news
WASHINGTON -- Key House and Senate Republicans say they are nearing a deal on a gun-control package that would include a mandatory background check during a 24-hour waiting period for all sales at gun shows.
The deal, according to Republican sources, would also include a ban on the import of large ammunition clips and require child safety locks on all new handguns.
As GOP leaders promised that the gun package would be voted on in both the House and Senate within the next month, Republican aides said there were still disagreements within the party over the definition of a gun show.
The aides said some GOP leaders wanted to impose the mandatory 24-hour check only on sales at large gun shows. The aides said this was an attempt to exclude mandatory background checks on purchasers at flea markets where only a few guns would be on sale.
GOP leaders said they were still trying to work out differences over the definition of a gun show. But aides to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said they expect the gun-control package to be part of a joint Senate-House juvenile justice bill that reaches the floors of both chambers within two weeks.
Democrats complained they had been excluded from the process and said the GOP bill was too weak to do much about the deaths of 13 American children each day from firearms. "Republicans want to look like they^re doing something when they^re really not doing anything," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, a member of the House delegation that was supposed to sit down with senators and draft a final bill.
"I^m disappointed and frustrated that we have not been allowed to participate," said Lofgren. "It^s been five months since the Senate passed a juvenile justice bill and four months since the House acted, but we^ve not had one business meeting."
But a Judiciary Committee Republican brushed aside the Democratic complaints. He said that in the House a coalition of virtually all Republicans and a handful of Democrats would be enough to pass the bill.
The aide said that Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a former board member of the National Rifle Association and a foe of strong gun-control laws, had been consulted by Republicans drafting the measure.
A Dingell aide said the congressman had previously sponsored a 24-hour background check provision.
GOP sources said that Democrats would face the choice of either going along with the GOP bill or opposing it and bearing the political burden of killing gun-control legislation.
Gun-control advocates criticized the GOP package. "Limiting the waiting period to 24 hours would be flatly and categorically unacceptable," said Adam Eisgrau, public policy director at Handgun Control Inc., a Washington-based advocacy group for gun control.
Under the GOP proposal, gun sellers at gun shows would be required to submit information about the purchaser to the FBI^s background check system.
Under current law, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have up to three business days to complete checks on sales at gun shops. According to the FBI, some 95 percent of the background checks are completed within two hours. About 73 percent of all checks are completed within a matter of minutes, the FBI said.
Uploaded: 10/15/1999
Uploaded: 10/15/1999