These straw purchasers don't advertise what they're doing. They pose as upstanding proponents of law and order. Most gun owners believe strongly in law and order, and might see the logic of registration if the gun lobby stopped polluting the debate by calling it the first step toward banning guns. Strip that argument of its emotional appeal and you realize its backers are saying there is no center, no point of agreement, on any issue. If President Bush and his team believed that, they wouldn't have worked so hard in his Philadelphia speech to appeal to gun-control supporters.
Centrist words are nothing, though, without centrist deeds.
Al Mascitti's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Don't like Phila.