Gun Control

Policymakers must recognize the legitimate uses of guns, while keeping them out of illegitimate hands, a Kennedy School professor said there last night.

In a panel discussion at the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, Mark H. Moore, Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice, debated the pros and cons of handgun control with Joan Buckley, president of People vs. Handguns--an organization in favor of handgun control--and Warren Cassidy, a member of the National Rifle Association and former mayor of Lynn, MA.

Moore urged the small crowd of about thirty people to move away from ideological arguments for or against gun control and to "stop fighting whether guns are good or bad."

But Buckley, a former sheriff of Middlesex County, said that he has "never heard of a good reason for owning a handgun." He said arguments against gun control were based on mistaken feelings of "machismo" found in owning a gun. "You're taking away their maleness," he said in reference to gun owners who oppose gun control, adding "they will do anything to stop this." Buckley called the NRA "a very effective lobby" that has run contrary to public opinion in favor of gun control, as demonstrates in polls showing that over 70 per cent of citizens advocate some form of gun control.

But Cassidy defended his organization's legislative victories as a legitimate part of the political process, adding that "there is absolutely no relationship between crime control and gun control,"