May 31, 1999 New York Times Page 1 Article
Across the U.S., Lawmakers Rally Behind Gun Laws
By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK
SEATTLE -- Just as the school shooting in Colorado last month has spurred Congress to the verge of approving measures like background checks for gun buyers and safety-lock devices for firearms, many state legislatures are passing gun-control laws as well, in some cases taking up measures that had long been considered unlikely ever to pass.
When the California Assembly gathered late last month to debate a bill limiting handgun sales to one per person per month, a measure that had languished in past years, Assemblyman Dick Floyd rose to speak and the chamber grew hushed. The crusty lawmaker, an Army sergeant in the Korean War, is known among his colleagues as a wisecracker, but he was dead serious this time.
"For over 20 years around here," said Floyd, a 68-year-old Democrat, "I never spoke one time on any issue relating to guns. In fact, I was a nonparticipant. I never voted for one of these bills." But the school killings in Littleton, Colo., he said, had brought back images of the combat he faced nearly half a century ago. He described the "horrible smell" of it all, and then he had an announcement.
"I'm no longer going to be a nonparticipant," Floyd said. "I am willing not only to vote for everything, I'll co-author every gun bill that comes along."
The bill passed, and other measures restricting gun ownership are moving forward in Sacramento, with promises that Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat inaugurated in January, will sign them. And while Floyd's conversion may have been especially dramatic, it is a powerful symbol of the changing dynamics of the gun-control debate in state legislatures since the April 20 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, in which two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves.
The gun-control measures moving forward now include an Oregon plan to require criminal background checks for people buying firearms at gun shows and a bill that would make New Jersey the first state to require that within five years all handguns sold there have "smart-gun" features, allowing a gun to be used only by its registered owner. That bill has been voted out of a Senate committee.
In Connecticut, lawmakers are supporting a measure that would allow the police to get a warrant to enter a residence and take the guns of a person who might injure himself or others.
Just as striking, gun-rights proponents in other states have pulled back legislation they were hoping to get passed this year. Perhaps most notably, right after the Littleton shooting, Colorado lawmakers quickly abandoned their push for new laws to expand the right to carry concealed weapons and to prevent local governments from passing gun-control laws.
In Florida, the sponsor withdrew legislation that would have pre-empted cities and counties from filing lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
"I really think this is like a big volcano that's suddenly erupted, sort of the Mount St. Helen's of the gun tragedy in America," said Pamela Eakes, the founder and president of Mothers Against Violence in America, a 5-year-old group based in Seattle that has 60 chapters around the country. "Littleton has sparked something, a permanent response. People are just saying, 'Enough,' and legislators are clearly responding to that."
Other gun-control measures in the states include an Illinois bill, passed by the Legislature late last month and endorsed by Gov. George Ryan, requiring gun owners to keep their firearms locked away from children, with a possible prison term for the owner if a youth uses the adult's gun in a crime.
In Utah, shaken recently by two highly publicized shootings by people with mental illness in downtown Salt Lake City, in addition to the tragedy in neighboring Colorado, the Legislature is considering a special session to deal with gun-control issues.
In Arizona last month, Gov. Jane Dee Hull, a Republican, vetoed a bill that would have barred cities and counties from enacting a range of local gun-control ordinances. And in Ohio, Gov. Bob Taft, also a Republican, announced just days after the Littleton shooting that he would oppose a bill allowing the state's citizens to carry concealed weapons.
In the relatively few instances since Littleton in which the gun advocates have scored successes, they have been met with a blistering counterattack. In Michigan, a battle is raging over separate measures passed in recent weeks by the two legislative houses that would make it easier to carry concealed weapons. The bills need to be reconciled before they can become law.
Opponents have already started a campaign to get a statewide referendum on the ballot that would overturn such a law. This week they got the Major League Baseball Players Association to issue a statement condemning the gun measures, saying such laws would let people take weapons to ballparks and "would present unwarranted risks for fans and players."
What is unclear at this point is whether the shift in the legislative terrain on gun issues is a lasting one, or simply a short-term response to the Colorado tragedy whose force will dissipate in the coming months.
