ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 23, 1996 TAG: 9603250116
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS AND HEARST NEWSPAPERS
note: lede
In an election-year gesture to the National Rifle Association, the Republican-controlled House defied a veto threat from President Clinton on Friday and voted to lift the nation's ban on assault-style weapons.
The 239-173 vote crossed party lines and came after three hours of crackling debate. ``Let's step outside together,'' New York Republican Gerald Solomon said to Rhode Island Democrat Patrick Kennedy - 37 years his junior - after the two men clashed heatedly over the measure.
The measure would lift the 2-year-old ban on selling fearsome weapons such as AK-47s, Uzis and other semiautomatic firearms. Polls indicate strong public support for the ban, and in a last-minute maneuver to minimize political fallout, Republican leaders added provisions to the repeal bill mandating stiffer prison terms for crimes committed with firearms.
Given Clinton's veto threat, underscored by Vice President Al Gore during the day, the House vote is likely to have no practical effect on the existing ban. The 239 votes were far short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override.
But the vote served as a political flash point, as Democrats mounted a withering attack on Republicans and their leader, Speaker Newt Gingrich, for bringing the NRA's top legislative priority to a vote.
``Newt Gingrich has bent his knee and is kissing the ring of the NRA - even though most of his own Republican colleagues know that this rash step is the wrong thing to do,'' said Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
And Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., said the NRA had made more than $3.5 million in political contributions in recent years, the bulk of it to Republicans.
Gingrich did not speak during the debate, and his office declined comment. But other leading Republicans said the leaders had set the vote because they had promised it to the NRA, their political benefactor, last year. House GOP Leader Dick Armey of Texas had said Thursday that members who ran on the issue in 1994 wanted voters to know they kept their word.
In a sign of the conflicting political forces at work, Gingrich's decision seemed to cause discomfort for Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting. As Clinton was weighing in with his veto threat, Dole said the repeal measure was ``not a priority.'' In a written statement, he criticized the ban as ineffective but said, ``I am not optimistic that there is sufficient support in the Senate to pass the repeal.''
The most explosive moment came when Democrat Kennedy and Republican Solomon, chairman of the House Rules Committee, yelled at each other.
Addressing Solomon, Kennedy - whose uncles, President John F. Kennedy and New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, were gunned down by assassins - said: ``Families like mine all across this country know all too well the damage these weapons can do. And you want to arm our people even more. You want to add more magazines to the assault weapons so they can spray and kill even more people. Shame on you. What in the world are you thinking when you're opening up the debate on this issue?''
Solomon, an ex-Marine, asked Kennedy to yield the floor to him.
But the 28-year-old congressman, son of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., told the 65-year-old New Yorker: ``No, I won't yield. I won't yield because this is nothing but a sham to come on this floor and say you're going to have an open and fair debate about assault weapons. My God, all I have to say to you is: Play with the devil, die with the devil.''
His hands trembling and his voice rising, Kennedy added: ``Mr. Chairman, you'll never know what it's like because you don't have someone in your family killed. It's not the person who's killed. It's the whole family that's affected.''
When Kennedy left the podium, Solomon expressed ``great respect'' for his family. But then Solomon's voice rose to a shout and he said, ``My wife lives alone five days a week in a rural area in upstate New York. She has a right to defend herself when I'm not there, son, and don't you forget it.''
After more shouting back and forth, Solomon said, ``Let's step outside together.'' But Kennedy already was out of the chamber, and Solomon did not follow him.
The Solomons own five rifles, his spokesman said later.
Opponents of the ban said it had been ineffective in curtailing crime, and was an infringement on the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
``Prosecuting criminals and putting them behind bars is the only proven method for cutting crime,'' said Solomon. Rep. Jim Chapman, D-Texas, said the logic behind the ban was akin to outlawing ``Rolls Royces because of drunk drivers and the damage they do.''
On the roll call vote, 183 Republicans and 56 Democrats voted in favor.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke; Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon; and Rep. L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County, all voted yes.
There were 130 Democrats and 42 Republicans against the bill. And as the issue caused a split among Democrats, it pitted husband against wife on the GOP side. Rep. Susan Molinari, R-N.Y., who represents a district centered in Staten Island, voted to uphold the ban. Her husband, Rep. Bill Paxon, from a Buffalo-area district, voted to repeal it.
The vote was the second triumph in the House in two weeks for the NRA, which backed a controversial series of changes last week in an anti-terrorism bill.
But Tanya Metaksa, chief lobbyist for the NRA, said the issue wasn't partisan. ``It's also interesting that 56 Democrats voted for this bill,'' she said
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