Senate Republicans Change Stance On Gun Shows
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Senate Closes Teen Assault Gun Loophole
By Joanne Kenen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a remarkable day of rapid shifts that had the powerful gun lobby on the defensive, the U.S. Senate Thursday passed two new gun control measures and reversed itself on the controversial issue of requiring background checks on buyers at gun shows.
Pounded by Democrats who accused them of caring more about the National Rifle Association than the public outrage over 15 deaths in a Colorado high school, Republicans closed loopholes, voted for bans they had previously rejected, and accepted the mandatory gun show background checks that they had repudiated only one day earlier.
But Democrats remained skeptical, particularly on the gun show question. They said the Republicans' revised gun show plan still contains concessions to the NRA, and that the gun lobby might have had a bad day but was by no means defeated.
Under current law, people buying guns from licensed dealers must undergo background checks. No such checks are required from more informal vendors at gun shows, and the Senate rejected changing that Wednesday.
``In the aftermath of their victory over common sense, Republicans are scrambling around the Senate floor trying to figure out how to explain yesterday's appeasement at the hands of the gun lobby,'' said New York Democrat Charles Schumer.
``They are truly the gang that couldn't shoot straight,'' he added.
The gun show controversy will not be resolved until at least Friday when the Senate resumes work on its juvenile crime bill but the Senate did take two votes on gun measures that had foundered in the past.
By a 96-2 vote, the Senate closed a loophole in a law that bans anyone under age 18 from buying a handgun. They extended that prohibition to youth purchases of semi-automatic assault weapons like Uzis or AK-47s, and they banned minors from buying high capacity ammunition clips. Two Republicans, Bob Smith of New Hampshire and Mike Enzi of Wyoming, voted no on the amendment by Missouri Republican John Ashcroft.
In a bigger surprise, they accepted a Democratic proposal to stop U.S. imports of all high-capacity clips. Those clips, which let people fire scores of bullets without stopping to reload, cannot now be manufactured in the United States but imports are available. That measure had failed in past years.
``The NRA said no and it passed anyway,'' said its sponsor, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein. But she noted that there are still many hurdles -- and opportunities for the NRA to flex its muscles -- before the measure gets enacted into law.
``I've been down this road before,'' she said. ``It's not over until the thin lady sings.''
Outlining the new Republican gun show proposal, Idaho Republican Larry Craig, who is an NRA board member, shunned words like reversal but said he was ``making corrections.''
The Senate Wednesday narrowly rejected an measure by New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg to make background checks mandatory at shows. Senators in both parties reported intense lobbying by the NRA against it -- although opinion polls show broad public support for it after Littleton.
Later that night, the Senate went a step further, voting for a Craig amendment that called for voluntary background checks and also contained several elements that Democrats, including Attorney General Janet Reno, said undermined existing gun law and gave new breaks to gun dealers.
Earlier Thursday President Clinton had urged the Senate to reconsider, ``For the life of me I can't figure out how they did it, or why they passed up this chance to save lives,'' he said at the White House. ``There is simply no excuse for letting criminals get arms at gun shows they can't get at gun stores.''
A few hours later, Craig was on the Senate floor arguing for a new Republican package of gun measures -- and making the case for mandatory background checks at gun shows.
Craig said his office had not gotten any angry calls about Wednesday's vote. But he acknowledged that fellow Republicans had received calls, and that some were ``not happy in totality'' with his original measure.
Craig in his revised version dropped some, but not all, of the other provisions to which Democrats had objected.
For instance, the FBI now keeps records of background checks for up to several months. The NRA opposes such a data base, and Craig's revised amendment still does away with any such record-keeping, which he said infringes on rights of law-abiding private gun-owning citizens.
NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said in a telephone interview that the organization has said it would accept the gunshow background checks -- if the FBI records, which he said were illegal, were dropped.
He also repeated the NRA attack on the Clinton administration for failing to enforce current laws while drafting new ones. ``It's a little bit disingenuous,'' he said, saying the government was letting criminals ``walk out the door scot free'' instead of throwing them in jail.