Committee Debates Gun Control

A Harvard student yesterday urged passage of stronger Massachusetts gun control laws in testimony before the State Senate Committee on Public Safety.

Jerome S. Fortinsky '83, founder and president of the 30-member Harvard Coalition for Handgun Control (HCHC), told a packed hearing room crowd of more than 100, including six legislators that "the streets of Massachusetts on longer belong to the people of our state."

"Criminals now rule the streets of our cities and towns, and the handgun is their scepter," he said, voicing support for a Senate bill which would ban the sale of handguns with barrel length less than three inches.

Several others advocated gun control at the hearings, which lasted more than five hours, including leaders of the two main national organizations favoring gun control--Handgun Control, Inc, and National Coalition to Ban Handguns.

Majority

But the vast majority of the crowd expressed opposition to the legislation aiming to stifle gun sales. Many lifetime members of the National Rifle Association (NRA)--the leading national organization opposing gun control--spoke before the legislative panel, which will formulate a recommendation later this week. The hearings were publicized in the NRA monthly newsletter.

The partisan crowd ridiculed Fortinsky during parts of his testimony. Several laughed out loud when he said "because of their [snub-nosed handguns'] inferior stopping power, they are ineffective as self-protection."

Several crowd members expressed the sentiment that Fortinsky, a Harvard student and native New Yorker, was not familiar with their crime problems and self-defense needs. "We're talking two different environments," one representative on the committee said.

Although yesterday's hearing marked the first time a member of HCHC had testified publicly, for most the hearing was not a new experience. The NRA has for nearly a decade annually opposed and successfully squelched gun control legislation with large turnouts at hearings.

Despite the lack of a blanket ban on the sale of guns. Massachusetts currently has one of the toughest licensing laws of any state in the country. The law requires a license for the possession of all firearms and automatically imposes a mandatory one-year prison sentence for carrying a gun without a license. In 1976, a state-wide referendum calling for stricter regulations failed by more than a two-to-one margin.

Supporters of this year's bill said it may have a better chance of passing because it is less stringent, banning only the snub-nosed guns. Lucy Grantham, a member of the National Coalition said earlier this week that more organizations have supported the cause this year, including some religious and police associations. She added her organization has received assurances that Gov. Edward J. king, a past opponent of gun control, would not veto the bill.

The major problem with passing legislation this year is that few elected officials may be willing to take up such a controversial topic in an election year, Grantham said.

Five HCHC students also attended the hearing yesterday, but did not speak before the committee.