Counting On Outrage, Clinton to Push Gun Bill

President Clinton will unveil legislation today that would further restrict access to guns and explosives and hold adults criminally liable when their firearms are used by children in violent crimes, White House and congressional sources said Monday.

Hoping to capitalize on public revulsion over the Littleton, Colo., school massacre, the president also wants to reinstate a background check on all gun sales and impose such checks, for the first time, on prospective buyers at gun shows.

Federal laws require licensed dealers to conduct checks, but as much as half of all sales are made through unlicensed sellers. Investigators in Colorado suspect that at least some of the weapons used by the killers last week were purchased from unlicensed dealers at gun shows.

Similar background checks before the sale of explosives also would be required, for the first time, under the Gun Enforcement and Accountability Act, which the president is scheduled to detail this afternoon.

In an attempt to hold parents responsible for their children’s violent behavior, the Clinton bill would impose felony penalties on adults who knowingly or recklessly allow a child to have unlawful access to a gun that causes death or injury. What constitutes “unlawful” was not clear, nor were other details of the bill.

And the bill would impose a new, mandatory minimum sentence of at least three years, and up to 10 years, on adults who transfer guns to juveniles knowing that they will be used in a violent crime, aides said.

Clinton’s proposal amounts to a broad new assault on the firearms and explosives industries at a time when the White House clearly hopes that the killings of 12 student and one teacher at Columbine High School will turn public opinion against the powerful National Rifle Assn. and its allies in Congress.

Clinton’s proposed legislation, which also incorporates an array of initiatives championed by anti-gun lawmakers, had been in the works long before last week’s killings in Littleton. And so was the planning for today’s unveiling of that measure.

“Unfortunately, oftentimes, it takes tragic events to catalyze work here in Washington. . . . I think the country is focused on this problem now, and we should move quickly to do the best that we can,” White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said Monday.

“I think there is a consensus in this country that we need to do more . . . and it is time for the NRA to get out of the past and get on the right side of this issue,” he said.

Jim Manown, an NRA spokesman, declined to comment, saying that it is “inappropriate . . . to engage in a political debate at this moment.” He said the NRA would address the issue at its annual conference in Denver on Saturday.

No one is predicting smooth sailing for the Clinton proposals, in part because of the history of gun control in Congress. It took years to pass a bill named after President Reagan’s former Press Secretary James Brady, who was severely injured in an assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981. The bill, which passed in 1993, required a waiting period on licensed gun sales so that police could conduct background checks.

But some observers think the carnage at Columbine could change the climate on Capitol Hill.

The bill is “a challenge to Congress to take some action on this issue,” said Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), an ardent gun-control advocate. “The Republicans and those who oppose gun-control legislation will understand that the public is watching closely.”

Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), an NRA board member, did not return requests for comment.

Since the Brady bill took effect in 1994, more than a quarter million felons, fugitives and mentally unstable persons have been prevented from buying handguns, according to federal law enforcement data.

But the waiting period, which allowed up to five days for background checks, died in November and was replaced by the National Instant Criminal Background Check system. That system gave law enforcement officials greater access to records of prospective buyers of all guns, not just handguns.

To date, the computerized system has conducted more than 2.6 million background checks and prevented illegal sales on more than 27,000 occasions, according to the White House.

A permanent waiting period on both guns and explosives would allow local officials to check additional, non-computerized records, according to White House aides.

Clinton’s proposal also would bar felons from buying black powder, the ingredient used to make most pipe bombs, and require merchants of explosives to keep records of their sales.

The president wants to restrict purchases at gun shows because they remain significantly outside the scope of federal restrictions, officials said.

According to White House aides, there were an estimated 4,442 gun shows throughout the country last year, and between 25% and half of the firearms sold were by unlicensed dealers and not subject to background checks.

One recent study of 314 gun shows by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms found that 46% of such transactions involved felons and that 34% involved weapons later used in serious crimes.

Clinton’s proposal would require Brady background checks on all firearms transferred at gun shows and require federally licensed dealers to report such information to the ATF to make it easier for authorities to trace the weapons.

The bill also would require mandatory child-safety locks on all guns sold, impose a lifetime ban on gun ownership for people who commit violent crimes as juveniles, and ban the importation of all large-capacity military clips for assault weapons, a move long championed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

A sponsor of the Brady bill, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), warned Monday that Web sites on the Internet have become a busy weapons marketplace where buyers, including teenagers, can evade federal laws.

Schumer was promoting a bill to allow only federally licensed gun dealers who conduct background checks to operate Web sites, which would be registered with the ATF.

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Times staff writer John J. Goldman contributed to this story from New York.