Wednesday, October 11, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 7
7
Nation
For comments, contact Lori O'Toole at 864-4810 or e-mail editor@kansan.com
Gun locks found defective Federal agents subpoena media consultant's records
Police discover safety devices can spring open
The Associated Press
STAMFORD, Conn. — A nationwide program to distribute free gun locks to protect children has been suspended after police discovered the devices can spring open.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade group based in Newtown, Conn., distributed 400,000 cable locks through more than 300 law enforcement agencies before police in Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tenn., reported the problems last week. Agencies in 360 other communities have signed up for the free program, but the locks were not yet distributed.
The foundation said yesterday that no more locks would be given out until extensive testing is done.
"We've informed all of the municipalities that have already distributed locks of the potential problem and have asked them to send in a sampling of locks they may still have so that we can do a test," said Robert Delfay, the group's president and chief executive.
Delfay said a decision on whether any of the locks would be recalled would be made after the tests.
Project HomeSafe began about a year ago, with the foundation promoting it as a way for gun owners to feel sure that their weapons are safe from children.
But a Knoxville officer discovered one of the locks would spring open when bounced in his hand. Police found the trait was common after testing the 3,000 locks they had planned to distribute.
The cable locks, which differ from trigger locks, are pulled through gun handles or barrels to prevent the weapon from being fired or loaded. Some of the nation's largest and most violent cities — Houston, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia among them — participated in the project.
Bill Brassard, the project's coordinator, said the locks were made overseas but he didn't know by whom. Officials are checking to see whether the flaw is common to
ON THE NET http://www.projecthomesafe.org
all of the locks, or whether the ones in Tennessee were just a bad batch.
Foundation officials said the failures reported by Tennessee police were the first they had received.
Police in the Tennessee cities said they were concerned gun owners might have a false sense of security about the locks. Delfay said the foundation shared the worry and recommended that all weapons be stored in safety boxes. He said the locks never were meant to be foolproof.
"These locks are not intended to defeat all attempts to open them or destroy them by force." Delfay said. "They're supposed to discourage unauthorized use."
But he added: "Even if it opens easier than someone might hope, it is still more effective than no lock at all."
The foundation represents about 1,800 gun and accessory manufacturers. When the program began, some gun control proponents called it a public relations ploy to defuse criticism and lawsuits filed against the gun industry over the rash of gun violence across the country.
Leaders may have ordered shakeup
NEW YORK — An organizational shakeup among the Jehovah's Witnesses may have been ordered by the faith's leaders to shield themselves from lawsuits concerning the group's religious practices.
The Associated Press
A representative for the group denied the allegation.
The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, as the group is officially known, had been run by the Governing Body. But on Saturday, president Milton Henschel, 80, and the six other board members resigned, and it was announced that religious and administrative duties would be divided with three newly formed corporations running U.S.
ON THE NET
www.watchtower.org
www.freeminds.org
Under the changes, the religious leaders will not be officially involved with the Watch Tower society.
operations.
Though the Witnesses say no important cases are pending, defectors from the religion have talked about suing the society, headquartered in Brooklyn, because of various grievances.
Those could include lawsuits concerning church members who died or suffered because the denomination opposes blood transfusions. Also, the organization could
face lawsuits because of its practice of expelling members.
Raymond Franz of Winston, Ga., the only Governing Body member ever to quit and write about the religion's inner workings, also noted that France had a a new law that targeted religious organizations accused of mind control, while German law required severance pay for church workers who leave.
"They are trying to find means to protect themselves legally," Franz said.
An official statement said decentralization would also allow the Witnesses to keep pace with growth. The Witnesses reported 5.9 million active members as of last year, 980,000 of them in the United States.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Corporate and campaign records related to George W. Bush's media consultant and his staff have been subpoenaed by federal agents investigating the anonymous mailing of Bush debate materials to an aide to his Democratic presidential rival.
FBI agents have focused primarily on these staffers and are trying to determine whether their explanations hold up, a senior federal law enforcement official said Monday, requesting anonymity.
The case began with former Rep. Tom Downey, who was helping Democrat Al Gore prepare for debates with GOP opponent Bush, received a package Sept. 13 containing documents and a videotape that appeared to show Bush's debate preparations. Downey gave the material to the FBI, which has since begun a criminal investigation
Bush: investigators subpoenaed records of his debate material
The material was mailed Sept. 11 from
Austin, Texas, where Bush's campaign is headquartered. The FBI obtained a videotape from a surveillance camera at the post office where the package was mailed.
The tape showed Yvette Lozano, a lowlevel employee of Bush's media firm, Maverick Media, mailing a package at a time that corresponded to when the debate package was mailed, law enforcement officials have said.
Lozano has said she was mailing a pair of khaki pants to The Gap for her boss, Mark McKinnon, who supported her story by producing a pair of replacement khakis. Lozano said the FBI took her fingerprints and her computer.
At The Gap, spokesman Jack Dougherty said the company was subpoenaed Sept. 26 to turn over all records of McKinnon's transaction. Dougherty said the company complied with the subpoena on Sept. 29 but
would not say what records were turned over.
"We have a strict privacy policy so we don't disclose details about any customer to the public." Dougherty said.
However, The Wall Street Journal reported that The Gap did not receive the khakis until a week after the Sept. 11 date on which Lozano said they were mailed.
FBI agents expanded their inquiry more than a week ago to see if someone directed or assisted Lozano, law enforcement officials said.
McKinnon said FBI agents asked him whether the mailing was part of a Bush campaign trick to sabotage or delay the presidential debates.
A Bush official told The Associated Press, on condition of anonymity, that the campaign had received subpoenas from a federal grand jury. All the material covered by the subpoenas was information already given or offered by the campaign, the official said.
ABC News quoted an unnamed Bush representative as saying the campaign was subpoenaed for its contracts with Maverick Media and any confidentiality agreements between them. Newsweek magazine reported that the government also subpoenaed Maverick Media's records.
In all these instances, investigators were seeking "routine records," a federal law enforcement official said Monday.
Investigators, meanwhile, still are searching for a motive in the case and as a result have been unable to settle on any of five possible statutes that might have been violated, a senior law enforcement official said.
The statutes are: interstate transportation of stolen property, theft from a federally funded activity, mail fraud, lying to an FBI agent and a Watergate-era law prohibiting someone working for one campaign from posing as a member of another campaign.
The FBI also has interviewed some Democrats, including Downey and Michael Doyne, a Gore staffer in Tennessee who was suspended by the campaign for claiming to know of a "mole" in Bush's camp.
THE ANDERSON CHANDLER LECTURE SERIES PRESENTS
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