Why Wait a Week to Kill?

By Ed Magnuson

"Guns don't kill; people do." The simple logic of that refrain from the National Rifle Association would suggest that the nation's 2.8 million-member gun lobby would support any move to keep the wrong people from acquiring deadly weapons. Not so. The N.R.A. invariably goes to war against any attempt to limit the avalanche of handguns that are used to kill 21,000 Americans annually. Last week the gun lobby triumphed in its latest campaign, a $4 million effort against a sensible congressional proposal to strengthen existing federal restrictions on the sale of handguns. The legislation would have required gun dealers to wait seven days before completing a sale, giving police time to determine whether a buyer is a convicted felon, an illegal alien, a drug abuser or a mental patient. Last week the House meekly bowed to N.R.A. pressure and killed the proposed waiting period by a vote of 228 to 182.

The legislation was inspired in part by Sarah Brady, wife of White House Press Secretary James Brady, who remains an invalid seven years after being hit by one of John Hinckley's bullets during the attempt to assassinate President Reagan. She has led a series of fights for tighter gun laws. The Brady amendment enjoyed broad support from gun-control opponents, including an unusual coalition of eleven national police organizations. Even the President praised the idea of a waiting period, citing how well it has worked in California. But with elections only six weeks away, many Congressmen who favored the proposal could not ignore the powerful N.R.A..

Florida Republican Congressman Bill McCollum Jr. offered a way out of the quandary. He proposed replacing the waiting-period requirement with a provision to give all 275,000 federally licensed gun dealers in the U.S. instant access to a nationwide list of convicted felons. Prospective gun buyers could be fingerprinted and the samples sent electronically to Washington for an instantaneous check against the FBI's millions of prints.

But there is no master list of convicted felons, no way to make such data quickly and widely available, and no speedy means of sending and matching fingerprints. A network to provide such information could take years to create and cost up to $500 million; making it available to gun dealers could violate civil liberties. Beyond that, McCollum's system would not prevent gun sales to illegal aliens and the mentally ill.

Still, a majority of House members reached for this fig leaf. They voted to kill the Brady amendment and replace it with McCollum's phantom plan. Even leading Democrats from states where the N.R.A. is strong, like House Majority Leader Tom Foley of Washington and House Whip Tony Coelho of California, supported the gun lobby. They contended, as has George Bush, who boasts that he is a life member of the N.R.A., that such restrictive legislation should be left to the states. But only 22 states require waiting periods. A gun buyer in a hurry need only cross a state line to speed his purchase.

That disparity caused Illinois Republican Henry Hyde, one of the House's most conservative legislators, to abandon his normal states' rights stance. "These guns are ambulatory," Hyde argued. "This is a national problem. If we made it a little more difficult for someone who is angry and wants to kill, maybe we would save some lives." Demonstrating how the issue cuts across both ideology and geography, Speaker Jim Wright of Texas joined Hyde in opposing the McCollum proposal, despite his home state's animus to gun control.

Their logic did not prevail against the N.R.A.'s cold cash. Collectively, the Congressmen who voted to doom the waiting period have received $1,167,908 from the gun lobby in the past five years. The 70% of Americans who support tighter gun controls are rarely as passionate, vocal or generous.

With reporting by Hays Gorey/Washington