Bipartisan gun bill struggling
WASHINGTON -- Sometimes it takes some awkward hand-holding among sworn political foes to usher hard-fought bills through Congress. That's what seemed likely this week, with legislation inspired by the Virginia Tech shootings that would more easily flag prospective gun buyers with documented mental problems.
But even the combined superpowers of the National Rifle Association, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, have been unable to push that bill across the finish line to President Bush's desk and make it the first major gun law passed in the last decade.
"We've told the whole Congress that we support it," said NRA chief Wayne LaPierre. "If you're a law abiding person, everything in there is an advancement over current law."
"When the NRA and Chuck Schumer agree, that tells you it's something worth doing," said Schumer, a longtime foe of the gun lobby.
Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, disagrees -- and that's all it takes to stop a bill in the Senate.
His concern is that billions of dollars of new spending in the bill is not paid for by cuts in other programs. And he says the bill does not pay for appeals by veterans or other Americans who feel they have been wrongly barred from buying a gun.
"As Congress prepares to raise the debt limit once again, it is not too much to ask politicians to do the job they were elected to do and make choices," Coburn said Wednesday, backed up by another pro-gun group, Gun Owners of America. "Veterans, or any other American, should not lose their Second Amendment rights if they have been unfairly tagged as having mental health concerns."
That triggered a tough rejoinder from Bloomberg, who has his own national antigun campaign and left the GOP amid speculation that he may run for president.
"The fact that some senators don't have the courage to let it go to the floor for a vote is beyond reason," Bloomberg said in a statement. "Just like other bills that bar terrorists from buying guns and end restrictions on sharing trace data, passing this legislation is common sense for public safety and should have been done long ago."
The House passed a similar bill and was expected to accept the Senate version. If signed by President Bush, it would be the first major gun control law in more than a decade.
The legislation aims to fix flaws in the national background check system that allowed a mentally ill Virginia Tech student, to buy guns and kill 32 people April 16 in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
The gunman in the Virginia Tech shootings had been ruled a danger to himself during a court commitment hearing in 2005. He had been ordered to undergo outpatient mental health treatment and should have been barred from buying the two guns he used in the rampage. However, the commonwealth of Virginia never forwarded the information to the national background check system.
The legislation clarifies what mental health records should be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and gives states financial incentives for compliance. Gun dealers use the NICS system to determine whether to sell a prospective buyer a firearm.
The Senate version of the bill is similar to the House version passed by voice vote in June, with a few changes.
The Senate authorizes up to $400 million a year over five years in new grant funding for improvements to the information technology and state compliance programs, an increase over the House version's $250 million a year over three years. The Senate version would begin appropriations in 2009, rather than 2008 as in the House-passed version.
It also gives the attorney general discretion to penalize states beginning after three years if they do not meet compliance targets.