Texas Gov. George W. Bush stressed the need to enforce existinggun laws in Monday's Republican presidential debate. But a strikingshortcoming in gun-law enforcement happened under his watch.
"I'm in favor of keeping guns out of the hands of people whoshouldn't have them, like felons," Bush said.
Yet Texas was stung by revelations last week that during histenure it failed to investigate more than 771 felons who applied forconcealed weapons permits since 1996.
Federal and state law prohibit convicted felons from possessingfirearms.
Also in the debate, Arizona Sen. John McCain challenged Bush toside with him on the spot and seek to end the unlimited andunregulated donations to political parties known as soft money. "Wecan get the special-interest money out of American politics," McCainasserted.
McCain was forced to answer questions last week on how hecollected $10,000 in donations from AT&T executives within two weeksof introducing legislation that would have made it easier for thephone giant to get federal approval for purchases of cable companies.
McCain has denied that donations influenced his decision on thelegislation, pointing out he had long favored such a bill. Still, acampaign spokeswoman acknowledged the timing created a perceptionproblem.
In addition to the donations, a citizen watchdog group noted thatone of McCain's advisers, former Rep. Vin Weber, lobbies for AT&T andco-hosted a $120,000 fund-raising event for McCain.
Also in the debate, candidate Gary Bauer portrayed China's entryinto the World Trade Organization as bad for farmers. But as aprecursor to entering the trade organization, Beijing already hasstruck a deal allowing wheat to be shipped from Pacific Northwestports to China for the first time since 1972.
And farmers have been pushing for expansion of foreign marketslike China. Some of their hopes were dashed when the WTO talks inSeattle last week ended with little progress.
Bush occasionally has stretched his record as governor during theRepublican debates, and again Monday he overlooked problems in hisstate's performance.
State records show some of the felons who escaped scrutiny intheir gun applications were non-violent offenders with decades-oldconvictions. Others, however, were convicted murderers and otherviolent criminals.
Texas officials acknowledged they failed to refer the felons tofederal or state prosecutors to investigate if they illegally were inpossession of firearms.
State public safety officials said they didn't consider turningover information about possible gun violators a top priority but arechanging that now.
Bush's spokeswoman has said the governor learned about the problemearlier this fall and moved quickly to remedy it.
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