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Echoes of Al Capone heard in today's gun-control debate
NRA at center stage since Valentine's Day massacre
W Echoes
Chicago gangster Al Capone has his photo taken while in custody in Philadelphia, May 18, 1929, on charges of carrying concealed weapons. It was gangland violence by Capone and others that spurred Congress to pass the first significant federal gun-control law in 1934. - photo by Associated Press
CHICAGO — It was 1934. Mobsters armed with fully automatic "Tommy guns" had left a trail of bloodstained sidewalks and pockmarked walls across the country, and the new president had narrowly escaped assassination the year before. It was time for action on gun control.
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