Gun-control advocates and many state lawmakers who support their cause said in interviews last week that the public outcry was far more intense than it had been after other school shootings in recent years, partly because of the number of students killed and partly because of the cumulative effect of all of the incidents.
But critics of the gun-control measures, and pro-gun lawmakers who said they pulled back on their proposals only because of the political climate and not because of any lack of merit, said most of the new laws were an emotional fix that would do virtually nothing to prevent the kind of violence that occurred in Littleton. And some were particularly adamant that Littleton showed the need for more guns, not fewer.
In Michigan, state Rep. Mike Green, a Republican sponsor of the bill that would make it easier for people to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons, described the Littleton shooting as a "sad commentary on people being unable to defend themselves" and said that his measure would make schools safer.
"When we make gun-free zones like we do in the schools, we're really creating vacuums in those places, where anyone who wants to do harm knows there's no one there to stop them, other than hitting them with a stick or throwing a rock at them," Green, who is from Mayville, in central Michigan, said in a telephone interview.
"I believe in our schools there ought to be somebody, somewhere with a gun that could defend these kids, but everybody says, 'Oh My God, we couldn't do that, no guns in the schools."'
The Littleton school did have an armed sheriff's deputy assigned to it. He exchanged gunfire briefly with one of the suspects after the attack began, but was unable to stop them.
The Michigan measure, which would take discretion on permits away from county gun boards and basically create a right to carry concealed weapons as long as an applicant meets a series of requirements, was part of the campaign platform of many Republicans who ran for office last fall. The party took control of both legislative houses in that election.
But many Democrats said that public sentiment had definitely shifted against the concept, and they said they were dumbfounded that Republican party leaders were so intent on getting the measure approved.
"This is truly beyond me, for all my years in politics, as to why they are doing this," said Gilda Jacobs, a Democratic state representative from suburban Detroit, who said she and many of her colleagues had been flooded with calls from angry constituents about the bills. "You'd think that, just politically, they would say this doesn't make any sense to go through with this. Their timing couldn't be worse."
The issue represents a dilemma for Gov. John Engler, also a Republican and a potential vice presidential candidate. He indicated through a spokesman two weeks ago that he was inclined to sign the bills, but in recent days he seems to have backed off. This week he told supporters of the concealed-weapons measure that now might not be the best time to push ahead.
"You could certainly say the timing is open to misinterpretation," he said on Wednesday. "Some people will play politics with it."
But Green said he hoped the bills would be reconciled soon and turned into law, so that people could have at least a year to see that the idea works before he and his colleagues head into the 2000 elections.
In some ways, the setbacks encountered by gun-rights advocates began well before the Littleton shooting.
After the 1994 elections, when Republicans took control of Congress and many state legislatures, those advocates scored some of their most striking victories, including persuading 10 legislatures to establish or expand the right to carry concealed weapons. But such efforts have failed in at least eight other states in the past two years, and many states were already moving forward this year with restrictive measures.
In California, with Davis' strong support, the Legislature clearly seemed headed even before April 20 to impose a new ban on assault weapons and require child safety locks on guns. But the reaction after the Littleton shooting, including Floyd's emotional conversion to anti-gun causes, has clearly given new force to that side.
"What we've seen in the past is state legislators have often responded to the gun lobby" even if public-opinion polls favored gun control, said Joe Sudbay, director of state legislation for Handgun Control, an advocacy group based in Washington. "What's changed is that the public is now paying very, very close attention to what legislators are doing on gun issues. People really do think there's just far too much access to guns, and their lawmakers are hearing about it."
Gun-rights groups concede that there has been a public outcry since Littleton and the recent school shooting in suburban Atlanta, though they say that many of the gun-curbing proposals offered since then are misguided efforts to deal with a cultural problem not caused by guns.
And the National Rifle Association said that despite the attention focused on the gun-control measures now moving through Congress and the statehouses, it had achieved success in blocking many of the proposals.
It has defeated one-gun-a-month proposals in Pennsylvania and Illinois, the group said, and advanced on legislation pre-empting the rights of cities and counties to file lawsuits against the firearms industry.
So far this year, the rifle association said, such measures have been signed into law in seven states (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming), are awaiting a governor's signature in four states (Maine, Nevada, Texas and Tennessee) and are pending before legislatures in at least nine states.
