Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 9, 1994 TAG: 9402090202 SECTION: NRV1 PAGE: CURRENT EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, outlined the biblical and constitutional roots of the right to bear arms and reviewed recent gun-control efforts before about 60 people at a meeting of the Pulaski County Christian Coalition.
Congressional hopeful Steve Fast was also there to give a brief stump speech in which he promised to be a "pro-life" and "pro-family" congressman should he defeat 12-year incumbent Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, this fall.
Fast, who last week launched a bid for the 9th District Republican nomination with a 457-mile campaign swing with his wife and four young sons in their 1983 Chevrolet station wagon, also gave the closing prayer for the meeting at New River Community College.
Pratt, a member of the House of Delegates from Fairfax County in 1980-81, said Republican Gov. George Allen gained a strategic advantage by emphasizing criminals as the problem, not firearms.
Democrat Terry "made this election a referendum on guns, grabbing guns to be exact," Pratt said. "People are concerned about guns, but crime doesn't equal guns, crime equals criminals."
Pratt's 17-year-old, Springfield-based group, which claims more than 100,000 members, issued a letter critical of Allen before last summer's state Republican convention. The broadside accused Allen of waffling on gun-control issues in a television interview, a charge Allen rejected.
But Monday, Pratt said candidate Allen was able to raise the profile of his campaign and increase fund raising later last summer largely because Terry made so much of the gun issue and misread polls on the issues. Allen correctly framed the issue by focusing on tightening parole and putting away career criminals, Pratt said.
Gun Owners of America, if its current newsletter is any indication, takes a dim view of politicians in general and even of the much larger National Rifle Association, which it considers too willing to compromise on recent gun-control measures before Congress.
"The Clinton administration is on record from the president's own mouth as saying they want to ban handguns," Pratt said. "So this is not an example of where compromise is going to get us anywhere."
Pratt, who did graduate work in political science at American University, outlined a detailed, lengthy argument for viewing the Second Amendment and gun ownership not from the perspective of hunting and sporting issues, but as an essential element of preserving individual liberty.
In that view, the right to bear arms ensures that government never has a monopoly of force, whether over specific minority groups or the population at large. Several of the questions from the audience reflected this fundamental distrust of government and other institutions, including the press.
"The history of gun control in this country is not pretty," Pratt said. "The motives have always been to dominate someone."
Memo: ***CORRECTION***