Congress hesitant on legislation

WASHINGTON -- Despite calls for legislative action in the wake of last week's massacre at Virginia Tech, Democratic congressional leaders have no plans to bring up major gun control bills for votes, and supporters of stricter gun laws concede that significant gun legislation is highly unlikely to get serious consideration this year.

Democratic leaders, mindful of political damage their party has sustained in the past for seeking to crack down on guns, are hesitant to push for high-profile gun bills, such as mandating trigger locks or renewing the federal assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004.

Though Democrats are generally more supportive of gun control than Republicans, the gun issue splits the country more along regional and cultural lines than by political party. Indeed, Democrats won control of the House and Senate last year only with the election of Democrats from gun-friendly states including Virginia, Indiana, Kansas, and North Carolina.

"Look at the House. Look at the Senate," said Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat who was first elected to Congress in 1996 on an antigun platform and is a leading voice in Congress for tougher gun laws. "Can I put up a whole bunch of bills? For what?"

The lack of demand for stricter gun laws by congressional leaders stands in sharp contrast to the aftermath of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado in 1999.

That year, even though Republicans controlled Congress, the House and Senate quickly considered a wave of gun control and antiviolence measures, including requiring background checks for sales at gun shows, mandatory trigger locks, and a ban on importing high-capacity ammunition clips.

Yet the initial momentum for such measures fizzled amid political wrangling and stalling tactics employed by the gun lobby. Indeed, no major bills limiting access to guns have been signed into law since 1994 -- the year an anticrime package passed that some analysts said contributed to that year's Republican rout in congressional elections.

Those experiences are well remembered by many congressional Democrats who want stricter gun laws, with Democrats saying they risk political fallout if they enrage the powerful National Rifle Association and energize the political right.

"I don't think we're going to get off the dime on anything this year," said Representative Michael E. Capuano, a Somerville Democrat who favors stricter gun laws. "It's a political judgment, but we know we're going to lose -- it's just not worth it. Some members would be hurt -- not only hurt, but they would lose [reelection]."

After the Virginia Tech rampage, gun-control advocates have more modest goals than they did in the wake of Columbine.

Representative Rosa L. DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who has led past congressional efforts to crack down on guns, said she will focus her energy not on gun control but on more achievable goals such as giving schools money to develop emergency management plans.

McCarthy, whose husband was killed and her son seriously wounded in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting, said her top short-term priority is a bill that would increase grants to states to encourage them to computerize records of criminal convictions and mental illness, to make for easier checks on gun buyers.

She said an improved system of background checks could have prevented the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, from obtaining his weapons under current federal law, because a Virginia court found in 2005 that he was mentally ill and "an imminent danger to self or others." Current law bars people judged to be "mentally incompetent" from purchasing firearms.

The NRA has begun quiet negotiations with McCarthy and some of the group's allies around the issue of background checks, raising sponsors' hopes that they could pass the measure this year.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, a cosponsor of the bill with McCarthy, said yesterday on "Fox News Sunday" that last week's events could provide momentum for the measure, though he acknowledged that stronger antigun legislation would be nearly impossible to pass.

"Given the horror that happened at Virginia Tech, I think there's a real chance of passing this so that if the next Mr. Cho walks into the gun shop, the gun owner can put it on the database and not allow him to get the gun," said Schumer, a New York Democrat.

Still, some House Democrats are skeptical that even such limited action to make existing gun laws more effective can be enacted, since the NRA has long fought any erosion of Second Amendment rights.

"The NRA has this place wrapped up," Capuano said.

NRA officials have declined to comment on gun-related legislation since the Monday shooting at Virginia Tech. Even some Democrats agree that the giant gun-rights group needs to be consulted before any action is contemplated in Congress.

"Any solution is going to require the cooperation of the NRA," said Representative Gene Taylor, a Mississippi Democrat. "I'm not anxious to throw something out there just for the sake of throwing something out after a tragedy has happened."

When Democrats last controlled both the White House and Congress, several major antigun measures passed.

In 1993, the Brady Bill became law, requiring gun buyers to wait up to five days for background checks before they could purchase a handgun in most circumstances. The following year, President Clinton signed a sweeping anticrime bill that included a federal ban on the sale of semiautomatic assault weapons.

But in the years since then, all the movement has come in the opposite direction: Under GOP control, Congress sharply limited access to federal gun-sale databases, moved to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits, and allowed the assault-weapons ban to expire in 2004.

Nonetheless, after Monday's shootings, many commentators speculated that it would lead to a showdown over gun control. Even President Bush, a staunch supporter of gun rights, predicted a major national discussion over the topic: "When a guy walks in and shoots 32 people, it's going to cause there to be a lot of policy debate," he told ABC News on Tuesday.

But Democrats have been almost universally hesitant to turn the attack into an argument for policy. The Senate's top Democrat, majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada, is a longtime proponent of gun rights and called for all involved to "take a deep breath" before pushing to change gun laws.

"I hope there's not a rush to do anything," Reid said.

Some in Congress are hoping for a chance to take on gun control in a bigger way. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he hopes public outcry will push Congress to act on concepts such as requiring a waiting period for all firearms purchases, and to reinstate the assault-weapons ban.

"The idea that we're not going to develop some kind of sensible and responsible ability to ensure that guns aren't going into the hands of people that shouldn't have them -- it's really an indictment of our society," Kennedy said in an interview.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the widespread news coverage of the tragedy could galvanize the public to demand action.

Many Americans, he said, probably think that Congress reacted strongly to Columbine, and will grow angry when they realize that gun laws remain far looser than in much of the developed world.

"The focus on this case puts the focus on how weak our gun control laws are," Helmke said. "I don't think they're going to be able to avoid a debate."