Nevada GOPs strongly oppose new gun laws, gay marriages

Scott Sonner

Thursday, Aug. 3, 2000 | 9:42 a.m.

PHILADELPHIA - Nevada Republicans have varied views about everything from abortion to affirmative action. But make no mistake about it, they don't want anybody messing with their guns. And they don't like gay marriages.

"Nevadans are fiercely pro-Second Amendment and do not wish to have their rights in that regard infringed upon in any way, shape or form," state GOP Chairman Bob Seale said.

"The civil union thing comes from the same cloth. In many respects, our Nevada constituencies are more traditional," he said.

The same holds true in other parts of the rural West.

"We don't believe those are issues that you modify or adjust when it comes to our culture or rights as citizens," said Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, a staunch conservative and board member of the National Rifle Association.

Ruthie Johnson, 75, Hayden Lake, Idaho, making her sixth trip to a national convention, said gun rights have been an important issue for a long time.

"People tell me they will never take away your right to hunt with a rifle or a shotgun," she said.

"But I don't want to hunt. I want a pistol so if someone breaks into my house I can shoot them."

Mike Weber, a conservative from Reno, said many "still look at Nevada as sort of red neck.

"It's a traditional, family-type place," he said. "Gun protection tends to be centered more in urbanized areas and we are still a pretty rural state."

In Las Vegas, "a lot of those sentiments are changing, but there are still some old Mormon roots there and I think those still hold a lot of influence," he said.

A proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages in Nevada is on the November ballot.

Under the measure, only marriages between a male and a female would be recognized in Nevada. It duplicates existing state law, but the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage wants the law given more weight by placing it in the state constitution.

The group is heavily supported by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members were central to antigay marriage efforts in Hawaii and Alaska, and most recently, in California.

Idaho Democratic Party Chairwoman Carolyn Boyce said Republicans are almost unanimously opposed to gay rights in her state while Democrats are split.

Nevada Democratic Chairman Rory Reid said urban Nevadans are more accepting of "reasonable controls" such as "keeping guns out of the hands of convicts and crazy people.

"In the more rural parts of the state, the more independent and freedom-loving lot is not as quick to recognize the importance of reasonable controls like that," he said.

His father, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, insists gun rights won't be an issue in the fall election.

"The election is going to be decided on lunch-bucket issues, things like Medicare, Social Security, school construction, not side issues," the senator said.

"They are picking issues to try make the Democrats seem like something we are not. We are mainstream. They are not."

Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons said most Nevadans want "accountability and responsibility on the part of the gun owner.

"They don't want to point a finger of blame at inanimate objects when in fact we should be enforcing existing gun laws, not passing new ones," he said.

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs-McDonald, a first-time delegate, said she reluctantly supported a recent council resolution encouraging gun sellers to make trigger safety locks available on a voluntary basis. She prefers tougher jail sentences for criminals who use guns to break the law.

"These are the types of things that in many ways separate Democrats from Republicans," she said.

Voluntary trigger locks work for rational-thinking, law abiding citizens, she said. "But it doesn't do anything to address the criminal element that is not going to pay attention to a gun safety lock when they go commit crimes against honest, ordinary citizens."

Idaho Attorney General Al Lance said television and video games have glorified violence.

"When I was a kid it never occurred to me after a fist fight on school grounds to go get a gun and settle it," he said.

"Kids play these video games and shoot all these people and have all the gore all over the screen. When the quarter is up, they put in another quarter. Guns are not the problem."