GOP Filibuster Blocks Action on Brady Bill : Congress: Gun-control measure stalls when Senate Republicans hold out for change advocated by the NRA.

Urged on by the gun lobby, Senate Republicans staged a filibuster Friday that stymied enactment of the Brady bill, a controversial measure that would impose a five-day waiting period on handgun buyers.

Advocates of the legislation twice fell short of the 60 votes required to stop debate and force a roll call vote. The first tally was 57 to 42 and the second, 57 to 41.

“The next step is next year,” said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a leading sponsor of the bill. “We lost.”

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who orchestrated the filibuster, said he did not want to pronounce the measure dead Friday night, indicating that he thought there was room for further discussion this weekend.

But Biden said that after years of trying to negotiate agreements on the legislation he thought it was a “false hope” that additional discussion could revive it at this time.

The legislation stalled even though it had the support of a majority of senators at a time when lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been scrambling to react to public alarm over crime.

Under Senate rules, a minority can use a filibuster to bottle up legislation until the majority can muster 60 votes to stop debate and force the issue to a vote, with the outcome determined by a simple majority.

The House has already approved the measure, and Senate proponents had hoped to obtain passage before lawmakers adjourn for the year, either today or early next week. The bill can be brought up again next year, but the failure to overcome the filibuster left its chances of approval in doubt.

President Clinton, attending the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperative forum in Seattle, expressed his disappointment at the filibuster, saying passage of the bill has been delayed too long.

“The attack against it--that it will not solve all the gun violence in the United States--ignores the fact that it will solve some of our problems by actually permitting us to do a weapons check of the criminal and mental health backgrounds of people who want to buy handguns,” he said.

The bill calls for a five-day waiting period to give law enforcement officials time to check the backgrounds of would-be buyers, searching for criminal records or evidence of mental health problems.

It also authorizes $200 million a year in grants to help states computerize their record-keeping operations so that gun dealers eventually could make instantaneous checks.

The bill is named for former White House Press Secretary James S. Brady, who was severely wounded during the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

Dole said the Brady bill would be acceptable with one major change: A provision that would nullify state laws providing for longer waiting periods once the computerized systems are in place.

However, the Senate rejected such a provision by a 54-45 margin.

Despite objections from Brady bill proponents, the Senate accepted, 56 to 43, another Dole-backed provision to terminate the five-day wait after five years whether or not the “instant check” system was fully operational.

Both the nullification of state laws--such as California’s 15-day waiting period for handgun purchases--and the five-year limit on the national waiting period were advocated by the National Rifle Assn.

“It’s a question of whether we have the courage to stand up to the NRA,” said Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), the bill’s chief advocate.

“People around here are scared to death of that organization,” added Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.).

In one sign of defiance of the NRA’s political power, however, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he had decided to break with the organization over its resistance to the undiluted Brady bill.

Noting that he had voted in support of the NRA “without exception” for nearly a quarter of a century, Reid said: “There comes a time when a person’s conscience won’t let him walk that plank anymore. . . . It’s something that’s very difficult for me to do, but I feel it’s the right thing. Whatever political consequences flow from this, I am ready to accept them.”

Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Ida.), an NRA board member, argued that crime rates were rising most rapidly in states with the most stringent gun laws. The Brady bill, he said, only “creates an illusion” of dealing with violent crime.

His argument was assailed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who said the attempt to nullify state laws imposing stronger restraints on gun buyers was a “poison pill” designed to kill the Brady bill.

The California waiting period works, she contended, and she cited figures compiled by the state indicating that its law blocked the sale of handguns to almost 16,000 criminals in the past three years.

But Craig said citizens who tried to buy guns for self-defense after the Los Angeles riots were barred from doing so because of the 15-day waiting period.

“Waiting periods are obsolete,” he said. “Citizens are arming themselves at an extremely rapid rate, we know that.”

“Let’s face it--the Brady bill is more symbolic than substance,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who said he would vote against the measure.

Without the provision to cancel state waiting periods longer than five days, Craig said, “this bill will probably fail.”

On the key roll call, 48 Democrats and nine Republicans voted to end the filibuster while 35 Republicans and seven Democrats opposed the attempt to bring the Brady bill to a vote. The lineup was identical on the second attempt to end the filibuster except that Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) did not vote.

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), noting that polls indicate that a vast majority of the American people favor the Brady bill, said: “Let the American people know--if this bill dies, it dies because of the Republican senators’ filibuster.”