Eased Gun Control Is Pressed Despite Strong Opposition

When the Senate last summer overwhelmingly passed legislation that would loosen the nation’s 17-year-old gun-control laws, Sarah Brady recalled, “something snapped inside me.”

To her, the issue was an intensely personal one: Brady’s husband, White House Press Secretary James S. Brady, had lost part of his brain to a bullet that assailant John W. Hinckley Jr. had meant for President Reagan. Although Brady said that her husband is “doing beautifully” five years later, he still spends almost all of his time in a wheelchair and has had to struggle to regain even basic abilities.

“I just became irate about (the Senate vote),” she said. “I decided we just can’t let this bill go all the way through” the House and to President Reagan’s desk.

Since then, Mrs. Brady has joined the board of Handgun Control Inc., a leading gun-control advocacy group, and estimates that she personally has lobbied more than 100 House members. She has also lent her name to the group’s national appeal for support “before it’s too late for another family like mine.”

Despite her efforts, and those of about 150 uniformed law enforcement officers and police widows who were in Washington Tuesday knocking on the office doors of their congressmen to argue against the bill, it appears headed for certain passage by the House today.

Hostile Panel Circumvented

In fact, congressional sentiment has been so strong that supporters were able to circumvent a hostile House Judiciary Committee and force consideration of the bill through a little-used parliamentary device called a discharge petition, which requires the signatures of more than half of the House. The Judiciary Committee finally agreed to produce a version of the measure that would ease gun laws somewhat, but its bill is not expected to be passed.

Ironically, one of the most prestigious names among those who support the effort to ease firearms laws is Reagan, who was wounded by another bullet from the $29 revolver that Hinckley had bought in a Texas pawnshop.

Moreover, Reagan is a member of the powerful National Rifle Assn., which is leading the charge for the bill.

Sarah Brady, 44, said Tuesday that the results of her personal appeals have been “very mixed,” in part because congressmen are “very nervous and afraid of the NRA.”

Calls Ignored

“A lot of (congressmen) would rather not face me,” she said. “A lot of times, I’ve placed calls, and they haven’t been returned.”

Brady, the daughter of an FBI agent, said that her concern about firearms began long before the day she and her son, then 2, heard that James Brady had been shot. “I grew up with a deep respect for guns,” she said. “I can still remember my father saying . . . you pick up a gun only in the event that you’re prepared to shoot to kill.”

The political struggle over the NRA-supported gun bill--known as the McClure-Volkmer bill for Senate sponsor James A. McClure (R-Ida.) and House sponsor Harold L. Volkmer (D-Mo.)--has been a heated and emotional one.

The 3-million-member NRA contends that existing gun laws, which were enacted in the wake of the 1968 assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., are too restrictive and impose more burdens on the estimated 60 million people who own firearms legally than they do on those who seek to use guns to commit crimes.

“Anybody who’s willing to rob a bank and shoot somebody won’t be too concerned about a gun control law,” Richard E. Gardiner, NRA assistant general counsel, said. But, under present law, he said, such innocent transactions as a gift of a gun across state lines could mean that giver and recipient have “committed federal felonies and are looking at 10 years in a federal penitentiary.”

Sales to Non-Residents

The McClure-Volkmer bill would permit over-the-counter purchases of handguns by people who are not residents of the state in which the transaction occurs, ease record-keeping requirements on dealers and safeguard the interstate transport of firearms, which now is often impeded by 23,000 state laws and local ordinances.

The Judiciary Committee bill is somewhat more restrictive, most notably because it would maintain the existing ban on interstate sale and transportation of handguns. Brady said that she supports the committee bill, written by Rep. William J. Hughes (D-N.J.), although it does not go as far as she would like.

“I would like to see a waiting period (before purchasers receive guns they have bought) and background checks,” which could have prevented Hinckley from buying the gun he used in the assault on President Reagan and her husband, Brady said.

Opponents have pinned much of their hope on active lobbying against the bill by law enforcement groups. Although the NRA insists that the top officials of major law enforcement organizations do not represent the sentiment of their rank and file on the issue, groups such as the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police have lobbied vigorously against the bill and plan to cap their efforts by marching hundreds of uniformed patrolmen, police chiefs and troopers to Capitol Hill today.

NRA Never Forgives

However, Hughes said, the political clout of the NRA and its ability to mobilize its members are still stronger. He recalled one fellow congressman’s telling him: “The bottom line is the NRA will never forgive you and the police will. For the first time, (congressmen) will have to decide whether to support the NRA or the police.”