Ban on Assault Rifles, Big Ammo Clips Dies in House

Handing the gun lobby a startling victory only a day after 22 cafeteria patrons were slain by a Texas gunman, the House Thursday decisively rejected bans on various “assault weapons” and on large-capacity ammunition clips like those used in the latest massacre.

The House acted, on a 247-177 vote, despite emotional appeals tied to Wednesday’s brutal slayings in Killeen, Tex. The vote was considered even more surprising because the Senate recently had adopted a similar ban and both houses had defied the politically intimidating National Rifle Assn. by approving a “Brady bill” waiting period for gun buyers.

Police chiefs, gun control groups and lawmakers who advocated prohibitions on certain semiautomatic guns and ammunition clips were stunned by the House action. A leading proponent of the restrictions attributed the defeat in large part to a sour mood among House members, who have been pummeled in recent weeks by redistricting threats and uproars over bounced checks and unpaid restaurant tabs.

“There was a mood of batten down the hatches rather than reach for the stars,” said Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) after the House voted to strip the proposed assault weapon and ammunition clip bans from an omnibus crime bill.

Many besieged lawmakers “did not want to make more enemies,” Schumer said. “They figured that the event in Killeen will be forgotten in a week, but the NRA will be around in November (1992) for their reelection campaigns.”

Despite the House action, the Killeen massacre provoked an outcry for new gun restrictions and provided new ammunition for Democratic presidential aspirants in their attacks on President Bush, an NRA member who has opposed strict gun-control proposals.

Although Bush two years ago banned the import of four dozen models of assault weapons, he gave little support to the House measure, which would have banned the sale of 13 other firearms made here and abroad.

The President said that he was troubled by the Texas shootings but added: “I don’t believe there is one federal law that is going to rule against aberrant behavior of that nature.”

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s chief lobbyist, had expressed concern just before the House vote that “this issue rises and falls with emotion, and the emotion has run to their side and gotten a little away from the facts.”

But, after the NRA’s position had carried decisively, LaPierre attributed the victory to fears that the proposed bans on the assault weapons and on ammunition clips that contain more than seven rounds would be extended even to popular hunting firearms.

Although the Glock semiautomatic pistol used by the Killeen killer is not among the 13 weapons covered by the proposed ban, the 17-round clips used by the gunman would have been prohibited under the language struck from the crime bill.

Another factor in the big margin in the House vote was that the NRA was more effective than usual with its lobbying, according to both LaPierre and Schumer.

Instead of running newspaper and TV ads with questionable claims that offend many lawmakers, the group relied solely on getting its 2.7 million members to inundate House members with letters, telegrams and phone calls.

In spirited House debate, proponents of the bans repeatedly invoked the Killeen massacre in appealing for support.

“The nation is watching to see how this Congress will react to the carnage in Killeen,” Schumer declared. “We were reminded that weapons of mass destruction belong nowhere in our society but on the scrap heap.”

Opponents of the bans protested that the targeted weapons were only cosmetically different from firearms used legitimately for hunting and self-defense. They contended that a provision that called for banning firearms with the “same basic configuration” could be extended broadly to many firearms used for hunting and self-defense.

“Everyone in the House wants to stop what occurred in Killeen,” said Rep. Harold L. Volkmer (D-Mo.), who sponsored the amendment to remove the bans from the bill. “The question is how to stop it. I don’t believe it can be stopped. It wasn’t a pistol that caused the deaths. It could have been a rifle, shotgun, can of gasoline or truck loaded with dynamite.

“This is the most far-reaching restriction on gun owners of America that’s ever been considered,” he said.

Proponents said that the disputed provision was meant only to prevent a manufacturer of one of the targeted firearms from getting around the ban by making a small change in the weapon.

The targeted guns--all of which were banned by California two years ago--have flash suppressors, pistol grips, bayonet mounts and folding stocks that make them easy to conceal. Police have said that they are the preferred weapons of drug dealers and street gangs.

