NRA’s Good Times Roll On

It looks like another good year for the National Rifle Assn. after all. The horrific Columbine High School massacre last April quickly led to four modest national proposals aimed at preventing more senseless violence. Each had strong public support and NRA opposition. The proposals, amendments to the juvenile justice bill, then moving through Congress, would have extended the Brady law’s background checks on gun purchasers to gun shows, outlawed the import of ammunition clips with more than 10 bullets, required child safety locks on all new handguns and barred juveniles from obtaining assault weapons.

At first, with grieving Columbine families dominating the news and revelations that some of the guns used in the shooting were purchased illegally at a gun show, these sensible proposals had momentum. The Senate version of the juvenile crime bill passed with all four intact.

But the House version did not. And six months later, after an Atlanta day trader shot up two brokerage houses and killed his wife and children before killing himself, after a white supremacist allegedly sprayed a Granada Hills Jewish day camp and killed a mailman and after workplace shootings in Honolulu and Seattle and Wednesday’s shooting at a North Hills clinic, a House-Senate conference committee has met exactly once and remains deadlocked on these no-brainer gun provisions.

Immediately after Columbine, some gun enthusiasts preposterously suggested that schools would be safer if students or teachers were all armed. But the NRA professionals took over, knowing that the real deals get cut behind the scenes, away from talk-show microphones.

We imagine the usual campaign contribution promises were extended, the usual veiled threats of revenge at the ballot box leveled. And the result now, as Congress is on the brink of adjournment, is this: no gun show checks to screen out criminals or people with a history of mental illness or under-age buyers, no import limit on ammunition clips, no child safety lock requirement, no ban on juvenile assault weapons possession.

By the time Congress returns in January, about 200 more gun shows will have been held nationally. Yes, the gun lobby is right to say that new laws will not deter every gunman with a grudge or a mental breakdown. But by its disgraceful inaction, Congress and the NRA in effect stand shoulder to shoulder for the proposition that criminals and juveniles deserve a chance to arm themselves.

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To Take Action: To urge support for the gun provisions included in S254, contact the House-Senate conference committee chairmen, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), (202) 224-5251, and Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), (202) 225-4561. Their fax numbers and e-mail addresses can be found at www. latimes.com (Click on Politics under the Breaking News menu at top left of opening screen, then scroll down to “Write to Congress” in the Get Involved box).