[ OUR OPINION ]
Assault-weapons ban
should be extendedDODGING an unforeseen ricochet, the gun lobby has retreated from its attempt to shield the firearms industry from lawsuits. Proponents of moderate gun controls attached provisions to renew the 10-year ban on assault weapons and require background checks on customers at gun shows prompted the National Rifle Association to call back its troops. The assault-weapons ban extension and background checks should be enacted later.
THE ISSUE
The Senate has rejected a bill to shield gun makers and dealers from lawsuits after two gun-control proposals were attached to it.
Hawaii's permanent prohibition of assault weapons and pistol ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds preceded the federal ban. Hawaii remains one of six states that have such restrictions. Allowing the federal ban to expire in September, which now seems likely, would undermine those laws.
The federal ban needs to be not only extended but strengthened. Clones of the banned weapons have appeared on the market, and one was used by the Washington, D.C.-area snipers who killed 10 people in 2002. The Washington state gun dealer who was the source of that assault weapon claims to have lost records of the transaction. The NRA legislation would have created a legal shield for such dealers.
President Bush favors immunity for gun manufacturers and dealers and also is on the record supporting an extension of the assault-weapons ban and the gun show background checks. However, he was opposed to those proposals being part of the same bill.
Vice President Dick Cheney was available at the Senate to break a possible tie on the issue, but that was not necessary. A vote by Cheney against the assault-weapons ban and the background checks would have provided a classic example of legislative inconsistency, a label that Bush has attached to Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
The Senate approved the weapons ban by 52 to 47 and the background checks by 53 to 46. Senators Inouye and Akaka and most other Democrats voted with moderate Republicans in favor of the amendments. At that point, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA executive vice president, sent an e-mail to senators urging them to defeat the bill. Reading the message on their BlackBerry pagers, the senators killed the bill by a vote of 90 to 8.
"I'm a bit numb," remarked Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., sponsor of the weapons-ban extension. "They had the power to turn around at least 60 votes in the Senate. That's amazing to me."
In his e-mail, LaPierre said his organization would use the votes on the two amendments "in our future evaluations and endorsement of candidates." Under that intimidation, Congress is not likely to consider an extension of the weapons ban this year, forcing law-enforcement authorities in Hawaii to be wary of assault weapons being imported from other states.
