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Bush ending Cuomo's gun buyback program

By SHANNON McCAFFREY The Associated Press 7/23/01 5:46 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration on Monday said it was ending funding for Andrew Cuomo's gun buyback program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a move critics assailed as yet another attack on gun control laws.

The program took about 20,000 guns off the streets in 80 cities in its first year, HUD estimated.

The $15 million program began in November 1999 under the Clinton administration. It gave local police departments up to $500,000 to buy guns in and around public housing projects for a suggested price of $50. The guns taken in were destroyed.

Many police groups supported the program.

"It would be hard to believe that not one of the weapons we took off the streets would have not been used in some type of crime," Washington, D.C., police department spokesman Kevin Morison said.

But critics of the program questioned whether money meant to take drugs off the streets, which funded the program, can be legally used to buy guns. A General Accounting Office study requested by Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y., supported the critics' assertion that HUD could not use the funds for gun buybacks.

Critics also said there is no evidence that the program has removed criminals' guns from the streets or lowered the death rate from firearms.

"The success of these programs has never been demonstrated in any study," National Rifle Association lobbyist John Frazer said Monday.

For gun control advocates, the move was further evidence of the Republican Bush administration's push to erode gun laws. It comes just a few weeks after Attorney General John Ashcroft shortened the amount of time that gun purchasers' instant background check records can be kept by the government from 90 days to 24 hours.

"It's sad, but not surprising, to see George Bush and the Republicans turning their party into a wholly owned subsidiary of the gun lobby," said Cuomo, who launched the buyback program when he was HUD secretary.

Cuomo is currently seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in New York.

Among supporters of the program were former Syracuse Mayor Roy Bernardi, now an assistant secretary at HUD.

Taking any "unwanted gun out of circulation is a success," Bernardi said last August.

HUD officials said that while funding for the program was being eliminated, individual housing authorities could still run buyback programs with their own money if they chose to.

"This is clearly not part of the core mission of HUD," spokeswoman Nancy Segerdahl said Monday.

She said HUD was focusing on affordable housing and was no longer participating in the Communities for Safer Guns Coalition begun by Cuomo.

Current officials at HUD said funding for the buyback program was cut because the program could make no guarantees that it was decreasing the supply of guns to criminals or that lawbreakers were surrendering their weapons. HUD said buybacks remove only 1 percent to 2 percent of guns from the streets.

HUD also said that public housing authorities have shown little interest in making use of the program. Only 100 of the 1,000 housing authorities were participating.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-Nassau County, accused the NRA of "setting up a desk at HUD."

"It's obvious that this administration is determined to roll back, or even eliminate, commonsense gun safety initiatives that save lives," she said.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

Answers

I don't think that Rep. McCarthy has any idea what a "commonsense gun safety initiative that saves lives" would be. Her own approach sure doesn't make any sense to me, but it is common....

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001