NEAL KNOX REPORT
Senate Voting On Guns
By Neal Knox

     WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 11) – The U.S. Senate today began considering the Juvenile Justice bill, S. 254, with an agreement between the leaders of both parties that there will be “full and open debate” and votes on many amendments – including numerous ‘gun control’ measures.
     Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, citing the Columbine High School murders, said he intends to vote for some of those gun amendments.
     According to well-wired sources, the Senate intends to have the bill completed and passed by Thursday evening, May 13. That same day, House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) will begin hearings on “Teen Violence and Culture.”
     The full House intends to take up S. 254 next week, and pass it by May 21. There is supposed to be a fast House-Senate conference early the following week with the intention of having the Juvenile Justice Bill – with several anti-gun amendments – on President Clinton’s desk before Memorial Day.
     A veteran lobbyist told me yesterday: “I’ve never seen such well-greased railroad tracks.”
 There is absolutely no question that we will lose gun rights during the next few days and weeks, even if the schedule doesn’t go quite as quickly as planned.
     The only question is how many cuts we will receive, and how deep they will be.
White House Spokesman Bruce Reed said during a press briefing last week that the parts of the President's package that they most want to enact are "to require background checks at gun shows" and on black powder and explosives purchases, to ban handgun possession of handguns by minors and to impose a lifetime ban on gun ownership for "violent juveniles."
     Because NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said he will “consider” background checks at gun shows if no fee is charged (it isn’t at present) and no records on the law-abiding are kept (they’re now kept at least 18 months), additional restrictions on private transfers at gun shows are almost a certainty.
     Similarly, LaPierre said during his Denver members’ meeting speech that NRA won’t object to background checks on explosives purchasers if “reloading powders” are exempted, which is what the White House proposes – exempting smokeless propellants but not blackpowder. NRA has long called for juvenile records of adult-type felony crimes to be kept open.
     Those positions virtually assure that the White House minumums are the floor of what is likely to pass.
     Yesterday, President Clinton hosted a “White House Conference on Juvenile Violence,” supposedly to “bring all groups together” – but with NRA pointedly not invited and major figures from the Hollywood and entertainment industry boycotting it because Clinton partially blamed gratuitous movie and television violence. (That boycott isn’t expected to affect a $2 million Hollywood fundraiser that Clinton will attend this weekend.)
     Representatives from the gun industry did attend the White House conference, including Glock, Smith & Wesson, Mossberg and the newly reorganized American Shooting Sports Council. But Bob Delfay, head of ASSC’s new partner group, the National Shooting Sports Council – a spin-off of the National Shooting Sports Foundation which represents most of the bigger gun companies – didn’t attend.
     Delfay was angry because after he and Bob Ricker of ASSC worked out what they thought were agreements with the Administration last week, the White House announced the agreements, then a group of Senators including Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein introduced the unaltered Administration package.
     In addition to the White House “priority list,” the Senators’ bills includes imposing penalties on adult gun owners whose children misuse their parents’ guns, prohibiting gun sales on the Internet, banning possession of handguns and high-capacity magazines by those under 18, expanding BATF’s gun tracing program, and establishing a three-day waiting period on all handgun purchases.
     A wide range of other provisions are in the Clinton “Comprehensive Package,” including “safe storage,” one-gun-per-month and much else.
     Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has introduced S. 991, imposing stringent restrictions on providing handguns and handgun ammo to juveniles – and demanding “immediate supervisory” control by parents or with written parental permission for the excepted activities such as hunting and target shooting.
     Republican Presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole has called for banning so-called “assault weapons” and other gun restrictions, and poll-leading candidate Gov. George W. Bush has chimed in in favor of background checks at gun shows.
     Those steps by Republican leaders – and the mere agreement for this week’s series of gun votes by Majority Leader Trent Lott (who at last year’s NRA Banquet assured members that no gun control measures would occur on his watch) – makes it clear just how much danger the Second Amendment is facing this week.
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