Pro-gun crowd cheers snag in bill

[Pat McGarrity]

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Last Updated: 6:02 pm | Saturday, October 6, 2007


Pro-gun crowd cheers snag in bill

BY PATRICK CROWLEY | PCROWLEY@NKY.COM
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FORT MITCHELL – For Libertarian gun rights activists like Burlington’s Eric Cranley, the Drawbridge Inn is the place to be this weekend.

The 22nd Annual Gun Rights Policy Conference attracted more than 800 firearms enthusiasts for a three-day conference that ends Sunday. Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a very long-shot Republican candidate for president, was scheduled to address the conference Saturday night.

Part of the conference’s focus was to update participants on legislation and government regulation regarding gun rights and firearm usage.

“What (the government) can’t pass with legislation they will come after us with regulation,” said Ralph Walker of Tennessee, treasurer of the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association.

Cranley, 26, an information technology student at Northern Kentucky University, is chairman of NKU Students for Second Amendment Rights. He also is organizing a college Libertarian group.

“I came to learn more about the fight to maintain our gun rights,” said Cranley. “(The conference) can give us ideas about how to change the hearts and minds of people who … think gun control is the solution to whatever problems they might have.”

The titles of conference sessions reflected the conference’s us-against-the-world point of view: “Litigating Gun Cases in a Hostile Environment”, “Shooters Finding No Home on the Range” and “Targeting Gun Dealers: Bloomberg, Jesse Jackson and the ATF.”

Many of the 500 people who gathered for a Saturday morning session in the hotel’s main ballroom were buzzing about federal legislation proposed in the wake of the April shooting spree at Virginia Tech, where 32 died in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The latest proposed bill proposes fixing flaws in the national background check system that allowed Seung-Hui Cho, a mentally ill Virginia Tech student, to buy guns. The bill would tighten requirements for states to share gun purchasers’ mental health information with the federal government.

The audience erupted in applause when told that Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, put a hold on the bill earlier this week and delayed a vote on the legislation.

Larry Pratt, executive director of the Gun Owners of America, contends that if students or professors had been permitted to carry guns on the Virginia Tech campus, Cho’s killing spree may have been stopped.

“Gun control contributed to the tragedy at Virginia Tech,” Pratt said to loud applause. “Gun control laws don’t lower crime.”

The conference crowd cheered even though the federal bill is backed by the National Rifle Association, which is working in a rare alliance with Democrats. It passed the House and would be the first major gun control law in a decade.

“Nothing can bring back the lives tragically lost at Virginia Tech, but this amendment will begin to repair and restore our faith in the (national background check) system and help prevent similar tragedies in the future,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who is sponsoring the bill with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

“When the NRA and Chuck Schumer agree, that tells you it’s something worth doing,” Schumer said.

The Associated Press contributed.





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