"NRA's Image Stinks"

This bill is the first major gun law to reach the floor of the Senate in 30 years, but the NRA is now mobilizing its customary letter campaign. There won't be any 1968 Firearms Act--at least not the Administration version--if the NRA has its way.

"NRA's image stinks," Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Francis X. Sargent (who owns a sporting goods store) told the group at the end of the convention. He urged them to accept the Administration's bill, rather than risking the introduction of more stringent legislation. For his pains, he was labeled "a political gun bearer for the Kennedys and the Dodds" by the NRA President.

Several interesting arguments sum up the NRA's position on gun laws. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," one of their pet phrases goes. Or, as one NRA member put it, "You can kill someone with a golf club--are you going to ban golf?" It is, of course, true that almost anything can be used as a murder weapon in an angry moment. But few potential weapons are as deadly quick or as accurate from a distance as the gun. Defense is possible against a golf club, but not against a bullet.

Another pet theme of the NRA--as expressed in the May 1967 American Rifleman--is that gun laws disarm the law-abiding citizen and leave him defenseless against armed criminals, who don't obey gun laws.

One premise of the argument and its implicit conclusion--i.e., guns keep down crime--are open to serious question. The NRA simply assumes that any gun law more restrictive than those its supports will lead to disarming the "law-abiding" citizen. As applied to the Administration's bill, the objection is absurd. The bill would end mail-order sales of guns, but would place no restrictions on over-the-counter sales to state residents.

Who Gets His Gun?

State laws requiring a license to buy a gun pose a more serious problem. The NRA argues that these laws allow local law enforcement officers to determine who should and who should not own a gun. The officers would, the argument goes, decide to let few if any citizens own guns.

To date, the argument seems unproven. New York, which has a strict pistol license law, issues few licenses, but Missouri, which has a similar law, lets almost anyone over 21 who is not a criminal purchase one.

But there is one interesting question here: How would a Negro in Jefferson County feel about having his county sheriff in charge of gun licenses? The case is pure theory, since Southern states filled with gun owners are the least likely to adopt any gun laws, but it points out the need for clear criteria for issuing the licenses.

If NRA's worst fears were realized and such gun laws were passed, the group predicts a drastic rise in the crime rate. And here, reams of statistics flow back and forth between proponents and opponents of gun laws. Propagandists for both sides pick and choose at will.

But one thing seems clear--an abundance of guns in the hands of private citizens does nothing to keep down crime rates that increased police forces could not do, save perhaps prodding foolhardy shopkeepers into a replay