Newspapers Urged to End Classified Gun Ads

[SW9M]

Newspapers Urged to End Classified Gun Ads
Last Updated: February 21, 2002 01:53 PM ET

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A coalition of gun control groups urged U.S. newspapers on Thursday to stop publishing classified ads for guns, saying they were a potential source of weapons for terrorists.

The National Campaign to Close the Newspaper Classified Gun Ad Loophole, supported by 24 gun control groups from Texas to New Hampshire, said a survey of 282 newspapers in 16 states found that 77 percent of them ran classified ads for guns.

"Sales of guns through newspaper classifieds offer the anonymity and ability to avoid law enforcement checks, which make them a potential source of guns for terrorists," said John Johnson, head of the gun control group Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence, who organized the campaign.

The campaign said newspapers could help fight the war against terrorism by pulling all classified ads for guns.

"This is a patriotic contribution that newspapers can make to the war on terrorism," said the coalition in a statement, referring to the U.S. government's fight to stamp out terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The group, which does not oppose ads by registered gun dealers in newspapers, also sent a letter to Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Attorney General John Ashcroft urging them to play a role in stopping classified gun ads.

The powerful National Rifle Association, which lobbies for gun owners' rights in America, said it had no immediate comment on the call for a ban on classified ads for guns.

The Newspaper Association of America, which represents about 2,000 U.S. papers, declined to comment on the issue and said individual papers set their own policies on such matters.

LOOPHOLE 'AS BIG AS TEXAS'

Under U.S. law, licensed gun dealers must do background checks on buyers before selling them guns, but people who make "occasional sales, exchanges or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby" are not required to make such checks.

"There is a hole in the law as big as Texas, and terrorists and criminals can walk right through it to buy their guns (via newspaper ads)," said Jennifer Beazley, executive director of the group Texans for Gun Safety.

The campaign cited the example of a white supremacist named Ben Smith from Peoria, Illinois, who bought two handguns via a classified ad in a local newspaper after a licensed dealer refused to sell him a gun.

Smith used those guns on a shooting spree on July 4, 1999, killing two and wounding nine before committing suicide.

"Ben Smith is a chilling example of how easy it is to obtain a gun simply by taking advantage of the newspaper classified gun ad loophole and reigning terror on a community," said Thom Mannard, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.

Another loophole gun control advocates are fighting enables unlicensed people to sell firearms at gun shows without doing criminal background checks.

In its study, the campaign found all of the papers surveyed in Texas, Michigan, Virginia and Delaware accepted classified ads for guns. Maryland and New York papers had the most restrictive policies toward gun ads.

Major urban papers such as The New York Times, The Miami Herald and the Chicago Tribune had a policy not to accept gun ads, and the study found nearly half of all the papers surveyed did not accept classified ads specifically for handguns.

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[MuzzleBlast]

Hate to bust these morons' bubble (THAT'S a damn lie; there is nothing I like better than busting morons' bubbles!), but the former USSR and China are most likely the "source of weapons for terrorists."