Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 26, 1994 TAG: 9404260125
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
But banning 19 types of assault weapons and limiting ammunition clips to five rounds, as a pending House bill proposes, would do no good, she told the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime Monday.
``It takes one second to switch a clip,'' the 34-year-old chiropractor said, demonstrating with a pantomime in the air.
Ken Brondell Jr. of Canyon Country, Calif., said whatever short time it does take and the fact that each clip contains fewer bullets can make a difference.
``If it would save one life ... obviously the law is worth it,'' said Brondell, whose sister, Los Angeles Police Officer Christy Brondell Hamilton, was killed Feb. 18 when a teen-ager fired an assault-style weapon through the door of her squad car.
Seven victims of gun violence who testified favored the bill. Three were opposed.
At the White House, President Clinton threw his weight behind the bill, which would spare 650 listed sporting firearms from the ban.
During a Rose Garden ceremony with crime victims, the president held aloft an AR-15 automatic rifle. ``These weapons were designed for the battlefield, not the streets of America,'' he said.
Grim-faced, Clinton eyed the long, black weapon and criticized the House for so long resisting such legislation.
``Who are we trying to kid?'' he asked. ``There is an air of unreality about this debate.''
Stephen Sposato - whose wife, Jody, was among eight people slain July 1, 1993, when a gunman invaded a San Francisco law firm with an assault weapon - emphatically supported the ban.
``How long must the parade of amputee families be?'' he asked, at the House hearing. ``How long must the march of the participants be, the mourners and maimed? How long, before our government takes action?''
The Senate passed an identical ban last November as part of its crime bill. The House passed a crime bill last week without voting on the gun ban.
Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., subcommittee chairman, said he believes 15 to 20 more votes are needed for passage of a separate ban bill in the House, which never has supported any ban on assault-style weapons.
In the audience, prepared to help push the bill, was former Rep. John Anderson, R-Ill., a one-time presidential candidate.
``I have long been convinced that one of the principal components of the crime emergency we have in American today is because of the flood of guns,'' Anderson said in an interview. ``None is more vicious or more unnecessary than these assault weapons.''
Jacquie Miller - shot four times during a co-worker's 1989 attack with an AK-47 assault-style weapon at the Standard Gravure Printing Co. in Louisville, Ky. - opposes the ban.
``It completely enrages me that my tragedy is being used against me to deny me and all the law-abiding citizens of this country the right to the firearm of our choosing,'' Miller said.
Gratia, meanwhile, said she was fed up with those offering a ``sporting purposes'' requirement for guns.
``The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting,'' she said. ``It's about our right to protect ourselves from you guys up there.''
Both said they were not National Rifle Association members, although the NRA has helped finance their speaking trips.
The NRA maintains that the way to stop gun violence is to lock up wrongdoers for a long time. But several of those opposing the ban acknowledged that their assailants had no criminal records.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., said the gun President Clinton used for hunting last year and one that would be banned by the legislation, both Benelli 12-gauge shotguns, differed only in that the latter has a pistol grip and can hold seven shells, four more than the other.
He challenged ban supporters to explain why the rules should differ.
``Any true sportsman doesn't need the extra four bullets,'' for hunting, responded Sposato.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB