Waiting Period

"It's just plain common sense," President Reagan said yesterday, "that there be a waiting period to allow local law enforcement officials to conduct background checks on those who wish to buy a handgun."With that indisputable sentence, the former president endorsed the Brady Bill -- a piece of legislation carrying the name of Reagan's former press secretary who bears grievous lifelong injuries as a result of a bullet fired by a deranged man 10 years ago in the attempt on Reagan's life.One despairs to think how many lives might have been saved, or how many people might have been spared Jim Brady's life as a cripple, if Reagan had stated this "plain common sense" eight years ago in order to push through the mandatory waiting-period bill.

Baltimore's historical preservation commission on Tuesday officially disapproved of demolishing the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre. The vote by the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, or CHAP, means the city's Department of Housing and Community Development, which issues demolition permits, will not be able to proceed for at least six months. Owings Mills-based developer David S. Brown Enterprises Ltd. and the Washington architecture firm Shalom Baranes Associates released plans in the spring that called for the demolition of the Mechanic and the construction of two residential towers in its place.

WASHINGTON -- The House Judiciary Committee decisively approved a bill yesterday that would establish a seven-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns, opening the way for the full House to act on the measure in about two weeks.Supporters of the measure, which received an unexpected boost when former President Ronald Reagan endorsed it late last month, hailed the 23-11 vote and said it would aid thebill's chances on the House floor.Six Republicans joined 17 Democrats in approving the measure.

As Carroll farmers and government officials gather tonight to celebrate preserving nearly 42,000 acres of county farmland from development, they know that the hardest part of their quest to save a total of 100,000 acres lies ahead. Rising land costs caused by development competition, the uncertainty of state money for programs and a shrinking supply of large tracts of farmland will make the going tougher, county officials say. But preserving farmland remains important to Carroll's quality of life and economic health, county leaders agree.

By almost a 3-to-1 margin, respondents to The Evening Sun's phone survey favor legislation that would require a seven-day waiting period for firearms purchases.Of 841 callers, 619 (74 percent) think the waiting period should be required; 222 callers (26 percent) oppose the legislation.The survey represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically, as would be done in a scientific public opinion poll.

Former President Reagan has endorsed legislation that would require a seven-day waiting period for firearms purchases. Meanwhile, President Bush--long an opponent of such gun-control legislation--is said to be willing to discuss the legislation.The Evening Sun wants to know whether you think such a waiting period should be required for firearm purchases.To register your opinion, call SUNDIAL at 783-1800 (or 268-7736 in Anne Arundel County). After you hear the greeting, you'll be asked to punch in a four-digit code on your Touch-Tone phone.

When a prospective customer walks into a gun shop in Maryland to purchase a handgun, he or she must wait two weeks for a state police criminal record check.Besides handguns, the two-week waiting period also applies to purchases of the Mossburg Bull Pup shotgun and military assault-type rifles, such as the AKS, Colt Sporter and Uzi carbine, which all fire in semiautomatic mode.Other shotguns and rifles can be bought immediately without a record check, said Melvin Abrams, president of the corporation that operates the Valley Gun Shop, in the 7700 block of Harford Road in Parkville.

CONGRESS should enact, and President Bush should sign, the so-called Brady Bill, which would require a weeklong waiting period before dealers could deliver handguns to buyers. During this delay, police could check records to see if the purchaser has a criminal record. Some people would be stopped from acting on violent, momentary impulses.More than 20,000 Americans are killed by handguns every year. Common sense tells us that some of those lives could have been saved if legislation similar to the Brady Bill had been on the books.

A Virginia gun dealer pleaded guilty yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court to illegally selling a handgun to an undercover state trooper during a gun show at the Pikesville armory last May.Keith Alfred Cumberland, 50, a federal government employee from Manassas, received 18 months' probation and a $1,500 fine for selling the gun, a Beretta 7.65, without a Maryland license. He entered an Alford plea to the misdemeanor charge, meaning that he can continue to maintain that he is innocent while conceding that the prosecution had sufficient evidence to convict him.Mr.

When doctors diagnosed Mitchell Berman with terminal brain cancer two years ago, his wife thought Social Security Disability benefits would help defray the cost of caring for the dying man.Then they received the startling news: the Bermans would have to wait at least five months to begin collecting those benefits -- even though doctors estimated the Columbia resident would live just two to three months after the July 1992 diagnosis."

