Virginia Gun Giveaway to Go Ahead Despite Massacre

They are calling it the "Bloomberg Gun GiveAway". On Thursday two gun shops in the state of Virginia will stage a prize draw. Anyone spending more than $100 in either Bob Moates' stores or Old Dominion Guns and Tackle will be entered, and the first prize a free handgun or rifle worth $900.

The draw has been devised as an act of defiance against the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who is suing two Virginia gun shops, including Bob Moates, as well as 25 stores in other states, for allegedly selling guns too freely and thus fuelling violent crime. In a sting operation last year, Mr Bloomberg sent a team of undercover investigators into Bob Moates and other stores to expose how regulations on sales were being openly flouted.

Despite yesterday's tragic events at Virginia Tech, a clerk at Bob Moates said the draw would still go ahead. It will underline the unbending adherence of many Virginians to the right to bear arms - the state has been ranked as the second easiest in the country in which to buy guns - in the face of renewed calls for tighter gun control.

It was revealed today that the Virginia Tech killer, Cho Seung-Hui, had been carrying a 9mm Glock pistol and a 22mm Walther semi-automatic. One of those handguns was used in both crime scenes on the campus.

Receipts in his backpack suggested he had bought the guns legally earlier this month, but the terrible death toll at the university has inevitably revived the debate on the nation's relatively relaxed approach to gun ownership.

Two leading Democratic proponents of gun control, senator Diane Feinstein, and congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, have vowed to make a renewed effort to tighten regulation, particularly on assault weapons.

Mrs McCarthy entered politics with the express commitment to campaign for gun control after her husband was killed and son seriously injured in a mass shooting that became known as the Long Island Railroad massacre in 1993.

In the wake of Virginia Tech she intends to press Congress to revive an earlier assault weapons ban, with specific reference to high-capacity ammunition clips that hold more than 10 bullets. Recordings of yesterday's shootings give the impression that Cho was able to fire several times before reloading.

There has been no legislation passed in this area in the US since 1996. In fact, the law is looser now than it was 10 years ago, when the Clinton administration banned specific models of semi-automatic assault rifles. In 2004 the Republicans allowed the ban to expire.

Despite the worst mass shooting in US history, gun control campaigners face formidable and probably insurmountable opposition. The pro-gun lobby has consistently quashed pressure for change following previous massacres.

Pro-gun groups led by the National Rifle Association (NRA) have powerful arguments in their armoury. They draw on, and entrench, the notion of the country's so-called "gun culture", rooted in its frontier and rural history and what is billed as the early settlers' self-defence against Native Americans (though their tactic would often be more accurately described as offence).

They also lean on the Second Amendment, which supports the need for a "well-regulated militia" and protects the "right of the people to keep and bear arms".
Advocates of gun control argue that the framers of the amendment had no intention, when they passed it, that it would apply to "every wacko with a beef" as one columnist put it today. But that subtlety has often been lost in the debate, with the NRA continuing to hold the upper hand.

The NRA was founded in 1871 as a body devoted to improving marksmanship. It came to prominence in the 1930s and became increasingly politically active from the 1960s when the first calls for gun control were heard.

Critics maintain that the NRA retains a stranglehold over the debate because it bankrolls politicians, particularly in marginal mid-western seats. It has donated $14m (£7m) in as many years, overwhelmingly to Republican candidates, spending a similar amount in addition on lobbying Congress.