Another group, Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, is outraged by the plan. Growing ranks of scholars want to know why the sources he cites refute his claims. In the face of calls by gun control advocates for greater restrictions on firearms, new data from the Centers for Disease Control show that gun-related deaths and injuries fell by roughly a quarter from 1993 to 1998. Claiming that legally owned guns cause crime, gun controllers want greater regulation. City Year administrators were forced to withhold pay from the workers to remain in compliance with the law.
Conscientious objectors are exempt from the law, making it mostly symbolic.
Gun control activists had a losing week as most of their proposals floundered in the Illinois House. Pro-gun activists, led by the National Rifle Association, had a string of victories. The measure exempts gun dealers in counties with fewer than 100,000 people and dealers in curios and relics. A Texas bill that would bar even those simply accused of domestic violence from having a gun has been slowed on its seeming easy track to passage by an upstart gun rights group's aggressive e-mail attack. The state NRA affiliate had rolled over and agreed not to oppose the measure.