Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 11, 1993 TAG: 9311110131
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The House voted 238-189 for the bill and sent it to the Senate, where key members reached agreement late Wednesday on a way to overcome hurdles facing a wide-ranging crime bill and get it passed next week, a Senate aide said.
Representatives approved a Brady bill two years ago only to see it fail after being attached to a larger crime bill blocked by Senate Republicans. This time, it is being kept separate in the hope the Senate will send it to President Clinton, who has promised to sign it.
During the debate, Rep. Lucien Blackwell, D-Pa., noted that his West Philadelphia neighborhood sees hundreds of deaths each year from pistols.
"We need to stop these thugs from getting these guns rapidly, and if we pass the Brady bill, we will do that," Blackwell said. "What is wrong with waiting five days to get a pistol? What is wrong with that?"
The Brady bill, named for former press secretary James Brady, who was shot during a 1981 assassination attempt on then-President Reagan, would impose a five-day waiting period before a handgun purchase could be completed and would require a background check during that time on would-be buyers.
Sarah Brady, who posed for photos with her husband, said there will be a tough fight getting the bill through the Senate. They have campaigned for the bill for a decade. Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., supporting a successful amendment to set a deadline of five years for developing a computerized, nationwide system of instant background checks and a phaseout of the waiting period, said, "If we can check credit-card purchases instantaneously, if we can have our policemen check driving records instantaneously, then certainly we can check criminal histories instantaneously."
But Rep. Butler Derrick, D-S.C., said a waiting period of five working days is less time "than most people have to wait for their dry cleaning."
The amendment, backed by the National Rifle Association and proposed by Rep. George Gekas, R-Pa., was approved 235-198. Gun control proponents called it an attempt to gut Brady's effectiveness.
The five-year deadline was imposed on a provision already in this year's Brady bill that said when background information is sufficiently computerized and instant checks are possible, the waiting period would end and instant checks would be required on purchases of both handguns and long guns.
The House rejected 257-175 another NRA-backed amendment. It would have pre-empted all state or local laws that require waiting periods once the instant checks took effect.
Another amendment, which won overwhelming approval, would require police to provide within 20 days the reason for a denial of a right to purchase a handgun, if the person denied seeks it.
The Senate accord was negotiated nearly 24 hours after Republicans threatened a filibuster over an assault-weapons ban. The ban is likely to be attached to the $22.3 billion crime bill that calls for 100,000 more police on the streets and new prisons.
by CNB