GORE, BUSH SPLIT OVER GUNS; OTHER JUSTICE STANDS SIMILAR

Even in the context of the never-ending tug of war over gun control, the
past four years have seemed particularly tumultuous.

Children died at Columbine High in Colorado and in other school shootings.
Cities including Oakland, Berkeley, East Palo Alto and San Francisco, as
well as Alameda and San Mateo counties, sued gun makers for their products'
misuse. NRA president Charlton Heston made his impassioned vow never to
relinquish his firearms. In California, city and state lawmakers passed new
laws to create some of the nation's tightest restrictions on gun ownership.

It's no wonder, then, that almost two-thirds of voters consider gun control
among the major issues that will help them choose a president this
November, according to a Gallup Poll taken in May.

In fact, gun control and hate crime laws are among only a few clear
differences in criminal justice policy between Republican nominee George W.
Bush and Democratic nominee Al Gore. Unlike drug policy and victim rights,
they're issues in which the candidates have different goals, rather than
just disagreeing on how to reach similar ends.

There is some common ground on guns. Both candidates support the current
ban on assault weapons, and would bar juveniles from possessing assault
weapons, ban imports of high-capacity ammunition clips, raise the minimum
age for handgun possession from 18 to 21, require that trigger locks be
sold with handguns, and close the legal loophole allowing purchases at gun
shows without background checks.

But that's where the similarities end.

"George W. all the way!" exclaimed Anthony Cucchiara, owner of Traders
Sports in San Leandro, Northern California's biggest gun retailer.

Cucchiara believes the government has gone too far in curbing Americans'
Second Amendment right to bear arms, "hurting law-abiding citizens ... with
all the hoops you have to jump through to get a legal firearm." He has sued
the city of San Leandro over a gun sales tax that would cost him about
$75,000 per year; he lost in Alameda County Superior Court, and the case is
pending before the state Court of Appeal.

Bush staunchly opposes requiring gun owners to get state-issued photo
licenses, citing law-abiding Americans' constitutional rights. Instead of
passing new laws, he wants to provide more money for stronger enforcement
of those already on the books, particularly through aggressive prosecution
programs such as Project Exile in Oakland and other cities. He also
supports automatic detention for young people who commit crimes with guns.

"Bush would be our choice in this election," Cucchiara emphasized. "He's
for enforcing the existing laws, and we do have more laws than we really
need presently."

Not so, countered Griffin Dix of Berkeley, local spokesman for the Million
Mom March Foundation, which seeks to prevent gun death and injury and to
support gun trauma victims and their families. Dix's teenaged son died in
an accidental shooting.

"George W. Bush is very extreme in his record in being against public
safety," he said, citing Bush's support of Texans' right to carry concealed
firearms, and banning Texas cities from suing gun makers for negligent
design, distribution and use of their products. GOP running mate Dick
Cheney, while in Congress, opposed bans on ``cop-killer" bullets and
plastic guns that can evade metal detectors, Dix added.

Gore wants safety training and state-issued photo licenses for all gun
owners - something California lawmakers are now contemplating. He also
wants to limit gun purchases to one per month and to ban cheaply made "junk
guns," sometimes called "Saturday night specials" - both things California
already has done. Finally, Gore would force gun makers and federally
licensed sellers to report their sales to state authorities, and would
maintain firm restrictions on concealed handguns.

Dix says Gore's plan would save lives, and limiting gun purchases would
reduce trafficking: "Texas is now the fourth-leading state in terms of
crime guns that've been traced back to a state ... in other words, in
supplying criminals with guns."

Drug Policies

Some analysts say America's "war on drugs" is a failure - a system too
quick to imprison and too slow to treat addicts, and a zealous yet futile
plan to stop the flow of drugs into the country. The next president must
grapple with the question of where we go from here. Yet both Bush and Gore
offer a mixed bag of treatment and punishment options that differ little
from what the nation has been doing for years. Both, for example, favor
bolstering anti-drug messages aimed at children via in-school and
after-school drug prevention programs and media campaigns.

Gore proposes a matching grant program for states and cities to test,
treat, and punish probationers, prisoners, and parolees. He would expand
drug courts that divert some addicts away from jail and into treatment
under judicial supervision. He would toughen penalties for those who sell
drugs to kids, use kids to sell drugs, or sell drugs on or near school
property, and he would step up federal funding for police efforts.

Bush wants to improve surveillance and interdiction to stop drugs at the
borders, in part by beefing up the sometimes-understaffed Border Patrol to
its full force. He wants to help drug-exporting countries promote other
crops, and he supports the Clinton administration's $1.3 billion in aid to
Colombia, saying that nation's government needs help protecting its people
and fighting the drug trade.

The next president will have to decide what to do about medicinal
marijuana. The Justice Department is battling in court to shut down the
Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, claiming the federal ban on marijuana
trumps the California law that lets seriously ill people use the drug as
medicine; activists everywhere are watching for this case's outcome.

