There is a rhetorical shoot-out going on across the country that leads all the way to the White House, where President Clinton is squaring off against the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA). The high number of children killing children, the increasing number of workplace shootings, public outcry, and the fact that handguns are responsible for most of the firearm violence in the U.S. prompted Clinton to take on the NRA in an effort to increase firearm safety, particularly handgun safety. There is good reason for singling out handguns instead of attacking all types of firearms “Handguns are easily concealed, engineered for maximum lethality, relatively inexpensive, and easy to acquire. On average, handguns are used in nearly 70 percent of firearm suicides and 80 percent of firearm homicides. The U.S. has not so much a firearms problem as a handgun problem” (Unsafe 1).
The Clinton Administration has worked valiantly in response to public pressure to battle the NRA and other pro-gun lobbyists in order to develop firearm safety measures. Much of the American public and the Administration have had enough. Short of an outright ban on handguns, the Clinton Administration unveiled the largest ever national gun enforcement initiative on January 18, 2000. This initiative includes sweeping measures designed to crack down on gun criminals, and measures that are designed to raise awareness, develop new technologies for firearm safety, and discourage gun violence through media campaigns. The initiative:
Provides a record $280 million to: 1) add 500 new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agents and inspectors to target violent gun criminals and illegal gun traffickers; 2) fund over 1,000 new federal, state, and local gun prosecutors to take dangerous offenders off the streets; 3) create the first nationally-integrated ballistics testing system and expand crime gun tracing to help catch more
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