Lawmakers Struggle to Respond to Tragedy

As Littleton, Colo., buried more victims of its high school massacre, official Washington struggled Tuesday to respond to a tragedy that has resurrected the perennial debate over gun control.

On one side of the political ledger, engines were revving. On the other, brakes were screeching. While Democrats patrolled for any opening to press legislation that has been thwarted for years, Republicans asked their colleagues to “take a breath.”

President Clinton unveiled a gun reform package he hoped would be ushered into law on sheer national outrage. It landed in Congress a few hours later, the most ambitious proposals seemingly dead on arrival.

With the GOP majority backed by the powerful gun lobby, little of magnitude was expected to pass this Congress. Still, lawmakers offered up an assortment of ideas, from a surgeon general study on media violence to a government-sponsored summit on youth and culture.

Congress’ most experienced members on the issue--Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California paramount among them--weighed whether the Columbine High School slaughter would change a political equation that thus far has resisted new legal measures.

“If we don’t stand up and say: ‘Enough is enough,’ when will we stand up?” Feinstein asked, even while conceding the odds are long.

“To get anything through this Congress is extraordinarily difficult,” she acknowledged.

But gun control advocates considered it a victory that the Columbine tragedy might, at the very least, force Congress to debate an issue that for years has been locked in stalemate.

Democratic gun control proponents proclaimed a “breakthrough” after Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said Tuesday that they could offer a series of gun control and school safety amendments during debate on a juvenile justice bill scheduled to come up within two weeks.

The gun control advocates conceded that was no guarantee they would win--and that even the Democratic caucus was not united on the issue. But they hoped to win some converts in the process.

“In two weeks there will be a showdown,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “My guess is we’re going to have some success. My guess is the climate has changed.”

Democrats sought to offer a variety of measures this week to capitalize on the public revulsion--including holding gun owners liable if their weapons fall into the hands of a child and are used in a violent crime. But Lott urged eager legislators to sit tight.

“I have asked that we have a brief period of mourning where we don’t rush to judgment before we start flinging amendments at each other, that we think about it,” he said.

Reflecting a widely held Republican view, he called it a “knee-jerk reaction” to think that the Colorado shootings called out for tougher gun laws.

But as images of the grim parade of funerals of Columbine victims continued to flicker on televisions across America, Republicans are trying to reframe the issue as a problem rooted in America’s culture and its children, not its guns.

“Let’s set some rules. How about a dress code? How about random inspection of lockers?” offered Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican and National Rifle Assn. board member. “Maybe it’s time you bring discipline back to school and you say to the bad actors, ‘you’re out.’ ”

In a bipartisan gesture, two congressmen took the entertainment industry to task, calling on the U.S. surgeon general to update its study on “the impact of media on violent behavior in children and young adults.”

“The last time our government issued a surgeon general’s report on media and violence was nearly 30 years ago,” Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Dan Burton (R-Ind.) said in a statement. “In [the film] ‘Basketball Diaries,’ Leonardo DiCaprio dreams of murdering a classroom full of students and their teacher. He is wearing a trench coat and carrying a rifle. His friends laugh. It’s just a dream. That was 1995 . . . just a dream.”

At a White House ceremony, the president spoke passionately about gun control, but he conceded it would take nothing less than a seismic shift in public pressure for his proposal to be enacted by Congress.

Clinton acknowledged that the hunting and sport shooting culture is “hard to change,” and he urged that gun enthusiasts be persuaded to view the new rules as no more inconvenient than airport metal detectors and X-ray machines.

“You don’t have to pretend it won’t be a hassle. Tell them you know it will be a hassle,” Clinton told his audience. “It’s worth it. People’s lives are at stake.”

The president also blamed the NRA for “scaring” sportsmen into believing that their right to bear arms would be endangered.

Clinton’s proposal would generally raise from 18 to 21 the legal age for handgun possession and would allow a person to purchase only one handgun a month.

The bill’s notable provisions include one that would hold adults responsible when their firearms are used by children in acts resulting in injury or death--if the adults had “knowingly” or “recklessly” allowed a child access to guns. The penalty could be as much as three years’ imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, or both.

The Gun Enforcement and Accountability Act would also require background checks on all gun sales, including those at gun shows--a prime source of guns used in crimes. And it would require similar background checks before the sale of explosives.

At the White House ceremony, the president had the last word: “We can pass it all if the American people want it badly enough. And we don’t need to go through another Littleton for the American people to want it badly enough.”

But that was hardly the last word in Congress.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) promptly responded he was not convinced Clinton’s package would solve anything.

House Majority Whip Tom Delay (R-Texas), whose office was shot up last year by a crazed gunman, denounced the White House proposal as self-serving.

“When politicians use tragedies to advance their political causes, it only makes bad situations worse. . . . I am offended by the president’s political maneuvering.”

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Times staff writer Rich Simon contributed to this story.

Video of President Clinton’s remarks Tuesday regarding his proposed gun control legislation is available on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/shootings