Gore Urges Gun Ban at School Events, Churches; Bush Chided

Accentuating his differences with his GOP rival on the hot-button issue of gun control, Vice President Al Gore on Friday called for a ban on firearms in places of worship and at school events that take place outside school facilities.

“We should ban guns in churches and at school events, something that is shamefully legal in George Bush’s Texas and 20 other states,” Gore said at an event in the gym at Washington United Youth Center in San Jose. “Pistols have no place in our pews.”

The initiative, modeled on the Gun-Free School Zones Act, would prohibit carrying firearms into churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship and to places where school events, such as sport contests, are held.

Gore also lent his support to legislation promoted by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) to extend to 2005 a trust fund to reserve money for crime-fighting efforts such as putting more police officers on the beat and hiring prosecutors to put serious offenders behind bars. It would also help put 50,000 more police in neighborhoods across the country.

California Gov. Gray Davis, who appeared with Gore, praised his own record on gun control.

“The contrast between California and Texas is very clear. We’ve taken unsafe guns off the streets, while the governor of Texas has signed legislation to make it easier to take a concealed weapon into church,” Davis said. “The vice president is siding with California in this debate.”

In Texas, Bush signed a bill giving people the right to carry concealed handguns for the first time in 125 years.

The National Rifle Assn. has emerged this election cycle as a top donor to the Republican National Committee for the first time ever.

The Bush camp, in a response, branded Gore’s remarks as pure politics, adding that Tennessee had passed a law in 1994 allowing citizens to carry guns.

“Why didn’t he speak out when a concealed-carry law was passed in his home state of Tennessee, where residents can also carry guns in churches?” Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said in the statement. “Once again Al Gore will say anything to be elected.”