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¶ An investigation of the Secret Service (see story page 15). Democratic Senator Joseph Montoya, whose Senate subcommittee oversees the elite protective agency, has summoned Secret Service Director H. Stuart Knight to public hearings this week. Montoya wants to know why Moore was not at least followed after being interviewed by Secret Service agents on the night before she shot at Ford. A San Francisco police officer, Inspector Jack O'Shea, had repeatedly warned the Secret Service that Moore "could be another Squeaky" and had ordered one gun taken from her. She promptly bought another. Montoya will also ask why neither Fromme nor Moore was on the service's list of 38,000 people considered potentially dangerous to the President.
¶ Demands that Ford restrict his public movements. Almost no one was insisting that Ford stay rooted to his desk or expose himself only to television cameras. But members of Congress, experts on violence and editorial writers almost universally urged him to cool his ardor for personal contact with the masses, at least until the frenzy, like the abated flurry of skyjackings, passes. "Mr. Ford is in effect baring his chest, sticking out his chin and daring every kook in the country to take another shot at him," Columnist Joseph Kraft protested. Even Betty Ford has told friends she hopes her husband will stay out of crowds and move faster when exposed. "The country needs him. The children need him. I need him," she told an intimate.
¶ A new push for strict federal gun controls (see story page 16). Michigan Democratic Congressman John Conyers introduced a bill that would virtually ban all handguns. More realistically, New York Democratic Congressman John Murphy pushed for registration of all gun owners and their weapons. On the Senate floor, Edward Kennedy led the new onslaught on guns. "The overriding lessons of these nearly tragic events," he said, "is that if America cares about the safety of its leaders, it can no longer ignore the shocking absence of responsible gun control."
Despite such pressure, there was little likelihood of any quick tightening of gun laws. Minutes before he was shot at by Moore, Ford had expressed his opposition to the registration of handguns; his press secretary reconfirmed that view afterward. Although gun controls could help prevent many spur of the moment murders, few experts thought such laws would have any short-term impact on the danger of assassinations; the gains would be long run. For now, those most likely to use guns against a President would be least likely to register or surrender the ones they have.
There was every indication, however, that Congress would give the Secret Service any new funds it wants to step up its intelligence gathering in advance of presidential trips, to spot potential killers and watch them. A five-man congressional committee, empowered to designate which presidential candidates have qualified for protection, last week ordered the Secret Service to begin guarding on Oct. 1 Henry Jackson, Lloyd Bentsen, Morris Udall and George Wallace.