Pubdate: Tue, 03 Oct 2000
Source: Oakland Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2000 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
Contact:  66 Jack London Sq., Oakland, CA 94607
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Website: http://www.oaklandtribune.com/
Author: Josh Richman

GORE, BUSH SPLIT OVER GUNS; OTHER JUSTICE STANDS SIMILAR

Even in the context of the never-ending tug of war over gun control, the 
past four years have seemed particularly tumultuous.

Children died at Columbine High in Colorado and in other school shootings. 
Cities including Oakland, Berkeley, East Palo Alto and San Francisco, as 
well as Alameda and San Mateo counties, sued gun makers for their products' 
misuse. NRA president Charlton Heston made his impassioned vow never to 
relinquish his firearms. In California, city and state lawmakers passed new 
laws to create some of the nation's tightest restrictions on gun ownership.

It's no wonder, then, that almost two-thirds of voters consider gun control 
among the major issues that will help them choose a president this 
November, according to a Gallup Poll taken in May.

In fact, gun control and hate crime laws are among only a few clear 
differences in criminal justice policy between Republican nominee George W. 
Bush and Democratic nominee Al Gore. Unlike drug policy and victim rights, 
they're issues in which the candidates have different goals, rather than 
just disagreeing on how to reach similar ends.

There is some common ground on guns. Both candidates support the current 
ban on assault weapons, and would bar juveniles from possessing assault 
weapons, ban imports of high-capacity ammunition clips, raise the minimum 
age for handgun possession from 18 to 21, require that trigger locks be 
sold with handguns, and close the legal loophole allowing purchases at gun 
shows without background checks.

But that's where the similarities end.

"George W. all the way!" exclaimed Anthony Cucchiara, owner of Traders 
Sports in San Leandro, Northern California's biggest gun retailer.

Cucchiara believes the government has gone too far in curbing Americans' 
Second Amendment right to bear arms, "hurting law-abiding citizens ... with 
all the hoops you have to jump through to get a legal firearm." He has sued 
the city of San Leandro over a gun sales tax that would cost him about 
$75,000 per year; he lost in Alameda County Superior Court, and the case is 
pending before the state Court of Appeal.

Bush staunchly opposes requiring gun owners to get state-issued photo 
licenses, citing law-abiding Americans' constitutional rights. Instead of 
passing new laws, he wants to provide more money for stronger enforcement 
of those already on the books, particularly through aggressive prosecution 
programs such as Project Exile in Oakland and other cities. He also 
supports automatic detention for young people who commit crimes with guns.

"Bush would be our choice in this election," Cucchiara emphasized. "He's 
for enforcing the existing laws, and we do have more laws than we really 
need presently."

Not so, countered Griffin Dix of Berkeley, local spokesman for the Million 
Mom March Foundation, which seeks to prevent gun death and injury and to 
support gun trauma victims and their families. Dix's teenaged son died in 
an accidental shooting.

"George W. Bush is very extreme in his record in being against public 
safety," he said, citing Bush's support of Texans' right to carry concealed 
firearms, and banning Texas cities from suing gun makers for negligent 
design, distribution and use of their products. GOP running mate Dick 
Cheney, while in Congress, opposed bans on ``cop-killer" bullets and 
plastic guns that can evade metal detectors, Dix added.

Gore wants safety training and state-issued photo licenses for all gun 
owners - something California lawmakers are now contemplating. He also 
wants to limit gun purchases to one per month and to ban cheaply made "junk 
guns," sometimes called "Saturday night specials" - both things California 
already has done. Finally, Gore would force gun makers and federally 
licensed sellers to report their sales to state authorities, and would 
maintain firm restrictions on concealed handguns.

Dix says Gore's plan would save lives, and limiting gun purchases would 
reduce trafficking: "Texas is now the fourth-leading state in terms of 
crime guns that've been traced back to a state ... in other words, in 
supplying criminals with guns."

Drug Policies

Some analysts say America's "war on drugs" is a failure - a system too 
quick to imprison and too slow to treat addicts, and a zealous yet futile 
plan to stop the flow of drugs into the country. The next president must 
grapple with the question of where we go from here. Yet both Bush and Gore 
offer a mixed bag of treatment and punishment options that differ little 
from what the nation has been doing for years. Both, for example, favor 
bolstering anti-drug messages aimed at children via in-school and 
after-school drug prevention programs and media campaigns.

Gore proposes a matching grant program for states and cities to test, 
treat, and punish probationers, prisoners, and parolees. He would expand 
drug courts that divert some addicts away from jail and into treatment 
under judicial supervision. He would toughen penalties for those who sell 
drugs to kids, use kids to sell drugs, or sell drugs on or near school 
property, and he would step up federal funding for police efforts.

Bush wants to improve surveillance and interdiction to stop drugs at the 
borders, in part by beefing up the sometimes-understaffed Border Patrol to 
its full force. He wants to help drug-exporting countries promote other 
crops, and he supports the Clinton administration's $1.3 billion in aid to 
Colombia, saying that nation's government needs help protecting its people 
and fighting the drug trade.

The next president will have to decide what to do about medicinal 
marijuana. The Justice Department is battling in court to shut down the 
Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, claiming the federal ban on marijuana 
trumps the California law that lets seriously ill people use the drug as 
medicine; activists everywhere are watching for this case's outcome.

