Gun Nuts Bankroll NJ Right-to-Pollute Fringe
A national right-wing extremist group -- Gun Owners of America -- provided "organizational assistance" to an effort to whip up hysteria during the last year about enhanced vehicle inspection and maintenance rules in New Jersey. The campaign was effective enough to send the Whitman Administration to EPA in search of a compromise inspection regime that would be weaker but still satisfy EPA's reading of the Clean Air Act. Leonard Marshall, a Conservative Party member who wrote a widely-distributed screed falsely claiming that cars flunking emissions tests would be confiscated by the state, told the NY Times, "In Jersey, guns are a peripheral issue, but property rights are not." Gun Owners of America is run by native New Jerseyan Larry Pratt, who co-chaired Pat Buchanan's primary campaign until his links to white-supremacist groups were aired.
