Gun lobby's scare tactics a call to arms

WITH its chilling warnings about a "marching axis of adversaries" and sinister pictures of innocent citizens being terrorised by evil, it could easily be mistaken for a government battle plan against a global jihad.

But Freedom in Peril, a 27-page booklet, is actually the work of the National Rifle Association (NRA), the largest pro-gun lobby in the United States, and the "danger" of which it warns is the revitalised Democratic Party.

In what detractors have dubbed a paranoid campaign, the NRA is galvanising its members with dire warnings about how the right to bear arms - embodied in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution - is under a new threat.

One chapter, entitled The Gang of Opportunists, features caricatures of anti-gun figures, such as Hillary Clinton, the New York senator who is expected to run for president in 2008, and Nancy Pelosi, the new Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Elsewhere in the booklet, the NRA describes as "tyranny" the fact that in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, private citizens had their guns confiscated by law enforcement officers trying to keep the peace.

The essay is accompanied by a sketch of a elderly woman in an apron being pinned face-down on the ground by a heavily- armed SWAT team, her handgun beside her on the floor.

The NRA was accused by gun-control groups of using "vintage fear tactics" to provoke its membership into action and boost its funds.

Josh Sugarmann, of the Violence Policy Centre, said: "The NRA has a long history of trying to stir the worst in the human character."

Days after the New Orleans police chief said he believed his department was bringing murders in the city under control, there were at least five fatal shootings in 14 hours over Wednesday and yesterday.