Jeff Jones, the Oakland cooperative's executive director, wouldn't say 
whether he believes Bush or Gore would go so far as to move marijuana to a 
less strictly regulated classification under federal law, but he said 
Democrats generally are more sympathetic to the medical marijuana cause.

"Out of the two parties, if you had to pick one, it's Gore," Jones said, 
adding "I still believe he's more of an openable candidate ... than little 
'CIA junior.' " - a reference to Bush's father's former job as central 
intelligence director.

But Jones said pressure on Gore from the pharmaceutical industry - which 
fears losing profits from conventional drugs if patients can legally obtain 
and use marijuana - has made the Democrat backpedal from earlier, 
circumspect statements of support. In fact, Gore said Tuesday he opposes 
medical use of marijuana because "thus far, there is absolutely no 
evidence" it is medically effective."

In the end, Jones said, he doesn't really trust either candidate.

Groups from the American Medical Association to the California Narcotics 
Officers' Association want marijuana kept on the government's 
most-restricted list at least until clinical research proves it's an 
appropriate medicine.

"When Prop. 215 was on the ballot ... the CNOA was strongly opposed to it 
because it violated federal law and there were no scientific studies 
showing it was safe and effective," said Robert Ellsburg, the CNOA's 
representative to a state task force on medical marijuana.

Since the proposition's passage, "we still have a problem endorsing 
something that violates federal law," he said. "We are not opposed to 
making marijuana a medicine if it's approved by the Food and Drug 
Administration and it's not a federal violation."

Other groups simply see medicinal marijuana as a dangerous prelude to drug 
legalization. Carla Lowe, a Northern California anti-drug activist and the 
state's delegate for the Nebraska-based Drug Watch International, said the 
medical marijuana advocates she debates today "are the same people I've 
debated for over 20 years ... their agenda has never changed.

"Smoked pot has not been found safe or effective, period, and it carries 
the risk of any inhaled smoke," she said, adding medical marijuana, 
advocacy of hemp products, needle exchange programs and movements to offer 
treatment without punishment for drug addicts comprise a "four-point plan 
of those who would see drugs legalized."

Hate Crimes

Bush and Gore talk tough on hate crime, but differ on whether it's a 
legislative issue. Gore wants the federal definition of hate crimes 
expanded to include those committed on the basis of gender, sexual 
orientation and disability, something California already has done. Bush 
opposed including sexual orientation in Texas' hate crime law, yet speaks - 
albeit more abstractly - about abolishing separatist hatred by urging 
parents to teach their children respect and national unity.

Fred Persily, executive director of the California Association of Human 
Relations Organizations - a statewide coalition of people and groups 
promoting civil rights protection - doubts Bush's dedication. Under 
Clinton, there has been "an immense amount of support from the Justice 
Department, which has essentially pushed the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys to 
build community networks to address hate crimes throughout the country," he 
said.

"I don't think there would be an effort to pull back on this" with Gore in 
the White House, Persily said, "whereas if Bush got in ... I think there 
would be a strong effort to pull back on some of the things that have been 
done."

Texas' weak and rarely used hate crime law leads Persily to believe we 
wouldn't ``have much progress in terms of pushing for hate crime 
legislation along the model of California's - which is one of the stronger 
ones in the country - if Bush is there."

Some say we don't need such legislation.

"It violates the freedom of conscience and freedom of speech in that it's 
trying to regulate hate, which as we all know is an emotion," said Robert 
Regier, a policy analyst with the socially conservative Family Research 
Council in Washington, D.C. "Government has never been given authority to 
regulate thoughts and beliefs, it has only been given authority to regulate 
actions and behaviors."

Regier said he opposes hatred, ``but I just have a different way of 
combating it. That's the role of the church, the role of the family and 
community. It's not the role of the government."

And in that regard, he said, this election poses a choice.

"The Clinton/Gore administration certainly has fought for years against the 
concept of equal protection by fighting for this hate crimes bill," Regier 
said. "George W. Bush, as governor, did what he could to uphold that 
concept of equal protection." Crime victims' rights

The major-party presidential candidates' positions on crime victims' rights 
are so close that the state's biggest victims' rights group doesn't know 
which way to go.

Harriet Salarno, chairwoman and president of Crime Victims United of 
California, said her nonprofit education and lobbying group recently spent 
about three days discussing a presidential endorsement, and finally decided 
to delay its decision.

"We're holding back for awhile because both candidates expressed their 
concerns for victims' rights issues," she said. "You heard Gore announcing 
when he gave his speech at the convention that he would support the 
Constitutional amendment on victims' rights. On the other side of the coin, 
we have Bush, who has always been very supportive for victims' rights issues."

Republicans blast Gore for not supporting Senate legislation earlier this 
year that would have enshrined victims' rights in a constitutional 
amendment. But both candidates now say they support an amendment granting 
crime victims the rights to be heard on sentencing, to be notified if a 
prisoner is released or escapes, have their safety considered in 
determining probation or parole and receive restitution from a convict.

Salarno said her group is seeking more information about the kind of U.S. 
Supreme Court justices and federal judges the candidates would appoint: 
``What we're hoping to see is the type of judges who will support and 
believe in equal justice."

"We need to see the proof in the pudding - we don't want lip service, we 
want action," she said.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens