Brady Campaign Asks If Keyes is Serious

The Brady Campaign asks:

MACHINE GUNS? IS HE SERIOUS? ALAN KEYES WANTS TO TAKE ILLINOIS BACK TO THE "GOOD OLD DAYS" OF THE 1930S

The text of the release:

Alan Keyes, the Maryland resident running for the Illinois Senate, said yesterday that machine guns should be legal. Not semiautomatic assault weapons, mind you -- the guns that were outlawed 10 years ago. Mr. Keyes is for legal machine guns, which came under extraordinary federal regulation in the 1930s after the guns were misused by another guy named Al - Al Capone. The manufacture of new machine guns was banned under the McClure-Volkmer Act of 1986. Keyes' comments, published today in the Chicago Sun-Times, were made at a press conference in which he was criticizing "ideological extremism" of his opponent. "Alan Keyes sees a country where every American should be armed to the hilt with the most deadly firepower imaginable," said Jim Brady, an Illinois native who served as President Ronald Reagan's press secretary. "I cannot fathom how he could come up with such a notion. It's insane." There are only five days left when Congress is in session before the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban - a law that President Bush pledged he'd renew as a candidate for President in 2000. If the ban expires, Alan Keyes will be able to fire semiautomatic assault weapons to his heart's content - but there's no current legislation that will give him his machine guns.