The well-oiled lobbying machine of the National Rifle Association kicked into gear again last week, when it became apparent that one of its known adversaries was about to be installed in a position of authority.
In the face of NRA opposition, the City Commission of Tarpon Springs, Fla., named Keith Bergstrom its new police chief. Bergstrom managed to get his name on the NRA hit list for an incident in 1986 when, as police chief of west suburban Oak Park, he pressed charges against a service-station owner for firing a handgun at two robbers.
As 400 Mailgrams were dropped into the mailboxes of association members in the Florida town, 30 miles north of St. Petersburg, urging them to oppose the appointment, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the NRA was using new tactics and turning the heat up on a new foe.
Before Bergstrom, the target had been Minneapolis Police Chief Anthony Bouza. Before Bouza it was former Fraternal Order of Police President Richard Boyd. And before that it had been Baltimore County (Md.) Police Chief Cornelius Behan.
For years, the NRA`s adversaries have been obvious ones: the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, or the more conservative Handgun Control Inc. But the recent campaigns show that the gun group, though a self-proclaimed friend of law enforcement, is finding itself more at odds with law enforcement than in agreement.
Traditionally, both groups have been characterized as conservative, staunch supporters of stricter criminal laws-certainly as endorsers of the value of firearms for self-protection.
But two years ago, it became clear the groups were becoming implacable foes. That was when a coalition of law enforcement groups, ranging from the Fraternal Order of Police to the National Sheriff`s Association to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, united to battle new legislation weakening federal gun-control laws.
Faced with such resistance, the gun lobby has begun trying to blast holes in the newly united front.
”In all their zeal to protect their 2d Amendment rights to bear arms, they are trying to prevent people from exercising their 1st Amendment rights,” said Boyd, who for four years was president of the organization representing rank-and-file police officers.
In Suffolk County, N.Y., this year, more than 1,200 calls jammed the switchboard in opposition to Bouza-so many that a county official said callers had to be greeted with a tape, because the calls were interfering with normal business.
The calls and the more than 1,000 letters that poured in all demanded that Bouza not be named the county`s new police chief, and Bouza ultimately lost out. Officials concede the lobbying against the Minneapolis chief played a role in the selection process, though they say it was not the deciding factor.
The 1986 bill that ignited the battle was a sweeping one, for the first time easing the restrictions approved two decades earlier in a comprehensive gun-control act passed after the Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinations.
Among the new bill`s provisions was the easing of record-keeping requirements to allow dealers to sell firearms held in private collections without recording the transfer, an element that police organizations said would eliminate their ability to trace the flow of weapons. The law also lifted the ban on the interstate sale of long-barrel guns and included a provision that allowed the interstate transportation of firearms.
In the end, police groups did manage to force some changes in the original legislation, which would have allowed the mail-order sale of handguns. And since then, the conflict between law enforcement and the NRA has intensified.
First, the groups disagreed over proposals to ban the sale of armor-piercing projectiles, the so-called ”cop-killer” bullets. More recently, the fight has flared over regulations on the importation and manufacture of plastic guns that would be undetectable by airport security devices.
”The big story is that law enforcement has finally gotten the message and has moved away from the NRA,” Bouza said. ”Cops just got shocked by the unbelievable irresponsibility of the NRA.”
Last month, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, an organization of 14,600 police chiefs and superintendents, indicated just how significant it found the story. The association`s entire monthly journal for March is devoted to the issue of gun control and the battle with the gun lobby.
The magazine includes a four-page position paper on gun control that contends the chiefs` association doesn`t support a ban on all guns, though it does favor waiting periods and background checks for all gun purchasers.
Also fueling the fight has been a series of full-page advertisements appearing in newspapers during the past several months for Handgun Control Inc., featuring comments by police officers from around the country. The most recent appeared last Monday, depicting Atlanta Public Safety Commissioner George Napper and the caption ”Cop-killer bullets, mail-order handguns, machine guns. . . . Has the NRA gone off the deep end?”
The appearance by Bouza, the Minneapolis police chief, in one of those ads last year spawned the campaign to block his appointment in Suffolk County. Despite that opposition, Bouza said he is now soliciting other police officials to appear in the ads, and an ad that is to be published Monday includes Houston Police Chief Lee Brown.
”We don`t have an argument with law enforcement generally, but we do have one with officers that lend their name to material that is not accurate,” said James Baker, chief federal lobbyist for the NRA.
”I certainly don`t think law-enforcement officials would want to lend their names to something that is not factually accurate and if they would, are those the kinds of people we want as law enforcement officers?”
Baker said the association never has lobbied for any legislation that would allow the sale of handguns through the mail, a contention disputed by Handgun Control Inc. As for the legislation on armor-piercing bullets, he contended the NRA opposed the bill because it would have also banned ammunition used in some deer-hunting rifles.
”I think there is some unified sentiment among some police fraternal organizations, but I don`t think that indicates the sentiment among all their people is unified,” Baker said.
Gun lobbyists contend the debate over a controversial gun-control law in Florida showed there were some holes in law enforcement`s unified front. The law, which took effect last October, established a class of state license that permitted the carrying of concealed firearms.
Representatives from some of the state`s largest police organizations, such as in Dade County (Miami) and Tallahassee, opposed the bill. Yet on Feb. 18, 1986, Marion Hammer, executive director of the United Sportsmen of Florida, one of the chief proponents of the bill, stood alongside members of the Florida Police Chiefs Association and the state`s sheriff`s association at a press conference to announce support for the legislation.
”Thre were some differences there, although the story that the NRA tells and the story that law enforcement tells are a little different,” said Jerald Vaughn, executive director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. ”Law enforcement there was in the position that they knew the bill was going to go through, and about all they could do was work for some amendments.”
