Gun ownership not a partisan issue in rural America
Date: Jul 4, 2006 1:59 PM
FYI (copy below):
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/nation/14904305.htm

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Posted on Mon, Jun. 26, 2006
Gun ownership not a partisan issue in rural America
BY PAUL NUSSBAUM
Knight Ridder Newspapers

MISSOULA, Mont. – Gov. Brian Schweitzer won’t say exactly
how many guns he owns, other than it’s “more than I need,
but less than I want.”

An unabashed shooter, hunter and gun-fancier in a state
deeply in touch with its Old West heritage, Schweitzer is a
member of the National Rifle Association and was happy to
receive the NRA’s endorsement for governor in 2004.

He is also a Democrat.

Like many Democrats, especially those beyond the nation’s
big cities and urban coasts, Schweitzer doesn’t see gun
ownership as a partisan issue.

“Republicans try to make the case that `Democrats will take
your guns away.’ I say, `Yeah, Democrats like Giuliani,
Pataki and Schwarzenegger,’” Schweitzer said, naming
prominent Republicans from New York and California.

While leaders in urban areas, faced with a rising number of
gun-related slayings and injuries, call for tougher gun
laws, their counterparts in more rural states insist that
criminals, not guns, are the problem.

As Democrats try to win control of Congress this year and
the White House in 2008, the divide over guns may make their
task that much tougher. For common ground in the gun debate
is often found not in political affiliation, but in region,
gender, or proximity to a large city.

A Pew Research Center survey of 1,500 adults in 2004 asked
Americans which they thought was more important – “to
protect the right of Americans to own guns, or to control
gun ownership?”

In the Northeast, 70 percent of the respondents said it was
more important to control gun ownership, while 26 percent
said it was more important to protect the right of Americans
to own guns. In all other regions of the country,
majorities also said controlling guns was paramount, but by
much smaller margins (the Midwest, 54 percent; the South, 53
percent, and the West, 59 percent).

And a Gallup Poll survey of 1,012 people in November found
gun ownership lowest in the East, where 31 percent of
respondents said they or someone in their household owned a
gun. In the South and the Midwest, the figure was 47
percent; in the West, it was 38 percent.

Republicans are more likely to have a gun in the house: The
Gallup survey found that 57 percent of Republicans said they
or someone in their household owned a gun, compared with 33
percent of Democrats and 37 percent of independents.

Only 13 percent of women said they owned guns, while 47
percent of men did.

In a state such as Montana, the gun issue helps color the
state red in presidential elections even as voters elect
Democrats to state and local offices. In 2004, Montanans
voted for President Bush by a ratio of 59 percent to 39
percent, while putting Democrats in control of the
governor’s mansion and both houses of the state legislature.
(In the last 50 years, the only Democratic presidential
candidates to carry the state were Bill Clinton in 1992 and
Lyndon Johnson in 1964.)

The state’s senior U.S. senator, Max Baucus, is a Democrat,
and the Republican junior senator, Conrad Burns, is
considered vulnerable in his re-election bid this year,
partly because of ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
This month, state Senate President Jon Tester won the
Democratic nomination to oppose Burns in November.

Montana voters regularly exhibit an independent streak laced
with a suspicion of government intrusion. In 2004, they
voted to approve a “right to hunt” constitutional amendment
(with 81 percent support) at the same time that they
approved the use of marijuana for medical purposes (62
percent) and a ban on cyanide in mining (58 percent).

A Democratic presidential candidate with hopes of carrying
Montana would have to tap into that independence and speak
frankly to the gun issue, Schweitzer said.

“I’d tell him to tell people he respects their Second
Amendment rights and maybe talk a little about his own
experiences with guns,” Schweitzer said. “And it might not
be a bad idea to go out to a gravel pit and set up some beer
cans and shoot at `em.”

Craig Wilson, a political science professor at Montana State
University-Billings who conducts regular polling on
political issues, said that although state residents were
relatively pro-gun, the image of Montanans as “redneck
rebels with a gun in the back of every pickup is not a true
picture.”

He said the NRA had “the ability to mobilize their owners.
… Gun owners win on intensity.

“That’s why politicians in Montana are extremely skittish
about crossing swords with the NRA, and that’s why it’s a
coveted endorsement,” he said.

Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports
Association, a political action group for gun owners, agreed
that gun owners here were “life-and-death serious” about
preventing gun restrictions, and “when you’re running a
campaign, the intensity of your followers is more important
than the number of your followers.”

Marbut has run unsuccessfully for the Legislature both as a
Republican and a Democrat.

“I don’t care what party a person is as long as they’re
agreeable to our principles,” Marbut said. “But we do tend
to find more friends among Republicans and the Constitution
Party and Libertarians than we do among Democrats and the
Green Party.”

Montana got an F from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun
Violence, the political action group established by Sarah
Brady after her husband, Jim, was wounded in the 1981
assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. The Brady
Center cited Montana’s failure to regulate gun ownership by
juveniles, conduct background checks, require child-safety
locks, or set waiting periods for gun purchases, among other
things.

In the vastness of Montana, 935,000 people are scattered
over 147,000 square miles, which means there are only about
six people per square mile. Only Alaska and Wyoming are
more sparsely settled. (By comparison, New Jersey has 1,134
people per square mile, and Philadelphia has 11,233.)

That can mean fewer gun conflicts than in crowded coastal
cities, Schweitzer said.

“People in large urban places have concerns we don’t have,”
the governor said. “In places like Philadelphia, New York,
Boston, you have gun issues that are completely alien to
us.”

State legislator Kevin T. Furey, 23, a Democrat who served
with the Army in Iraq, owns a .270 bolt-action hunting rifle
and says hunting and guns are ingrained in the state’s DNA.
So, he said, is opposition to government control.

“A large percentage of people are pro-gun, but a large
percentage are also pro-choice,” Furey said. “There’s an
almost libertarian sensibility … that government should
stay out of your life.

“When someone sees `Democrat,’ they think `control.’ But
when you explain to people that you don’t agree with the
national Democratic Party on every issue, they’re willing to
listen.”

Furey continued: “Democrats are in power now, and we’re not
raising taxes, we’re not taking away guns. I think that’s a
wake-up call for people. All those scary things they were
told were going to happen, didn’t.”