Louisville Mayhem Seen Spurring Gun Debate : Activists on Both Sides Expect New Drive to Widen Curbs on Assault Weapons

With a spray of rifle fire and a trail of blood, a deranged killer in Louisville, Ky., on Thursday vividly brought to life nightmarish images that are likely to rejuvenate efforts to broaden restrictions on assault weapons, activists on both sides of the issue agreed.

Some compared its potential impact to that of shootings in Stockton, Calif., earlier this year, where the schoolyard carnage also wrought by a man with an AK-47 assault rifle led Los Angeles, then California and, finally, even President Bush to adopt new gun control policies.

“It’s unfortunate, but this is going to provide a lot of impetus to new legislation,” said Jim Baker, the chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Assn.

For gun control advocates, the top priority remains at the federal level, where Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) and others have been fighting to extend the Bush Administration’s ban on foreign-made assault rifles to include American-made versions of the weapons as well.

“This is going to raise the public awareness that guns like the AK-47 are efficient for killing people--not for use in recreational or sporting purposes,” DeConcini said Thursday.

But the mayhem in the Louisville printing plant could also give unaccustomed momentum to efforts in states like Kentucky, where a pro-gun state government has forbidden cities from enacting their own gun control laws.

While Louisville once imposed a waiting period between the purchase of guns and their collections, the Legislature “simply took that right away from us,” Mayor Jerry Abramson said in an interview. “One would hope . . . that we could revisit the issue--at least of assault weapons.”

A gun buyer in the city need now only be of legal age--18 for rifles, 21 for handguns--and sign a form attesting to sanity and a clean criminal record before he can walk away the same day with a loaded weapon.

Those provisions, which are the minimum allowed by federal mandates, put Kentucky among a dozen Southern and Western states with the least restrictive gun laws in the nation, gun experts said.

In an attempt to deflect the expected drive to tighten those laws, the NRA’s Baker dismissed Thursday’s shooting as a “random act of violence by a madman.”

“It’s our responsibility to point out that there are already thousands of gun laws, and law-abiding people will obey them--by definition--and criminals will not,” Baker said.

But within hours of the shootings, an angry chorus of politicians, law enforcement officials and activists voiced renewed outrage about the status of current law. They pledged to redouble their efforts to extend federal legislation.

“There will be more and more mindless mass murders until the President and the Congress put controls on the sales of assault weapons,” said Rep. Pete Stark (D-Oakland), sponsor of one of the most far-reaching anti-assault gun measures.

“This is a classic case,” said L. Stanley Chauvin, president of the American Bar Assn. “Assault weapons are used for no earthly purpose other than to kill people. As long as they are available, people will be killed.”

In the face of the outcry, pro-gun sources on Capitol Hill acknowledged that they were troubled. “Clearly, they (gun control advocates) are going to use this to try and further their cause,” one aide said.

Even the most far-reaching legislation now under consideration at the federal level would stop short of outlawing assault weapons altogether.

The measures instead would merely outlaw production and sale of all new weapons. As a result, the 2 million to 3 million assault weapons already in circulation--including, perhaps, the AK-47 used by Louisville gunman Joseph T. Wesbecker Thursday--could remain in use.

The Bush Administration agreed in the aftermath of the Stockton shooting to enforce regulations banning the importation of foreign-made assault weapons on grounds that they were unsuitable for sporting purposes. Previously, the Treasury Department had considered the rifles sporting weapons.

But the President has steadfastly resisted pressure to extend the ban to include American-made weapons.

Clears Key Panel

The DeConcini-sponsored proposal to extend the ban to the domestic sphere cleared a key Senate committee just before the summer recess. With activism on the issue fading with the memory of the Stockton massacre, there had been no plans until this week for a prompt vote by the full Senate.

In addition to Thursday’s killings, another factor now appears likely to stir the Senate out of its lethargy, the activists from both sides said.

The Colombian government, alarmed by the discovery of large caches of American-made assault rifles during raids on the headquarters of drug cartels there, has asked the United States for help in cutting off the flow. Drug Enforcement Administration Chief John C. Lawn joined the call for tougher gun laws.

A key supporter of such legislation, Sen. Howard E. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), took to the Senate floor Thursday afternoon to urge prompt action in the wake of the Louisville massacre.

“Let’s debate the bill, and vote it up or down,” he urged. “Anything less would be irresponsible. It’s time to act, and one more day’s delay--one more death--cannot be explained.”