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March 02, 2004

Gun Safety Victories in the Senate

By Byron LaMasters

It's rare that we have victories in Congress these days, but when we do, it's cause to celebrate. Democrats joined with moderate Republicans in the Senate to pass a bill extending the ban on semi-automatic guns for ten years and a bill which closes the gun show loophole. Democrats also forced Republicans to withdraw a bill that would nullify Washington D.C.'s ban on handguns. The Washington Post reports:

In the first of two rare victories for gun control advocates, the Senate voted 52-47 to extend for 10 years the ban on 19 types of semi-automatic guns, which was passed in 1994 and expires in September.

The vote on the proposal by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) was expected to be even closer than it was, and Vice President Cheney was on hand to cast a tie-breaking vote, which turned out to be unnecessary.

On the second vote, the Senate approved, 53-46, a proposal by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to require criminal background checks for purchases from unlicensed as well as licensed dealers at gun shows, closing a loophole in current law that has been blamed for sales of weapons to criminals and terrorists. The Senate passed a similar gun show proposal in 1999, but the House refused to go along.

Also today, Senate Republicans withdrew an amendment to repeal the District's ban on handgun ownership and other strict gun control measures after Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch said he had not had time to study the measure. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) credited opposition by Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, business leaders, residents and gun safety groups, and appeals by Marita Michael, 41, and Kenneth E. Barnes Jr., 57, District parents of children slain by gunfire.

Posted by Byron LaMasters at March 2, 2004 03:34 PM | TrackBack


Comments

Actually, in the end they ended up killing the overall bill, so nothing gets passed-- no stupid lawsuit exemption for the gun industry, but also no assault weapons ban extension and gun show loophole closing. Yup, that's right, the NRA and its allies pulled their support from the overall bill cuz they'd rather maintain the status quo than get a mixed bag. And there is no reason to think that this stalemate won't remain for pretty much the rest of the year-- the "pro-gun" crowd knows that every time they bring this up the same thing will happen, and even if Feinstein et. al. get the other stuff attached to non-gun-related legislation, the GOP would either kill that too or simply pull another conference-committee debacle to strip those amendments (DeLay has vowed not to let extending the ban even come up for a vote in the House on its own).

And of course, Bush does technically support all three things (the lawsuit limiting, the ban renewal, and closing the loophole), so theoretically I'm sure they could get everything together to press to separate these items out and get them all passed. But since that would involve both pissing off the NRA and working actively against the force of Tom DeLAy (who has shown willingness in the past to go against them-- remember when he insulted Ari Fleischer and vice versa?), they'd rather just let it slide and hope that no one notices their sheer hypocrisy.

Posted by: Sean at March 2, 2004 07:51 PM
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