Giuliani is prime focus at gun-rights convention

By Margaret Talev, McClatchy News Service

Last update: September 21, 2007 - 7:27 PM

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who as New York mayor backed gun control and sued firearms manufacturers, sought a middle ground Friday with skeptical gun-rights activists.

But his remarks left many at the National Rifle Association's "Celebration of American Values" conference uneasy, especially after he struggled to answer whether he still thought that gunmakers should be held liable for criminals' actions.

Several other Republican presidential hopefuls also addressed the group, most with stronger gun-right records than Giuliani, and directed digs at him and at one another.

Arizona Sen. John McCain chided "big-city mayors [who] decided it was more important to blame the manufacturers of a legal product than it was to control crime in their own cities."

McCain also went after Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, saying that candidates are wrong when they think "if you show your bona fides by hunting ducks or varmints or quail, it makes up for support for gun control."

Romney embarrassed himself earlier this year by claiming he had been a lifelong hunter, only to have his campaign acknowledge that he'd been on just two hunting trips.

"I will say the same things I've been saying since 1994," actor and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson told the group, contrasting his strong NRA rating with the more nuanced positions of Giuliani and Romney.

Romney, speaking via videotape, said that a McCain campaign-finance bill had undercut the NRA's political advocacy muscle and that he'd work to repeal it.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee called lawsuits such as the one Giuliani supported against gun manufacturers "ridiculous."

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who signed an expansion of gun owners' rights to carry concealed weapons into state law, was the only Democratic contender who participated Friday. He drew applause when he said via videotape, "Your voice needs to be heard, and when I'm president, it will be."

Giuliani's remarks were perhaps the most awaited at the conference, because of his front-runner status in national polls and his record as mayor.

In the mid-1990s, Giuliani compared the NRA to extremist groups and said its members had gone "way overboard" in stands against limits on so-called assault weapons.

During a question-and-answer period Friday, Giuliani defended his suits against gun manufacturers and distributors in 2000, saying he was using all the tools in his arsenal as mayor to try to reduce crime.

However, he said, the lawsuit had since "gone in a direction I don't agree with."

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