That Astonishing Nonchalance : ‘Brady II’ bill aims to alter an America that’s gun-happy beyond belief

The fatal shooting of two Japanese college students in a San Pedro supermarket parking lot last month evoked feelings of outrage and disbelief from people around the globe who cannot understand why the United States has failed repeatedly to enact stringent controls on the manufacture, sale and possession of firearms. Ordinary people are simply astounded that deadly weapons are bought and sold so nonchalantly here.

The complex answer to why that happens can be found somewhere in a tangle of reasons: the virtually limitless supply of firearms, an abundance of legal loopholes, inadequate enforcement and special legal protections afforded gun owners. But perhaps the more basic--and more unsettling--explanation is that Americans have yet to reach a pain threshold on the gun-violence issue. Appallingly, many lawmakers in Congress have been willing accessories to this masochism.

For starters, it took Congress 25 long and bloody years to pass a major gun law--the rudimentary five-day handgun waiting period known as the Brady bill. In the meantime, more than 700,000 Americans lost their lives in gun-related homicides, suicides and accidents. One hopeful sign is that more Americans than ever--over 50%-- now favor gun control. Congress should take the hint and send a message.

One unmistakable way would be to pass the Gun Violence Prevention Act of 1994. “Brady II,” introduced last week by Sens. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) and Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) and Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), is the most comprehensive and far-reaching piece of gun legislation introduced in Congress since the Gun Control Act of 1968. The measure’s major provisions include rigorous new national gun licensing and registration requirements, limits on gun possession, restrictions for gun dealers and a federal ban on semiautomatic assault weapons and cheap handguns known as Saturday night specials. In addition, an individual would be barred from accumulating more than 20 firearms or more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition without a federal license.

Other provisions of Brady II would require the states, with $200 million in federal funding, to set up a system that licenses handgun buyers, a procedure including a fingerprint-based background check and a handgun safety course (California recently became the first state to implement such safety instruction).

The legislation also gives the federal government greater liberty to inspect gun dealers by raising the number of surprise inspections to three from one and extending the time the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is allowed to conduct background checks.

Gun laws by themselves do not stop violence and lawlessness. But trying to attack those problems without reforming gun laws will only ensure a future of casualties and more shame.