The 1994 Crime Bill: American Gun Owners Got Lazy

By Richard Feldman, Executive Director, ASSC

Reprinted from Sentinel Magazine, 1995

Nine years ago the nation's gun owners enjoyed unprecendented success. The Reagan "eighties" were sweet relief for pro-gun America after decades of suffering the assaults and insults from anti-gun groups and politicians like Ted Kennedy.

Back then the Gun Control Act of 1968 underwent revision thanks to President Reagan signing the McClure-Volkmer Act into law. American gun owners again enjoyed the ownership of historical firearms as the Curio and Relic import provisions became law.

Countless efforts by anti-gun forces to "freeze" or outlaw handgun ownership failed. Gun owners turned back Proposition 15 in California.

San Francisco's then mayor, Dianne Feinstein, ran into a resounding "NO" when she tried to pass a citywide handgun ban. New York Governor Mario Cuomo apologized publicly for his insulting remarks to hunters. It was the best of times. Unfortunately.

While Handgun Control, Inc.'s activists plotted and planned their long-range strategy, American gun owners took off their packs and lost their lean, fighting edge. HCI learned from their defeats. We got lazy.

HCI began working to secure allies throughout the law enforcement and non-profit world that proved critical nearly a decade later.

HCI had a strategis plan and they worked hard to put every detail into place. Their labor paid off in the passage of the Brady Act and the gun ban provisions of the 1994 Crime Bill.

Traditional law enforcement organizations - the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the National Sherrifs Association, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) - stood solidly aligned with the pro-gun community. We took them for granted.

Johnny-come-lately nonprofit police groups like the Police Foundation, and the Police Executive Research Forum (spawned by longtime HCI ally Patrick Murphy), quietly worked themselves into a position of influence within the federal judicial bureaucracy.

Once established, they began an internal takeover of the leadership and policy making positions within the older, more traditional groups. IACP fell, FOP fell. The National Sherrifs Association fell.

Labor unions, teachers' unions, and all manner of professional societies were on HCI's wish list of allies. Among them was the American Trauma Society. ATS played a key role in lobbying Congress to ban semiautomatic, military-style firearms. The ATS defection hurts for another reason.

How many retailers throughout our communities list physicians, nurses and emergency medical professionals among their best customers? These are our people. The American Trauma Society was founded in 1968. It is the offspring of the lessons learned by combat veterans of World War II and Korea.

Men at arms, combat physicians, and medics who fought and won the freedoms we enjoy today applied the lessons of war to the care and treatment of peacetime trauma here at home. Auto fatalities and trauma-related deaths began to decline.

In our local emergency medical professionals, we saw a neighbor and a customer. HCI saw an opportunity. HCI worked our customers' national organization and enlisted their help on the road to incrementally disarming America. ATS did a good job in supporting the so-called "assault weapons" ban. Bill Clinton fired off thank you letters to ATS the day the House passed the crime bill. We just looked around and wondered what happened.

What happened was our opponents had a plan. they worked long and hard to realize the provisions of that plan. They shoved it in our faces with the help of the present administration.

Eight years ago too many of us took off our packs and lost sight of our forefathers' admonition that the preservation of freedom demands eternal vigilance. For too long, the pro-gun community fought a reactive strategy.

The American Shooting Sports Council (ASSC) decided those days must end. Every resource within the nation's firearms industry, united as never before, must work in concert to develop our own active and comprehensive long-range plan.

If we are to win back lost ground and keep our opponents away from our doors, we must not take anything or anyone for granted. We must enlist each of our customers, particularly medical professionals, if we are to preserve our rights and our way of life.

Look around. Study our opposition. We must win back every nonprofit group, every professional organization, and the majorities of both political parties. How? By joining them.

Become part of their infrastructure. Work your way up to a position of leadership. Influence their policies.

We must take America back from those who would disarm us and destroy the Constitutional safeguards protecting our rights and our future.

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