Maneuvering through the sensitive political aftermath of the Granada Hills day camp shootings, Republican presidential candidate John McCain called Monday for congressional hearings on the polarizing subject of gun control but distanced himself from any specific solutions to firearm violence.
Answering questions after a speech to the Anti-Defamation League in Los Angeles, and also before reporters and editors at the Los Angeles Times, the Arizona senator alternately welcomed a new look at gun control and grew indignant about the prospect of it.
"Look, my dear friends, don't think that just gun control is the answer," McCain told the reporters and editors, whom he met as he kicked off a two-week campaign effort in California. "If you do, you are not talking to the same people I'm talking to. The use of the gun is the manifestation of some very serious illnesses and problems in American society, and we've got to address it in its broad contexts."
He criticized the questioners for asking more about gun measures than media violence and Internet Web sites that promote hatred. And he belittled a question about whether Americans should be required to register their weapons as they register their cars.
"A gun and a car are not the same," he said. "How about treating a gun like an elephant? They are not the same."
Speaking to reporters after the ADL speech, McCain flatly said "no" when asked if he would sign on to a bill banning specific assault weapons, like the one pressed into law in 1994 by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
Later in the day at The Times, however, he said he was open to voting for an assault weapon ban, depending on the details.
"I will be willing to consider any reasonable proposal," he said.
He said his objections to the Feinstein bill centered on the lack of "proper scrutiny, proper hearings and proper legislative process" given the assault weapon bill, which passed only after years of debate on Capitol Hill.
His proposed hearings, McCain said, would consider all manner of proposals, including a raft of suggestions for limiting guns that were recently suggested by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno.
Even in its infancy, McCain's long-planned California campaign swing was thrown off track by the shootings at the North Valley Jewish Community Center--and the slaying of a postman--all allegedly at the hand of white supremacist Buford O. Furrow.