Jeff Jones, the Oakland cooperative's executive director, wouldn't say
whether he believes Bush or Gore would go so far as to move marijuana to a
less strictly regulated classification under federal law, but he said
Democrats generally are more sympathetic to the medical marijuana cause.

"Out of the two parties, if you had to pick one, it's Gore," Jones said,
adding "I still believe he's more of an openable candidate ... than little
'CIA junior.' " - a reference to Bush's father's former job as central
intelligence director.

But Jones said pressure on Gore from the pharmaceutical industry - which
fears losing profits from conventional drugs if patients can legally obtain
and use marijuana - has made the Democrat backpedal from earlier,
circumspect statements of support. In fact, Gore said Tuesday he opposes
medical use of marijuana because "thus far, there is absolutely no
evidence" it is medically effective."

In the end, Jones said, he doesn't really trust either candidate.

Groups from the American Medical Association to the California Narcotics
Officers' Association want marijuana kept on the government's
most-restricted list at least until clinical research proves it's an
appropriate medicine.

"When Prop. 215 was on the ballot ... the CNOA was strongly opposed to it
because it violated federal law and there were no scientific studies
showing it was safe and effective," said Robert Ellsburg, the CNOA's
representative to a state task force on medical marijuana.

Since the proposition's passage, "we still have a problem endorsing
something that violates federal law," he said. "We are not opposed to
making marijuana a medicine if it's approved by the Food and Drug
Administration and it's not a federal violation."

Other groups simply see medicinal marijuana as a dangerous prelude to drug
legalization. Carla Lowe, a Northern California anti-drug activist and the
state's delegate for the Nebraska-based Drug Watch International, said the
medical marijuana advocates she debates today "are the same people I've
debated for over 20 years ... their agenda has never changed.

"Smoked pot has not been found safe or effective, period, and it carries
the risk of any inhaled smoke," she said, adding medical marijuana,
advocacy of hemp products, needle exchange programs and movements to offer
treatment without punishment for drug addicts comprise a "four-point plan
of those who would see drugs legalized."

Hate Crimes

Bush and Gore talk tough on hate crime, but differ on whether it's a
legislative issue. Gore wants the federal definition of hate crimes
expanded to include those committed on the basis of gender, sexual
orientation and disability, something California already has done. Bush
opposed including sexual orientation in Texas' hate crime law, yet speaks -
albeit more abstractly - about abolishing separatist hatred by urging
parents to teach their children respect and national unity.

Fred Persily, executive director of the California Association of Human
Relations Organizations - a statewide coalition of people and groups
promoting civil rights protection - doubts Bush's dedication. Under
Clinton, there has been "an immense amount of support from the Justice
Department, which has essentially pushed the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys to
build community networks to address hate crimes throughout the country," he
said.

"I don't think there would be an effort to pull back on this" with Gore in
the White House, Persily said, "whereas if Bush got in ... I think there
would be a strong effort to pull back on some of the things that have been
done."

Texas' weak and rarely used hate crime law leads Persily to believe we
wouldn't ``have much progress in terms of pushing for hate crime
legislation along the model of California's - which is one of the stronger
ones in the country - if Bush is there."

Some say we don't need such legislation.

"It violates the freedom of conscience and freedom of speech in that it's
trying to regulate hate, which as we all know is an emotion," said Robert
Regier, a policy analyst with the socially conservative Family Research
Council in Washington, D.C. "Government has never been given authority to
regulate thoughts and beliefs, it has only been given authority to regulate
actions and behaviors."

Regier said he opposes hatred, ``but I just have a different way of
combating it. That's the role of the church, the role of the family and
community. It's not the role of the government."

And in that regard, he said, this election poses a choice.

"The Clinton/Gore administration certainly has fought for years against the
concept of equal protection by fighting for this hate crimes bill," Regier
said. "George W. Bush, as governor, did what he could to uphold that
concept of equal protection." Crime victims' rights

The major-party presidential candidates' positions on crime victims' rights
are so close that the state's biggest victims' rights group doesn't know
which way to go.

Harriet Salarno, chairwoman and president of Crime Victims United of
California, said her nonprofit education and lobbying group recently spent
about three days discussing a presidential endorsement, and finally decided
to delay its decision.

"We're holding back for awhile because both candidates expressed their
concerns for victims' rights issues," she said. "You heard Gore announcing
when he gave his speech at the convention that he would support the
Constitutional amendment on victims' rights. On the other side of the coin,
we have Bush, who has always been very supportive for victims' rights issues."

Republicans blast Gore for not supporting Senate legislation earlier this
year that would have enshrined victims' rights in a constitutional
amendment. But both candidates now say they support an amendment granting
crime victims the rights to be heard on sentencing, to be notified if a
prisoner is released or escapes, have their safety considered in
determining probation or parole and receive restitution from a convict.

Salarno said her group is seeking more information about the kind of U.S.
Supreme Court justices and federal judges the candidates would appoint:
``What we're hoping to see is the type of judges who will support and
believe in equal justice."

"We need to see the proof in the pudding - we don't want lip service, we
want action," she said.