ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 23, 1996 TAG: 9603260010
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
THE HOUSE of Representatives disgraced itself Friday in a sudden frenzy to repeal a 2-year-old ban on assault weapons. Lawmakers sidestepped normal procedures to force a quick vote, the better to prove fealty to the National Rifle Association in an election year.
Right there doing its bidding were Virginia Reps. Bob Goodlatte, Rick Boucher and L.F. Payne, one Republican and two Democrats, a regular bipartisan coalition from this part of Virginia committed to preserving every American's right to bear a military-style assault weapon. Next thing you know, if someone doesn't stop this anti-gun crowd, they'll be trying to outlaw sportsmen's howitzers.
"The [assault-weapons ban] bill passed; the American people wanted it," an angry Carolyn McCarthy told a packed congressional committee room. Her husband was killed and one son partially paralyzed when a deranged man with a 9-mm semiautomatic pistol mowed down passengers on a Long Island commuter train in 1993. "Why do we have to do this again?"
Why? C'mon, Mrs. McCarthy, you know why. Because the gun lobby wants us to. It made repeal of the ban its top legislative priority this year. And to many in Congress, what the gun lobby wants is more important than the wishes of the 70 percent of the American public who support the ban.
Supporters of repeal say that relatively few crimes are committed using the banned weapons. They fail to note that when these high-powered guns are used, their effect is devastating. Health professionals, left to try to repair the damage being wreaked by America's domestic arms race, say assault weapons are favored mostly by criminals, and it is extremely hard to save their victims.
Supporters of repeal argue that the ban is based on a gun's superficial characteristics rather than its firepower, firing speed, accuracy or deadliness. If their concern is that the ban isn't as effective as it could be in identifying and getting the most lethal weapons off the streets, perhaps they'd rewrite the law to accomplish better what the current ban already is doing. In its first year, reports Attorney General Janet Reno, there was an 18 percent drop in the number of assault weapons traced to crimes.
Supporters of repeal insist the ban is mostly symbolic. They have a point. But what about their votes to repeal? As a matter of political reality, repeal may not even be taken up this year in the Senate. Opponents there promise a filibuster. Majority Leader Bob Dole, when his eye was on the GOP presidential nomination, promised the NRA last year that a repeal vote would be held. But now, with his eye on the general election, he's giving the bill low priority. There is, after all, that 70 percent of the public telling pollsters they favor the ban.
If, in spite of common sense, public safety and popular sentiment, the repeal should pass both houses of Congress, President Clinton has pledged to veto it. But even this modest measure of rational gun control may yet be blown away sometime. Like a cocked rifle in the distance ready to go off, catching its target unaware, repeal of the assault-weapons ban awaits more favorable political conditions. A violence-weary public should be alert to the danger.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 linesby CNB