House Votes to Ease Gun Control in Victory for NRA : Handgun Sales Ban Retained

In a victory for the gun lobby, the House voted today to ease the nation’s gun control law for the first time since 1968, but kept in place a controversial ban on interstate sale of handguns.

After a morning of tumultuous debate, lawmakers voted 292 to 130 to approve legislation backed by the powerful National Rifle Assn. to allow interstate sale and transportation of rifles and shotguns, and ease reporting requirements on the nation’s 250,000 gun dealers.

“Merits were not considered,” Rep. Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.) said. “It was pure callous politics engendered by the NRA.” He said many lawmakers wanted to vote against the gun decontrol bill but had thousands of NRA members in their districts.

Handgun Provision Approved

Gun control advocates won their own victory by earlier winning approval, on a 233-184 vote, of continuance of an 18-year-old ban on interstate handgun sales and another provision to prohibit possession of machine guns.

The legislation would mark the first change in the nation’s gun laws since the Gun Control Act of 1968, passed in reaction to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

It includes easing reporting requirements for gun dealers and limiting unannounced inspections of dealers to one per year.

A similar measure was approved last year by the Senate, but differences between the two bills must be worked out before final passage.

Handgun Vote Called Victory

Sarah Brady, whose husband, White House Press Secretary James Brady, was critically wounded in an assassination attempt on President Reagan, said the vote on handguns was a victory for gun control advocates.

Brady had argued that others like John Hinckley Jr., who shot Reagan and Brady with a $29 handgun, would be able to get a gun if interstate handgun sales were not banned. But she said the fight is not over.

“I’m going to keep it up and fight for more controls on handguns. It’s not over, not at all,” Brady said.

Hubert Williams, director of the Police Foundation, said the House vote on handguns was a “major defeat for the NRA.” He said it “rips the heart out’ of the bill to relax the nation’s gun bill.

‘Cop-Killer’ Legislation

Police groups spent days walking the halls of Congress in opposition to legislation to ease the nation’s gun laws, saying the bill was “cop-killer” legislation. They said allowing interstate handgun sales would put guns into the hands of the wrong people.

The handgun ban measure was opposed by the NRA, which Wednesday succeeded in defeating a package of amendments that included a ban on interstate handgun sales, sales of silencers and other restrictions on gun dealers.

But some members who helped defeat Wednesday’s amendments voted in favor of the handgun ban, including Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.), who said, “This is the time to part company with the NRA.”