Bush Sees Evil, Not Guns, as Key Concern

The church slaughter in Fort Worth pushed guns back to the fore of the 2000 presidential campaign Thursday and dropped the issue squarely on the porch of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who has consistently opposed stiffer efforts to control firearms.

The GOP presidential front-runner cut short a campaign swing through Michigan to fly home and visit with some of the hospitalized survivors. At a news conference, he again ruled out the need for stronger gun controls. In Texas, Bush has liberalized gun laws.

“There seems to be a wave of evil passing through America,” Bush said at an elementary school in Grand Rapids, Mich. “And we as a society can pass laws and hold people accountable for the decisions they make, but our hopes and prayers have got to be that there is more love in our society.

“I don’t know of a law . . . that will put love in people’s hearts.”

Even as investigators worked to unravel the circumstances behind Wednesday’s shootings, the political fallout was immediate: Gun control advocates attacked Bush, and Democrats signaled their intention to make guns--and Texas’ gun-friendly culture--a major issue in the presidential campaign. Polls repeatedly show a majority of Americans support tougher gun laws.

“It’s a killer for Bush here in California,” said Garry South, chief strategist for Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, who was elected last year on a strong anti-gun platform. “It points up the difficulties George W. Bush is going to have the minute he sets foot outside Texas.”

A GOP strategist with ties to Bush agreed. “The gun issue is a problem for Republicans generally, and Bush specifically,” he said. “The remnants of the cowboy mentality in Texas are not shared nationally.”

As governor, Bush signed a controversial 1995 law allowing Texans to carry concealed weapons if they have never been convicted of a felony and if they attend a gun safety course.

In other states, including California, local law enforcement authorities issue such permits.

In the first three years the Texas law was in effect, the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, a critic of concealed weapon laws, surveyed records and reported earlier this year that holders of concealed handgun permits were arrested 2,080 times.

“When the gun lobby pushed this law through, they promised it would not arm the bad guys,” Susan Glick, the study’s author, said earlier this year. “They now owe us over 2,000 explanations.”

More recently, Bush opposed a state crackdown on gun shows and signed a bill that prohibits Texas cities from suing the gun industry.

“Gov. Bush is vehemently and decidedly anti-gun control,” said Nina Butts, a lobbyist for Texans Against Gun Violence, who plans a tour of the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire to discuss the governor’s record. “We have worked with Gov. Bush through three sessions of the Legislature, and he has never lifted a finger to control kids’ and criminals’ access to guns in Texas.”

Bush has since endorsed two gun control measures proposed in Congress: outlawing the import of certain high-capacity ammunition clips and raising the legal age for handgun purchases to 21 from 18. Butts noted, however, “We don’t have any of those laws here in Texas.”

But Mindy Tucker, a spokeswoman for the Bush campaign, countered that Bush “has signed into law tough penalties for those who commit crimes using a gun. . . . Punishment in Texas is swift and sure. People understand when they commit a crime, there is a consequence.”

The day after Wednesday’s tragedy found other presidential candidates voicing sentiments similar to those following earlier shootings at Colorado’s Columbine High School, in Atlanta and at a Jewish community center in Granada Hills.

Like Bush, Republican hopefuls Gary Bauer and Sen. John McCain of Arizona eschewed calls for new gun controls. McCain accused the Clinton administration of failing to enforce existing laws, and Bauer blamed “societal elements that create such empty hearts that commit these crimes.”

A spokesman for Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said, “This doesn’t change his position at all” opposing new gun laws.

On the Democratic side, Vice President Al Gore and presidential rival Bill Bradley, a former senator, both reiterated their calls for stricter gun controls.

“I have argued that we ought to ban these kinds of assault weapons and require a license for the purchase of handguns of the sort that apparently was used in this tragedy,” Gore said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“There’s a lot more that we can do,” he added. “Child-safety trigger locks, restore the three-day waiting period [for gun sales].”

But the fallout from Fort Worth was most acute for Bush, not just because he leads the presidential pack in opinion polls but because the latest tragedy hit home. And it heightened the focus on an issue that could undermine Bush’s efforts to present a more centrist stance.

“The [anti-]abortion people backed off and gave Bush a bye on that issue,” said David Doak, a Democratic strategist. “The big question is whether guns, and the need to appease the right wing, is going to emerge as the big Republican albatross in 2000. Because right now, you can’t get too gun-controlly for most voters.”

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Times staff writer William C. Rempel contributed to this story.