...lawmakers have no answers
Monday, April 28, 2003
By BILL CAHIR
Washington Bureau
Despite recent school shootings in New Orleans, La., and Red Lion, Pa., Congress is not poised to take any new action to promote school safety or to pass any new gun-control legislation.
Lawmakers, in fact, may cut safe-schools funding next year, responding to a White House budget proposal and pressures to cut deficit spending.
The only gun legislation slated for action in the immediate future is measure sought by the National Rifle Association. It would block cities, including Philadelphia, from suing manufacturers of firearms. House lawmakers passed the bill on April 9, the day Baghdad fell to American troops.
Supporters claim gun makers should not be sued for selling legal handguns that function properly.
The April 1999 massacre of 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. -- a notorious incident that ended with the suicide of the two assailants -- sparked a gun-control debate in Congress and the nation. U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., sponsored an amendment to close the gun-show loophole, a provision of federal law allowing buyers to purchase weapons at traveling gun bazaars without undergoing three-day background checks.
The Senate narrowly passed Lautenberg's proposal, but the House approved a different approach. Lautenberg never managed to dislodge his proposal from a House-Senate conference committee, as gun-friendly lawmakers in both parties sought to maintain existing law and succeeded in that effort.
Lautenberg plans to announce his support today for a new gun-control bill, the Homeland Security Gun Safety Act.
He would have the government more strictly regulate sales of firearms and explosives when the government elevates the terror threat to yellow, the current standard, or above.
Government officials under Lautenberg's bill would be given an unlimited amount of time, instead of three days, to conduct criminal background checks.
They would be given the normal schedule when the terror warning abated to a level below a significant risk.
It is unclear how Lautenberg's new plan will fare in the Senate, which is divided between the parties, 51-49.
In any case, the bill is not specifically aimed at promoting school safety or at keeping guns out of the hands of unsupervised youths.
Copyright 2003 Bridgeton News.
)