Waiting Period, by Hubert Selby Jr. Marion Boyers Publishers Ltd. 155 pages. $22.95 Remember Hubert Selby? Most doubtless still recognize the names of Saul Bellow, John Cheever, C.P. Snow, Edna O'Brien, Ken Kesey, Anthony Powell and Gore Vidal, whose publications of the year 1964 shared the best-seller lists with Selby's first novel Last Exit to Brooklyn. The book received added attention for being the subject of an obscenity prosecution. In 1989, the film of the same name won huge critical acclaim and box-office success, but little interest in the writer has continued beyond cult circles.

MedImmune Inc.'s $1.56 billion acquisition of vaccine developer Aviron has passed a key antitrust hurdle, clearing the way for its approval should a majority of Aviron stockholders tender their shares in favor of the deal by midnight Wednesday. The Gaithersburg pharmaceutical company said yesterday that a 30-day waiting period had expired without the Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission objecting to the deal on antitrust grounds, clearing the way for the acquisition. The deadline for Aviron shareholders to tender their shares could be extended.

The chairman of the Carroll homebuilders association said the industry won't be inconvenienced while Mount Airy puts new development proposals on hold for a few months to study the town's water supply. Richard L. Hull, who works in Mount Airy as owner of Carroll Land Services Inc. and serves as chairman of the county chapter of the Homebuilders Association of Maryland, said he's had no complaints. "The plans that have been previously submitted in the concept phase or beyond they're allowing to move forward," he said.

WASHINGTON -- The law requiring a five-day waiting period to buy a handgun is scheduled to expire in November, and gun-control advocates are girding for a bruising late-summer fight with the National Rifle Association and its supporters in Congress over whether to extend it.The law, part of the Brady bill that Congress approved in 1993, requires gun buyers in many states to wait as long as five working days before taking new handguns home, giving state and...

WASHINGTON -- The fight for public opinion between the gun lobby and advocates of tougher gun control has been heated up by the recent school shootings and the highprofile election of actor Charlton Heston as president of the National Rifle Association.Mr. Heston has vowed to seek a more favorable public image for his organization even as its staunchest foes continue to paint the NRA as a Neanderthal monster insensitive to the carnage resulting from the often unsupervised use of guns, especially in the hands of children.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Eight months after vowing to overhaul its troubled citizenship program, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is still struggling to put new procedures in place to prevent immigrants with criminal records from becoming citizens.Two highly publicized efforts by the agency failed to fix a system that naturalized 180,000 immigrants last year without proper criminal-background checks.At one point, auditors found that only one of 23 field offices under review was following the new orders.

WASHINGTON -- The fight for public opinion between the gun lobby and advocates of tougher gun control has been heated up by the recent school shootings and the highprofile election of actor Charlton Heston as president of the National Rifle Association.Mr. Heston has vowed to seek a more favorable public image for his organization even as its staunchest foes continue to paint the NRA as a Neanderthal monster insensitive to the carnage resulting from the often unsupervised use of guns, especially in the hands of children.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, predicted yesterday that the Brady gun-control bill would pass in the Senate as part of an anti-crime package that President Bush has been demanding.The National Rifle Association, however, promised an all-out effort to block the bill's seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases, and Sarah Brady -- the wife of the wounded White House press secretary for whom the bill is named -- acknowledged that the road ahead in the Senate would be "tough."

When doctors diagnosed Mitchell Berman with terminal brain cancer two years ago, his wife thought Social Security Disability benefits would help defray the cost of caring for the dying man.Then they received the startling news: the Bermans would have to wait at least five months to begin collecting those benefits -- even though doctors estimated the Columbia resident would live just two to three months after the July 1992 diagnosis."

WASHINGTON -- In the first week of the new federal waiting period for handgun buyers, a convicted rapist in Kentucky, a murder suspect in Dallas and numerous felons have been blocked from buying guns.The Brady law went into effect Monday, the culmination of a seven-year effort by gun-control advocates to persuade Congress to pass legislation requiring a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases to allow states to determine whether a prospective buyer has a criminal record or a history of mental instability.