Struggle continues in U.S. over gun controls

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33426, 7 January 1974, Page 12

Struggle continues in U.S. over gun controls

IBy PETER STRATFORD of 'The T.mcj.’ through N.Z.P.A.) NEW YORK. Ten years after the assassination of President John Kennedy, the struggle o\er gun control laws in the United States continues.

The advocates of gun con-i trot have brought about a few reforms since 1963, but they have been able to do little to check the very' fast growth in the ownership of guns. It would not now be possible to buy a rifle by mail order in the way that Lee Harvey Oswald did before shooting President Kennedy in Dallas, but most states still have few restrictions on who can buy pistols or hand guns, and practically none of rifles or shotguns. Strangely enough New York, which has a world reputation for crime, is one of the hardest places in which to buy a pistol or rifle, at feast legally. It has plenty of gun shops, but when I went into one of them to make inquiries. 1 was told that there were extensive formalities to go through before I could get my hands on a firearm. •SOUND MIND* To get a rifle, I should have to produce evidence, hacked up by people who knew me well, that I was a reputable citizen and of sound mind. To get a pistol, I should have to go to the local police station for a licence. I was told I would be hkely to get one only if I could prove I had a special need for one — if 1 habitu-

ally carried large quantities of cash, for instance. There are. of course, other ways of obtaining firearms in New York, as the gun dealer conceded. It was, he pointed out, like the situation of heroin. But at least an effort is being made by the New York authorities to keep a check on the ownership of guns, and reformers would like toj see similar arrangements applied all over the country. TOUGH BILL One of the toughest bills before Congress would, for instance, require a permit for any purchase of firearms or ammunition but Congressmen simply do not feel that they can ignore the hostility of a pair part of their voters, and it now appears unlikely that there will be any action before 1975, when this year’s Congressional elections are over. That applies even to such apparently harmful weapons as the cheap pistols known as “Saturday night specials.’’ An act passed in 1968 was supposed to restrict these by banning imports, but it contained a loophole by which American firms were allowed to import the parts and assemble them. Such guns sometimes sell wholesale for as little as $5 or $6. Thev are made of “pot metal” and can be as

dangerous to whoever fires them as to the intended victim, since they are liable to explode. There are, however, millions of them in circulation, many of them among the youth gangs in such areas as the South Bronx in New York.

ENDURING PROBLEM The resistance to gun con- [ trols is one of the strangest I and most enduring phe-1 nomena of American life. It has succeeded so far in hampering effective action in Washington, in spite of thej growth of crime in the United : States and in spite of Gallup polls showing that most Americans are in favour of requiring police permits forl buying any gun. Part of the explanation; I lies in the efficacy of the Na-1 tional Rifle Association, which can arrange for a j shower of irate letters to I descend on any congressman who steps out of line. 4 More fundamentally, the idea of gun control appears to strike at some of the deepest feeling of many Americans. The most commonly heard argument, repeated to me by the gun t dealer in New York, was that controls would not affect criminals, who would get round them, but only honest citizens. Underneath this is the feeling that controls mean I interference with the cher-j ished right to use them for I self-protection. The gun is presented as a part of American culture, at i least in the west. There have been bumper stickers proclaiming that “the west was not won with a registered gum”