In supporting the bans, Rep. John Bryant (D-Tex.) said scornfully that the only people who need assault weapons are “cowards, criminals and weirdos and those who have to own one to feel like a man.”

In an acid retort, Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R-San Diego), an avid hunter, said: “I don’t need someone who has never served in the military to tell me me how to hunt.”

Sarah Brady, head of Handgun Control Inc., who had buttonholed lawmakers going into the House chamber to vote, expressed bitterness as defeat became apparent.

“Congress has not been in good shape, reputation-wise, and I think they will be ashamed to walk the halls of Congress any more,” she said.

“They better have a lot of hung heads . . . “ Brady continued. “They are going to regret this vote. People will not be happy with this.”

The so-called Brady bill provisions would require gun buyers to wait five business days while a background check is made. The five-day waiting period would be replaced over several years with a national computer system of instant background checks.

The waiting period provisions are named after Sarah Brady’s husband, James S. Brady, the former White House press secretary who was disabled in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

The House approved a separate measure requiring a seven-day waiting period in May, and the Senate later included a five-day waiting period in its version of the omnibus crime measure. The House is expected to insert similar language in the crime bill now under consideration.

Schumer suggested that Senate-House conferees would keep the Brady bill provisions and throw out the Senate-approved assault weapons ban. He predicted that it will take a year or two for an assault weapons ban to be enacted.

“It takes Congress a while to catch up with the American people,” he said. “It took seven years to get the Brady bill. With the Brady bill, many members took a leap and did what was right. They just didn’t have that mood today.”

Meanwhile, the mass slaying in Texas brought predictions that the event might sway state legislatures to enact assault-weapon bans, prepurchase waiting periods or mandatory background checks.

NRA spokesman Bill McIntyre said that tragedies such as the shooting on a Stockton, Calif., school playground that killed five and injured 28 in January, 1989, “focus attention, unfortunately, on the need for reform. This one is doing the same.”

The NRA contends that the solution is keeping criminals off the street by building more prisons and stiffening penalties, rather than limiting distribution of guns.

“What happened in Stockton moved the issue forward, and I think this will, too,” said Michael Beard, president of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, which advocates an outright ban on handguns.

The Stockton murders galvanized opinion in California and helped persuade the Legislature in May, 1989, to ban the manufacture and sale in the state of about 60 kinds of military-style semiautomatic weapons. New Jersey is the only other state that has such a ban.

There were indications that some Democratic presidential aspirants would use rising public anger over the incident as a political issue against President Bush.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton said that enactment of the Brady bill “is absolutely critical to this country’s future.” His made the remark on NBC’s “Today” show.

Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, another announced candidate, insisted: “We need stronger gun control” and cited his own state’s adoption of a system of “instant” background checks. Virginia began checks of handgun purchasers’ backgrounds one year ago; last June, the law was amended to cover all gun purchases.

A White House spokeswoman noted that President Bush’s crime bill would have made the gun used in the Killeen shooting illegal, because the bill would ban clips holding more than 15 rounds of ammunition. The Glock semiautomatic handgun used by the Killeen killer held 17 rounds.

There was no indication that the tragedy would soften President Bush’s opposition to gun-control provisions stronger than those contained in his crime bill.

“You can’t legislate behavior,” said Judy Smith, a White House deputy press secretary.

Vote on Weapons Ban

Here is how members of the California delegation voted on a measure to strip from the House crime bill a proposed ban on semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition clips:

Democrats for--Condit.

Republicans for--Cox, Cunningham, Dannemeyer, Doolittle, Dornan, Dreier, Gallegly, Herger, Hunter, Lagomarsino, Lewis, Lowery, McCandless, Moorhead, Packard, Riggs, Rohrabacher, Thomas.

Democrats against--Anderson, Beilenson, Berman, Boxer, Brown, Dellums, Dixon, Dooley, Dymally, Edwards, Fazio, Lantos, Lehman, Matsui, Miller, Mineta, Panetta, Pelosi, Roybal, Stark, Torres, Waters.

Republicans against--Campbell.

Democrats not voting--Levine, Martinez, Waxman.