Huge Symbolic Vote on Gun Control

Late Wednesday 239 members of the House of Representatives exhibited political courage by resisting efforts by the National Rifle Assn. to undermine sensible firearms regulation.

Even with the support of every former living U.S. President, it was a tough fight for the Brady bill--named after former White House Press Secretary James S. Brady, who was severely wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan. The House voted 239 to 186 in favor of the bill, which institutes a national seven-day waiting period between the purchase and possession of a handgun. During that time, local law enforcement authorities could--but aren’t required to--check the buyer’s criminal and mental health background using existing state data banks. The bill was modest, but the effort to get it past the powerful gun lobby was herculean. The result was more symbolic than anything else, but as a symbol of the nation’s growing revulsion with crime, shootings and the gun lobby’s unceasing opposition to reasonable efforts to manage the problem, it was significant symbolism indeed.

In order to get to an up-or-down vote on the Brady bill, the House wisely rejected a cynical counter-attack in the rival Staggers amendment, sponsored by Rep. Harley Staggers (D-W.Va). Had it passed, the Staggers bill would have sacked the Brady bill by imposing a different set of requirements that sounded good but which are beyond the nation’s technical capabilities right now. The NRA knew that, of course, having calculated that the inability of many states to comply with these requirements would effectively render the measure impotent.

The Brady bill will have no practical effect in California, since this state already requires a 15-day waiting period in handgun sales. But for many states with no waiting periods, it brings, for the first time, some measure of sanity to the process that allowed any adult to walk in and purchase a handgun on the spot.

The hard-fought victory for the Brady bill in the House by no means assures its passage in the Senate, where it faces an uncertain fate. And President Bush has already made his views on this bill perfectly clear. Before House debate on the bill got under way, the President renewed his threat to veto the legislation unless it was made part of a congressional deal that included passage of the Administration’s controversial anti-crime bill.

A majority of representatives conclusively demonstrated that reasonable firearms regulation is a desirable goal. The Senate should follow their lead, and President Bush should sign the Brady bill on the merits.