Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 19, 1994 TAG: 9403190054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The Brady law, which took effect Feb. 28, orders the designated chief law-enforcement officer for every area to make "a reasonable effort" to conduct checks within five days of a handgun buyer's application. The checks are to ensure a buyer is not prohibited from owning the gun because of criminal history or other problems such as drug addiction.
"The history of the act indicates that Congress did not envision its criminal sanctions applying to [law-enforcement officers]," said a memorandum by Walter Dellinger, the assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel.
His memo to Attorney General Janet Reno lays out the department's official interpretation of law.
Dellinger also wrote in the memo dated Wednesday and released Friday that the vagueness of the phrase "reasonable effort" conveys Congress' apparent intent to give the law-enforcement officers discretion.
Such lack of clarity also makes prosecution an "impracticality, if not impossibility," he wrote.
"That's good news, that they finally admit that," said Sheriff Richard Mack of Graham County, Ariz., who has filed one of several lawsuits - with National Rifle Association backing - seeking court orders restraining application of the law as unconstitutional.
NRA spokesman Bill McIntyre said, "It's certainly not surprising." Referring to the vagueness of "a reasonable effort," he said, "It's gratifying that this memo recognizes what we have long recognized."
Gwen Fitzgerald, spokeswoman for Handgun Control Inc., which championed the Brady law, said, "We don't feel this is out of line with what we were expecting.
"The criminal provisions in there were for people less likely to comply with the law than law-enforcement officials; i.e., gun dealers."
Justice Department spokesman Carl Stern said the department still wants the checks done. It simply won't prosecute local law-enforcement agencies who don't.
Most major law-enforcement organizations lobbied Congress to pass the bill, saying they wanted to do the checks to keep guns away from criminals.
"The response of the law-enforcement community has been overwhelmingly positive," Stern said.
Even Mack said he has complied with the Brady law's rules for the four people in his county who have sought to buy handguns.
The responsiveness of most law-enforcement agencies is reflected in a large increase in the number of queries to the Interstate Identification Index, a computerized criminal information system.
Checks of that system averaged 2,000-3,000 per weekday before Feb. 28, and 15,000-17,000 per weekday in the following two weeks, the Justice Department found.
"There has been no intervening event except the implementation of Brady which would explain this enormous, national jump in usage," said the one-page sketch released by Stern.
The background checks uncovered numerous people who were ineligible to buy handguns.
by CNB