By Alyssa Litman
Daily Pennsylvanian
U. Pennsylvania

(U-WIRE) PHILADELPHIA — Fiery arguments, passionate debaters and an active audience were all on display at Monday night’s gun-control debate in the University of Pennsylvania’s Logan Hall.

Before an audience of 100 students and local residents, National Rifle Association officials and gun-control activists joined several Penn undergraduates in an all-out war of the words over federal handgun possession laws.

The informal debate, which was sponsored by PennForum — a group of Penn students who regularly host organized debates on controversial issues — featured four debaters, a student moderator and included questions and comments from a particularly spirited audience.

Debaters included the NRA’s Director of Grassroots Division Glen Caroline, Executive Director of Ceasefire New Jersey Bryan Miller and two student debaters — College freshman Arshad Hasan and Wharton freshman Chad Edmonson. Engineering senior James Renfro moderated the debate.

The debate centered around the question of whether the United States should issue more stringent gun-control laws.

Caroline, articulating a frequent NRA stance, stressed that the government’s laws should focus far more on apprehending actual criminals than on making it more difficult for ordinary citizens to acquire a gun.

“The way to reduce violence is to remove identifiable criminals from the streets,” Caroline said. “Criminals should be held accountable, not law-abiding citizens.”

Miller, conversely, advocated the addition of new and better laws that would regulate gun use and suggested that merely dealing with criminals would not do enough in preventing violent crimes.

“We are interested in gaining laws that restrict juveniles from getting their hands on guns, not law-abiding citizens,” Miller said. “We are in favor of requiring that handguns be regulated and more safety standards instituted.”

The argument sparked a further debate about the Clinton administration’s handling of gun-control laws and, in particular, the implementation of instant background checks on people who wish to purchase guns and a waiting period of anywhere from three to five days.

Hasan, one of the three Penn students involved in the debate, sided with Miller and said that instant checks and a waiting period were necessary in addition to tougher safety standards.

“The fact that toys have more safety regulations than guns is not sufficient,” Hasan said.

The audience made frequent contributions throughout the debate, so much so that Renfro even had to periodically ask the audience to be courteous and silent.

Overall, members of PennForum said they thought the debate went extremely well.

“It was a learning experience and a very fired-up debate,” said College sophomore Jeanne Zelnick, one of the event’s organizers. “Audience participation in some ways hindered the debate, but I think it was an invaluable experience.”

Wharton sophomore and PennForum co-chair Ethan Laub said he thought the controversial nature of the debate topic made for a particularly interesting discussion.

“This is the sort of topic where you have to worry about the audience getting out of hand, but I thought they added a lot with such intelligent questions,” Laub said.

Among the several dozen undergraduates in attendance was College freshman Erica Young, who said she thought the debate “tended to get out of control at times because it was a fiery topic.” But she added, “It was very informative for me because I really did not know too much about the topic.”

(C) 2000 Daily Pennsylvanian via U-WIRE