advises Gunowners to Defy Control Laws
By GENE KRAMER

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Author and radio call-in host G. Gordon Liddy advised 
American gun owners on Sunday to defy any law infringing on the constitutional 
right to bear arms.

``They're not going to put 100 million Americans in jail,'' said the former 
White House aide who spent more than four years in prison for masterminding the 
1972 Watergate burglary of a Democratic campaign headquarters. ``They want to 
disarm you. Refuse to be disarmed.''

Liddy addressed a half-day rally of gun owners, militia organizers and 
constitutionalists outside the Lincoln Memorial. U.S. Park Police estimated the 
size of the crowd at 1,100 for the gathering sponsored by the Committee of 
1776.
 It is a coalition of groups against gun control, government intrusion and 
curtailment of any constitutional right.

``The constitution is crystal clear,'' Liddy said. ``Any law which infringes on 
your right to keep and bear arms, any arm of your choice, is unconstitutional, 
just don't obey the damn law.''

Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., sponsor of the Clinton administration's 
anti-terrorist legislation in the House, commented in a telephoned statement 
that ``Liddy is espousing paranoid extremist rhetoric to scare people. All 
Americans should reject Liddy and his fear-mongering. He and his friends in the 
gun lobby are out of touch with the American people. ... While no one advocates 
taking away anyone's gun, we will continue to fight in Congress for federal gun 
laws,'' he said.

``All of the laws of the last 20 years will stand,'' Schumer added, mentioning 
the Brady law requiring a waiting period for buying handguns and the ban on 
assault weapons that the National Rifle Association wants repealed.

Liddy, 64, one of three dozen speakers, also advised people to bombard 
lawmakers
 and governors with arguments against firearms regulation.

President Clinton himself has acknowledged that votes against gun control cost 
the Democrats more than 20 seats and control of the House in the 1994 election, 
Liddy said.

``Let's make that 20 a down payment'' for bigger losses next year, when, Liddy 
predicted, ``We won't simply get rid of the ... gun-grabbers in Congress, we'll 
get rid of the Coward-in-Chief (Clinton) and the Mrs. (first lady).''

The April 19 bombing of Oklahoma City's federal building was a ``stupid and 
atrocious'' act, Liddy said. He went on to defend efforts to organize citizen 
militias around the country, groups Clinton has criticized as paranoid. They 
``are not organizing pro-actively to go after the government, they are 
organizing to try to get the government to leave them alone. That's what the 
American people want from government, leave us alone,'' Liddy said.

Midway in the rally, organizers sounded Taps in memory of the lives of all U.S. 
service personnel lost in action, of cult members and children who perished in 
the 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, and of those 
killed in the siege at the home of white separatist Randy Weaver in 1992 at 
Ruby
 Ridge, Idaho.

``If our ancestors had been armed, we wouldn't have been slaves,'' said J.J. 
Johnson, an African-American backer of the militia movement from Columbus, 
Ohio.
 America's ``real rainbow coalition'' are the non-white minority activists in 
militias, he said, not those in the Rev. Jesse Jackson's ``Rainbow Coalition.''

An attorney, Kurt Lyons, said his Cause Foundation needs ``physical and fiscal 
support'' for the lawsuit he filed against Attorney General Janet Reno ``and 
all
 her thugs'' shortly after the Waco raid, blaming them for the deaths. An 
anonymous telephone caller told him recently, he said, that ``lawsuits are 
getting nowhere, we need real action.''

``I don't know if that person is responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing or 
not,'' Lyons said.