House votes to close gun-purchase loophole

WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to close a loophole in gun-control laws that allowed the Virginia Tech gunman to buy firearms even though he had been committed to a mental hospital. The Senate is likely to follow suit, marking the first time since 1996 that Congress has approved a measure strengthening gun control.

The bill's approval, on a voice vote, came on the same day as the release of a report President Bush ordered after the shootings in April at Virginia Tech, in which a student killed 32 people and himself. The Cabinet agencies that wrote the report found that schools, doctors and the police were not fully aware of what information could legally be shared in a web of confusing and overlapping privacy laws.

The House bill, a compromise between gun rights supporters and gun control advocates on both sides of the aisle, would provide grant money for states to update the national database that gun dealers use for background checks on prospective buyers. The update would add more criminal records and mental health information to the database.

One of the sponsors of the bill was Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat who has led other efforts to tighten gun control laws and whose husband was killed by a gunman in 1993. McCarthy called the bill a "good policy that will save lives."

Two co-sponsors were her ideological opposites: Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican who supports gun rights, and Rep. John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who served on the board of the National Rifle Association. Both the NRA and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence supported the measure.

"This act will ensure that the background check system really is instant and accurate," Smith said.

Another gun rights group, Gun Owners of America, opposed the measure. Erich Pratt, the organization's communications director, said it forces "honest, law-abiding people to have to prove their innocence to a bureaucrat before they exercise their constitutional rights."

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said that he hoped to introduce the bill in the Senate without amendments "very soon" and that passage was likely.

"When the NRA and I agree on legislation, you know that it's going to get through, become law and do some good," Schumer said.

Passing an unchanged bill in the Senate is paramount, said Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA.