GOP shoots down its gun measure

WASHINGTON — In a last-minute turnaround, Senate Republicans scuttled their election-year gun legislation Tuesday after Democrats added amendments to extend an assault weapons ban and require background checks on all buyers at private gun shows.

The 90-8 vote against the bill handed Democrats and gun-control advocates an unexpected victory in the GOP-controlled Congress. It all but eliminated any chance for gun legislation this year.

"Twenty-four hours ago, I knew of no one who would have said we would be sitting where we are right now," said Mike Barnes, president of the Brady Campaign gun-control group. "The NRA's highest legislative priority was just defeated."

Beginning in September, the gun industry can resume making, importing and selling military style semiautomatic weapons that were outlawed a decade ago. Nonetheless, Democrats say they now have the Senate on record as supporting the assault weapons ban by a 52-47 vote even though Republican leaders have vowed they won't allow the House to consider it this year.

"Now we know we have our vote, and we will come back," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "If we can't get it done by Sept. 13, then you can be sure it's going to be in the presidential campaign as a bona fide issue as to whether the American people want AK47s, street sweepers and Uzis sold once again."

Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, R-Utah, voted against both extending the assault-gun ban and against the so-called gun-show loophole. Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, joined the debate in an unsuccessful attempt to kill both.

Hatch contended that some of the banned "assault weapons" "are made to look like military-style weapons but are mechanically indistinguishable from many traditional-looking deer rifles."

He added, "According to the FBI in 2001, nearly five times as many individuals are murdered at the hands of criminals wielding knives than were murdered by criminals using rifles." He added that the only accomplishment of the assault-gun ban is that "law-abiding men and women . . . are stripped of some of their Second Amendment rights."

Hatch also said that surveys of imprisoned convicts showed that fewer than 1 percent obtained weapons through gun shows. "The idea that shutting down collectors at gun shows will affect crime in any appreciable way is overstated, if not preposterous. Criminals are getting their guns on the street or from residential burglaries, not from heavily police-attended gun shows."