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1993-02-24
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02/22/1993 By CAROLYN SKORNECK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Teen-agers mourning friends lost to gun
violence joined congressional gun control advocates on Capitol Hill
Monday urging enactment of the Brady bill, something both advocates
and opponents agree is likely this year.
"I'm scared that it might be me next," said Julian Rowand, a
16-year-old student at St. Albans School in Washington whose closest
friend, Wardell Scott, was killed in December when he was "in the
wrong place at the wrong time."
Gun control advocates have worked since 1987 to pass the Brady
bill, which would require a waiting period for handgun purchases,
giving law enforcement time to ensure that the buyer isn't a felon
or deranged.
The difference this year is President Clinton. Unlike the
previous two presidents, he has supported the bill. In his economic
message last Wednesday, Clinton told Congress, "I'll make you this
bargain: If you pass the Brady bill, I'll sure sign it."
Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary
crime subcommittee, predicted after introducing the bill Monday in
the House, "This is the last time we'll have to do this because it's
going to pass this time."
The opposition, in the form of Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho,
acknowledged that "on a straight up-or-down vote on a five-day
waiting period, it would be very difficult to defeat."
But the National Rifle Association board member who kept the bill
from becoming law last year said its prospects "largely depend on
the package that it is ultimately put into."
Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, a Senate Judiciary Committee
member and longtime gun control proponent, warned that the bill
might be thwarted if it becomes "a Christmas tree bill with a lot of
entangling amendments."
The package doomed it in the last Congress.
President Bush had agreed to sign it only if it were included in
a comprehensive crime bill that made such other legal changes as
increasing the number of federal capital crimes and limiting appeals
by death row inmates. Both houses of Congress approved separate
versions and conferees from both agreed on a compromise Brady bill,
but the measure died as the two parties bickered over other aspects
of the legislation.
James Brady, the bill's namesake who was shot in the head 12
years ago during the attempted assassination of President Reagan,
asked Congress "to prevent what I have suffered from happening to
others. ... Do it for our kids, like these young activists here
today."
Nearly 4,000 children were murdered in 1991, about 18 percent of
all homicide victims. About 53 percent of all homicide victims that
year were killed with handguns, according to FBI statistics.
But Craig said there is "growing evidence that the waiting period
does not deter" criminals from getting guns. "What we have looked at
and what we will argue very loudly, of course, is the instantaneous
background check."
The Brady bill says the waiting period will be superceded when a
nationwide instant felon identification system goes into operation
and is used by gun dealers. The waiting period also won't be used in
states with their own system to verify purchasers' backgrounds,
either through instant identification checks or gun-buying permits.