Gun Law Dies as D.C. Bites Budget Bullet

The District of Columbia Council repealed what was the toughest assault-gun law in the nation on Tuesday, after Capitol Hill critics said that it threatened a special $100-million subsidy the district is seeking from Congress.

By voice vote, the 13-member council withdrew the law, which would have held manufacturers and dealers of so-called assault firearms liable for injuries and deaths caused by their products.

Washington Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon said that the law, which had not yet been put into effect, jeopardized the district’s chances of gaining a special appropriation she wants to help alleviate a $300-million budget deficit.

“We repealed the legislation because we thought it was in the best interests of the District of Columbia at this point . . . in the negotiations over funds,” Council Chairman John Wilson said after the vote. “Of course, it’s about money.”

Last month, Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.), the ranking minority member of the House District of Columbia Committee, introduced a resolution asking Congress to cancel the law, which was passed in December.

Dixon later requested repeal of the measure. Congress has veto power over all district laws but had not yet acted on either the law or on Bliley’s resolution.

Sales of most types of guns have been banned in the district since 1976, but law enforcement officials say that guns flow freely through a black market and from adjacent Virginia and Maryland. District police have estimated that more than half of the weapons seized in the capital were bought in Virginia.

Bliley said after a meeting with Dixon two weeks ago that, if the law were withdrawn, Congress would “find a way to get her that money.”

After a meeting with Dixon last week, House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said that, although he did not link the gun liability measure to the district’s request for extra money, he was aware that others in Congress did.