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IL: Group calls for parents rid their homes of GUN
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Group stresses gun control
By MICHAEL HOWIE
c 2002 THE NEWS-GAZETTE
Published Online August 31, 2002
CHAMPAIGN - An advocacy group is calling for parents to rid their homes of guns and urging federal regulation of handguns as a consumer safety issue.
The Champaign County Health Care Consumers made the calls at a press conference Friday at Leal School in Urbana.
"What we want to do is focus on youth in Illinois" and the dangers they face from handguns, said Brooke Anderson, organizer of the group's gun regulation efforts.
The group wants guns to be regulated as consumer products, specifically requiring manufacturers to issue warnings regarding the risk of suicide and murder by guns, requiring additional safety features and establishing a national reporting system to track and gather details on firearm-related deaths.
Anderson said the consumers group asked U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana, in February to support legislation that would enact such measures but has not heard back from him.
Matt Bisbee, a spokesman for Johnson, said Friday his office doesn't remember seeing the letter, but added mail from January is still arriving in Washington, D.C., because of security concerns and "mix-ups" following the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We do make it a point to respond to all letters," Bisbee said.
But Bisbee said Johnson "has a long history of supporting gun owners' rights."
"His position is, let's enforce the laws we have, not create new laws and restrictions with respect to guns," Bisbee said.
The health care consumers group urged gun owners to remove their weapons from their homes to prevent accidental deaths.
The group made the call at Leal because the school allowed the use of space, Anderson said, not because of any implication that weapons are a concern there.
The statistics the group distributed claim those age 19 and under are at disproportionate risk of death by guns, but Census numbers seem to show they actually are in less danger than their proportion of the population. The Health Care Consumers said one of five gun deaths in Illinois in 1999 - 20 percent - was of someone age 19 or younger. That's a smaller proportion than the age group represents overall; those 19 and under make up 29 percent of the population in Illinois, according to the 2000 Census.
http://www.newsgazette.com/story.cfm?Number=12242
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By MICHAEL HOWIE
c 2002 THE NEWS-GAZETTE
Published Online August 31, 2002
CHAMPAIGN - An advocacy group is calling for parents to rid their homes of guns and urging federal regulation of handguns as a consumer safety issue.
The Champaign County Health Care Consumers made the calls at a press conference Friday at Leal School in Urbana.
"What we want to do is focus on youth in Illinois" and the dangers they face from handguns, said Brooke Anderson, organizer of the group's gun regulation efforts.
The group wants guns to be regulated as consumer products, specifically requiring manufacturers to issue warnings regarding the risk of suicide and murder by guns, requiring additional safety features and establishing a national reporting system to track and gather details on firearm-related deaths.
Anderson said the consumers group asked U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana, in February to support legislation that would enact such measures but has not heard back from him.
Matt Bisbee, a spokesman for Johnson, said Friday his office doesn't remember seeing the letter, but added mail from January is still arriving in Washington, D.C., because of security concerns and "mix-ups" following the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We do make it a point to respond to all letters," Bisbee said.
But Bisbee said Johnson "has a long history of supporting gun owners' rights."
"His position is, let's enforce the laws we have, not create new laws and restrictions with respect to guns," Bisbee said.
The health care consumers group urged gun owners to remove their weapons from their homes to prevent accidental deaths.
The group made the call at Leal because the school allowed the use of space, Anderson said, not because of any implication that weapons are a concern there.
The statistics the group distributed claim those age 19 and under are at disproportionate risk of death by guns, but Census numbers seem to show they actually are in less danger than their proportion of the population. The Health Care Consumers said one of five gun deaths in Illinois in 1999 - 20 percent - was of someone age 19 or younger. That's a smaller proportion than the age group represents overall; those 19 and under make up 29 percent of the population in Illinois, according to the 2000 Census.
http://www.newsgazette.com/story.cfm?Number=12242
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878