by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

As this issue of Gun Week went to press on Sept. 8, the anti-gunners were pulling out all the stops in a last ditch effort to prevent the Clinton gun and full capacity magazine ban from expiring on Sept. 13.

After weeks of speeches, mailings, petitions, newspaper ads, billboards and a pink motorized traveling display, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Violence Policy Center and all of the affiliated state anti-gun organizations were focusing on a final push to embarrass President Bush and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives into reauthorizing the ban for another 10 years.

After failing to get any traction during the major political parties’ national conventions, the anti-gunners were hoping to deluge the White House and Congress with a phone, fax and e-mail campaign on Sept. 9.

The Democrat conventioneers were avoiding the issue and even the party’s standard bearer, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who has attempted to portray himself as a pro-Second Amendment gunowner in spite of his Senate voting record over the past 20 years, was silent on the issue, disappointing Sarah Brady who was once lionized at earlier Democrat conventions.

If the Brady Campaign hoped to gain any traction at the Republican convention, they must have found the footing in New York City very slippery.

A group of law-enforcement administrators are requesting a meeting with President Bush in hopes that he can exert pressure on Congress to renew the ban. But the White House has been mum on whether such a meeting was going to take place, according to The Hill, a legislative newspaper in Washington, DC.

In a recent letter to Bush, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and other law-enforcement groups who have supported the ban asked to meet with the President “to share our perspective on the importance of preserving the ban.” The IACP is unaware of a White House response to the request, and the Administration did not return calls seeking comment, The Hill reported.

Chiefs of police from Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Washington, DC, were scheduled to ask Congress to renew the 10-year ban before it expires Sept. 13 and attempt to raise the visibility of the issue.

With the ban’s expiration days away, the law-enforcement groups said, they “fear that without (Bush’s) strong leadership, legislation pending in Congress to reauthorize the Assault Weapons Act will languish.”

Earlier this year, the Senate passed an amendment extending the ban to legislation that would provide gun manufacturers with liability immunity. But the underlying bill was pulled after the assault-weapons-ban amendment and a measure closing the so-called gun-show loophole were attached.

Instead of voting on the ban, House leaders plan to hold a vote on the day the ban expires on legislation introduced by Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), which would repeal the Washington, DC, firearms ban and eliminate “criminal penalties for possessing an unregistered firearm.” The legislation has 226 bi-partisan co-sponsors, more than necessary to ensure passage.