House Weakens Proposal to Regulate Gun Shows

Handing a victory to the gun lobby, the House early today voted to substantially water down proposed new regulations on the gun shows, where hundreds of thousands of Americans shop for firearms.

The House proposal, approved on a vote of 218 to 211, requires background checks for all gun show purchasers, including those who buy firearms from unlicensed dealers. Currently, such transactions do not require background checks, which are designed to prevent felons from buying guns.

But the measure also would allow significantly less time, 24 hours, for the screenings than law enforcement officials say is needed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. In that way, it would loosen the regulations on background checks already in place on certain gun show sales. Licensed vendors at gun shows are now required to submit buyers to background checks that can take up to three business days.

The House vote was driven by a powerful coalition--the National Rife Assn., top GOP leaders and John D. Dingell, the House’s most senior Democrat--that sought to slow the momentum for more gun restrictions that has been building in Congress since April’s school massacre in Littleton, Colo., took 15 lives.

The House action was a bitter defeat for gun control proponents, who were seeking passage of the stricter, more expansive background checks approved in May by the Senate--a plan backed by President Clinton that the NRA said would be so burdensome that it would be the death knell of gun shows.

Clinton, in a statement issued by the White House, complained that the House “voted in the dead of night to let criminals keep buying guns at gun shows. This vote will not stand the light of day.” He suggested that he would not sign it into law if it reaches his desk.

Clinton is attending a summit of industrial nations in Cologne, Germany.

“We’re talking here about a precious right,” said Dingell, a former NRA board member who was chief sponsor of the amendment. “To go further is simply to assure that people will go around gun shows and achieve gun purchases in other ways.”

“The Dingell amendment is a ruse--plain and simple,” said Rep. Marge Roukema of New Jersey, one of the GOP lawmakers who broke with party leaders to oppose the measure.

She backed a proposal virtually identical to the stricter gun show language the Senate had passed. The House rejected that tougher measure, 235-193, after the Dingell amendment was adopted.

The Dingell amendment’s ultimate fate remains in doubt. It has been attached to a broader juvenile crime bill, which is supposed to come to a final vote today and which is not sure to pass. And even if the broader legislation clears the House, the gun show language will have to be reconciled with the Senate’s more restrictive language.

The intensity of the heavily lobbied fight--Clinton called House members from Europe and the NRA ran up a lobbying tab of more than $1.5 million--was a tribute to the continuing clout of the gun lobby, despite polls showing increased public support for gun control in response to the nation’s rash of school shootings.

Still, the shifting politics of gun control was evident as the House considered the gun show restrictions and other gun control proposals expected to be debated today, such as requiring safety locks for handguns, banning juvenile possession of assault weapons and banning imports of high-capacity ammunition clips.

GOP leaders have sponsored no gun control measures since they took charge of Congress after the 1994 elections. And although the pending measures are modest, it would have been unthinkable just a few months ago, before the Columbine High School killings, that the Republican-controlled Congress would pass them.

The Senate last month included several gun control measures, including the tougher gun show background checks, as amendments to a juvenile justice crime bill it passed. The Senate amendment would apply the three-business-day background check requirement to firearm purchases at gun shows.

Ever since the Senate vote, the NRA has lobbied hard for the House to block or water down the gun control measures it viewed as most troublesome.

Although Clinton and GOP leaders often have cast gun control as a partisan issue, the House vote found both parties deeply divided, largely along regional lines. Joining with 173 Republicans in support of the Dingell amendment were 45 Democrats. Voting against it were 163 Democrats, 47 Republicans and one independent.

Both parties see potential political advantage in the debate. Republicans recall that many Democrats lost their House seats in 1994 because of support for gun control measures. Democrats, meanwhile, hope they can win the six seats they need to regain control of the House in 2000 by casting Republicans as tools of the NRA.

As the cliffhanging roll call was gaveled to a close just after midnight, Democrats in the House chamber burst into a chant: “Six seats! Six seats!”

Even with the NRA-backed language on gun shows included, some gun rights advocates said that they may vote against the bill as a whole, especially if the House adds further gun control amendments.

The House debate on guns kicked off late Thursday night with the emotional duel between competing proposals on background checks of buyers at gun shows.

The issue centered on a quirk in the 1993 law that mandates background checks for gun sales by federally licensed dealers only. However, at a typical gun show, more than a quarter of all vendors are unlicensed, their transactions not subject to background checks.

The more than 4,000 gun shows each year account for a substantial share of the nation’s firearms business. A 1995 Duke University study estimated that 40% of the 4.5 million gun sales in the United States each year are made at gun shows or through other transactions apart from traditional gun shops.

“This is a loophole we need to close, and we can close it tonight,” said House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). “When you have kids killing kids in high schools, not just in inner cities but in suburbs all across this country, you have a national crisis.”

The defeated measure supported by gun control advocates was sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), whose husband was killed by a crazed gunman on a New York commuter train. It would require background checks at gun shows and allow up to three business days for those checks. That is the same time allowed for screening purchasers at gun stores. McCarthy’s measure was virtually identical to one the Senate passed.

The alternative backed by the NRA would apply the background-check requirement to all gun show vendors but reduce the screening period to 24 hours. Proponents contended that it is unrealistic to allow three business days for a background check at gun shows, which typically last only two or three days, usually on weekends. “The practical effect would be to kill all gun shows,” said Dingell.

The Dingell plan also limits the number of gun shows that would be subject to the background check requirement, covering only events where 50 or more firearms are for sale by at least 10 vendors. The McCarthy amendment, by contrast, had broader reach because it covered any event where 50 or more firearms are for sale by two or more vendors.

Gun control advocates said that the Dingell amendment would not allow enough time to identify felons attempting to buy guns. They noted that law enforcement officials say that, although it would not be hard to complete a background check on law-abiding citizens within 24 hours, longer checks are often needed to identify felons.

According to Justice Department estimates cited by gun control advocates, more than 17,000 ineligible people would have been able to buy guns in the last six months if only 24 hours had been allowed for each background check.

“I am trying to stop the criminals from being able to get guns,” McCarthy said in a highly personal, emotional floor speech. “If we don’t do it, shame on us because, I have to tell you, the American people will remember.”

Many Republicans supporting the Dingell amendment sought to focus on the cultural roots of violence by young people.

Said Rep. Terry Everett (R-Ala.), “We should be looking at the core of the issue: Why young people think it’s OK to commit violent crime.”

Among the California delegation, 26 of its 28 Democrats voted against the Dingell measure. The only one voting for it was Matthew G. Martinez of Monterey Park. Democrat George E. Brown Jr. of San Bernardino did not vote.

Of the state’s 24 Republican representatives, 15 voted for the Dingell measure. Those who voted against it: Brian P. Bilbray of San Diego, Mary Bono of Palm Springs, Tom Campbell of San Jose, John T. Doolittle of Rocklin, Steve Horn of Long Beach, Steven T. Kuykendall of Rancho Palos Verdes, Doug Ose of Sacramento and James E. Rogan of Glendale. Republican William M. Thomas of Bakersfield did not vote.