LONDON -- The failure of Congress to renew a 10-year ban on the sale of assault rifles and other dangerous weapons may seem to politicians a simple price to pay to win the support of the National Rifle Association in the forthcoming presidential election.
This powerful lobby is backing the re-election of President George W. Bush and considers bans on the sale of such weapons to be an infringement of the constitutional right of American citizens to bear arms. This is not an interpretation accepted by all U.S. experts and constitutional lawyers. Nor is it accepted by the majority of public opinion in the United States and abroad. In fact, the NRA would in many other democratic countries be regarded as a threat to law and order, and in some democratic countries it would be placed under surveillance.
When the U.S. Constitution was written in the 18th century, America may have felt threatened by its erstwhile colonial master (although after the British surrender at Yorktown an attempt to regain control of North America was never a serious possibility).
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