Brady Bill

THE GUN-BAN lobby's quest for the mother of all gun controls got a boost recently when former President Reagan announced his support for the Brady bill and its waiting period on handgun sales. The crusade needed an infusion of legitimacy, not just because the lobby's arguments have been discredited, but because it has refused to support a proposed gun control measure that would effectively prevent felons and fugitives from buying handguns.Maybe the Brady bill advocates oppose that measure because they resent the idea of siding with what they call the "radical gun lobby" on a sensible, reasonable and workable gun control law. Or maybe they resent the idea of gun laws aimed specifically at felons and fugitives.

To use a metaphor the NRA boys can understand, the Brady bill was just a first shot, an opening volley.There's more to come. Much more.Now we'll try another, more civilized metaphor. Brady is like an opening argument. It's an agreement of terms. By passing the bill, we say we now agree that guns in the hands of the wrong people cause death and that we have to try to do something about the crisis.Soon, someday anyway, we'll agree that guns in the hands of even the "right" people cause death.

Houston -- The Brady Bill, requiring a seven-day wait before purchase of a handgun, is the first piece of significant gun-control legislation ever to reach the floor of Congress with a respectable chance of passage.It is supported by better than nine out of ten Americans -- including, mirabile dictu, Ronald Reagan. Four out of five citizens support the further objectives of registering all handguns and requiring a license for those packing them outside their homes or businesses. Less than half the population -- 43 percent -- wants a total ban on handguns.

WASHINGTON -- Former President Reagan's endorsement of a seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases appears to have had little effect in Garrett County.RTC According to their congresswoman, residents of the state's westernmost county are strongly against the gun-control measure, dubbed the Brady bill, after Mr. Reagan's former press secretary who was wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on the president."I've had one after another come in against the Brady bill," said Representative Beverly B. Byron, D-Md.

WASHINGTON -- Once again, crunch time is approaching on the Brady bill, the legislation that would impose a five-day waiting period on the sale of handguns while a check is made to determine that the prospective buyer has no criminal record. And its strongest advocates are worried that once again, despite overwhelming public support, it may fall between the cracks for lack of a major push by President Clinton, who says he favors it.The bill, named for James Brady, former President Ronald Reagan's press secretary severely wounded in the 1981 attempt on Reagan's life, has been before Congress for six years.

WASHINGTON -- The National Rifle Association endorsed Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett's Democratic opponent last year. Since then, the conservative freshman Republican from Western Maryland has been working hard to make sure that doesn't happen again.He took the latest step yesterday, staging a news conference outside a House committee room to complain that he had been denied permission to testify against gun control legislation at a hearing about to take place inside the room.Mr. Bartlett has introduced two pieces of legislation which he says are designed to protect the constitutional rights of gun owners.

WASHINGTON -- This being the football off-season, and with Congress in its Easter recess, the focus of attention in the nation's capital has turned to less esoteric matters, such as several drive-by shootings terrorizing a District of Columbia neighborhood over the past seven weeks.Two people have been killed and four wounded within a 10-block area by, police believe, a gunman stalking the neighborhood for individuals walking alone, mostly in the late evenings. The D.C. police have finally taken to a massive stakeout, with uniformed and plainclothes officers combing the area with a twofold purpose -- to seek clues to the identity and whereabouts of the assailant and to deter him from striking again in the terrified neighborhood.

WASHINGTON -- Announcing her gubernatorial candidacy Wednesday, Rep. Helen Delich Bentley told a Baltimore news conference that she would vote for legislation to establish a nationwide waiting period for handgun purchases.But later in the day she voted against the bill, according to the official record.Mrs. Bentley, whose campaign will include an emphasis on combating crime, says that she actually voted for the Brady bill, which requires a five-day waiting period to purchase a handgun. She insists that the electronic system that tallies the votes of House members malfunctioned in reporting her vote -- something that observers of House affairs say they have never heard of."

NEARLY 23 years ago, right after the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, one of his competitors for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, declined to support a drive for gun-control legislation inspired by Kennedy's death. Such matters should not be decided, McCarthy intoned, when emotions were running so high.The comment was music to the ears of the National Rifle Association, fearful that public outrage over the fatal shooting of Kennedy would break its grip on Congress and produce a bill limiting the sale of firearms.