Clinton Adds Voice to Students Lobbying for Gun Bill

President Clinton joined more than 90 high school students visiting from Denver on Thursday in urging Congress to pass gun control legislation that is facing obstacles on Capitol Hill.

“For the past three months, the gun lobby has been calling the shots on Capitol Hill,” Clinton said during a South Lawn appearance with the students. “Now it’s time for Congress to listen to the lobbyists who truly matter: our children, the people who will be most affected by what is or is not done by the Congress.”

The students came to Washington to lobby Congress on gun control at a time when new hurdles are delaying action on even a handful of relatively modest measures. While Republican leaders insist they expect some proposals--including one requiring safety locks on handguns and another banning the import of big ammunition clips--ultimately to be sent to Clinton, they so far have been stymied in efforts to even begin negotiations on the final version of the bill.

Clinton urged the Republican-controlled Congress to send him a “strong bill” before the start of a new school year. “Let’s show all our children that when it comes to making their classrooms and communities safe from gun violence, America did not take a summer vacation,” he said.

The student visit was organized by SAFE, or Sane Alternative to the Firearms Epidemic, a Colorado gun control advocacy group formed after the Columbine High School massacre in April, which left a teacher and 14 students dead, including the two killers.

After meeting with Clinton at the White House, the students went to Capitol Hill to press their case.

“We demand that Congress put aside partisan politics and pass reasonable gun control legislation,” Ben Gelt, an organizer of the lobbying effort, said at a news conference with lawmakers who favor gun control.

“We will not go quietly into the night,” David Winkler, another organizer, added. “We are the students of today and the voters of next year.”

Among the visiting students was Erin Flynn, a student from Columbine who lost two close friends in the April 20 shooting.

“Every day I have to live with the fact I will never see my friends again,” she said during a tearful plea for congressional action.

A small group of the students also met with House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Vice President Al Gore, who has been keeping a high profile in the gun control debate ever since he cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass a key amendment to impose new background check requirements on people who buy firearms at gun shows. He also called for other stringent measures in a major anti-crime speech early this week.

Gore told the Colorado students that the politics of the gun control issue have long been shaped by the fact that advocates of gun owners’ rights are perceived as being more passionate and politically powerful than advocates of stricter gun control.

“We’re going to have to combat the gun lobby with a family lobby that is more powerful,” he said.

When the students fanned out across Capitol Hill to lobby other lawmakers, they got a mixed reception. Although they were greeted warmly by Gephardt, they were rebuffed when they approached Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), a leading ally of the National Rifle Assn., who refused to talk to the students.

The students arrived here at a time when gun control legislation that passed the Senate in May has been stalled by a series of practical and procedural obstacles.

Approved by the Senate as amendments to a juvenile crime bill, the measures would require more stringent background checks for gun show purchases, safety locks on handguns and a ban on the import of large ammunition clips.

But in the House, where gun control opponents are a more powerful force, the amendments were dropped from the bill.

And in the four weeks since the House vote, neither chamber has taken even the preliminary step of appointing members of a House-Senate conference committee that could reconcile differences between the two versions. One of the NRA’s strongest supporters, Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire--the presidential candidate who just dropped out of the Republican Party because it was backing away from conservative principles like protecting gun owners’ rights--has threatened to mount a filibuster to block appointment of conferees.

House Republican leaders had said they expected to name conferees this week, but a new wrinkle has emerged that will postpone it again. John Feehery, a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said that parliamentary experts have concluded that the Senate-passed import ban, because it affects tariffs, amounts to a revenue measure--and all such measures are supposed to originate in the House.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) had said he expected to name conferees this week. But if Smith makes good on his filibuster threat, the usually routine action would be subject to extended debate, even if Lott musters the 60 votes needed to cut off the filibuster.