NEWS FROM HARRY BROWNE FOR PRESIDENT |*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|

FOR RELEASE: Saturday May 20, 2000
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For additional information contact:
Jim Babka, Press Secretary
[email protected]
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The Non-Sense of the Senate

‘Senate gun-control resolutions are wrong,’ says Harry Browne
Blame the Drug War — not guns — for child killings

Arlington, Virginia — On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate, pressured by the
Million Mom March and the overwhelming desire to act as though the
Senators
knew what to do, passed a pair of non-binding “Sense of the Senate”
resolutions. “The Democrats stated their strong support for further
restricting Americans’ Second Amendment rights and the Republicans
countered
with their continued support for 20,000 bad gun laws,” declared Harry
Browne, Libertarian candidate for President.

Even though the resolutions were non-binding, the debate was
characterized
as procedural hardball. And it yielded a surprising admission by Senator
Larry Craig of Idaho (quoting from a Reuters report) that young people
who
die of gun-related causes each year are not little children but older
teens,
many of whom “are caught in the cross-fire of a drug war in the streets
of
America.” The solution to that, he said, lies in the War on Drugs, not
in a
War on Guns.

“I have never met anyone who believes we’re winning the insane War on
Drugs.
But politicians love to pretend that we are,” said Harry Browne, the
Libertarians’ 1996 nominee for President. “Perhaps Senator Craig is
finally realizing what millions of Americans already know — that the
Drug War is a cruel and brutal failure.”

Browne noted that “the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Republican
politicians have recently urged that today’s 20,000 gun-control laws be
enforced — no matter how bad those laws. Libertarians know that those
laws
are, at best, useless — and, at worst, highly dangerous.”

Senator Craig is on the Board of Directors of the NRA, and is one of 69
Republicans who voted for the resolution calling for stricter
enforcement
of gun-control laws.

“Instead,” urged Browne, “we need to recognize that those 20,000 laws
are a
principal cause of the current violence in society. They have made
people
much less safe — by disarming innocent citizens and thereby encouraging
armed criminals to take advantage of us.”

Browne pointed out that many of those armed criminals are drug dealers.
“Only Libertarians want to end the nightmare of Prohibition — with its
criminal gangs and drive-by shootings.”

“Besides,” argued Browne, “the Drug War has led to the trampling of the
Bill
of Rights. And that’s the central issue with both guns and drugs: the
U.S.
Senate has no business violating your constitutional rights, no matter
how
noble the cause.”

Browne concluded, “On my first day in office, I will pardon all federal,
non-violent drug and gun offenders. And during my term, I will lead the
fight to end the insane War on Drugs, and to remove federal gun-control
laws from the books.”

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