Across the U.S., Lawmakers Rally Behind Gun Laws
By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK
SEATTLE -- Just as the school shooting in Colorado last month has spurred Congress to the verge of approving measures like background checks for gun buyers and safety-lock devices for firearms, many state legislatures are passing gun-control laws as well, in some cases taking up measures that had long been considered unlikely ever to pass.
When the California Assembly gathered late last month to debate a bill limiting handgun sales to one per person per month, a measure that had languished in past years, Assemblyman Dick Floyd rose to speak and the chamber grew hushed. The crusty lawmaker, an Army sergeant in the Korean War, is known among his colleagues as a wisecracker, but he was dead serious this time.
"For over 20 years around here," said Floyd, a 68-year-old Democrat, "I never spoke one time on any issue relating to guns. In fact, I was a nonparticipant. I never voted for one of these bills." But the school killings in Littleton, Colo., he said, had brought back images of the combat he faced nearly half a century ago. He described the "horrible smell" of it all, and then he had an announcement.
"I'm no longer going to be a nonparticipant," Floyd said. "I am willing not only to vote for everything, I'll co-author every gun bill that comes along."
The bill passed, and other measures restricting gun ownership are moving forward in Sacramento, with promises that Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat inaugurated in January, will sign them. And while Floyd's conversion may have been especially dramatic, it is a powerful symbol of the changing dynamics of the gun-control debate in state legislatures since the April 20 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, in which two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves.
The gun-control measures moving forward now include an Oregon plan to require criminal background checks for people buying firearms at gun shows and a bill that would make New Jersey the first state to require that within five years all handguns sold there have "smart-gun" features, allowing a gun to be used only by its registered owner. That bill has been voted out of a Senate committee.
In Connecticut, lawmakers are supporting a measure that would allow the police to get a warrant to enter a residence and take the guns of a person who might injure himself or others.
Just as striking, gun-rights proponents in other states have pulled back legislation they were hoping to get passed this year. Perhaps most notably, right after the Littleton shooting, Colorado lawmakers quickly abandoned their push for new laws to expand the right to carry concealed weapons and to prevent local governments from passing gun-control laws.
In Florida, the sponsor withdrew legislation that would have pre-empted cities and counties from filing lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
"I really think this is like a big volcano that's suddenly erupted, sort of the Mount St. Helen's of the gun tragedy in America," said Pamela Eakes, the founder and president of Mothers Against Violence in America, a 5-year-old group based in Seattle that has 60 chapters around the country. "Littleton has sparked something, a permanent response. People are just saying, 'Enough,' and legislators are clearly responding to that."
Other gun-control measures in the states include an Illinois bill, passed by the Legislature late last month and endorsed by Gov. George Ryan, requiring gun owners to keep their firearms locked away from children, with a possible prison term for the owner if a youth uses the adult's gun in a crime.
In Utah, shaken recently by two highly publicized shootings by people with mental illness in downtown Salt Lake City, in addition to the tragedy in neighboring Colorado, the Legislature is considering a special session to deal with gun-control issues.
In Arizona last month, Gov. Jane Dee Hull, a Republican, vetoed a bill that would have barred cities and counties from enacting a range of local gun-control ordinances. And in Ohio, Gov. Bob Taft, also a Republican, announced just days after the Littleton shooting that he would oppose a bill allowing the state's citizens to carry concealed weapons.
In the relatively few instances since Littleton in which the gun advocates have scored successes, they have been met with a blistering counterattack. In Michigan, a battle is raging over separate measures passed in recent weeks by the two legislative houses that would make it easier to carry concealed weapons. The bills need to be reconciled before they can become law.
Opponents have already started a campaign to get a statewide referendum on the ballot that would overturn such a law. This week they got the Major League Baseball Players Association to issue a statement condemning the gun measures, saying such laws would let people take weapons to ballparks and "would present unwarranted risks for fans and players."
What is unclear at this point is whether the shift in the legislative terrain on gun issues is a lasting one, or simply a short-term response to the Colorado tragedy whose force will dissipate in the coming months.
Gun-control advocates and many state lawmakers who support their cause said in interviews last week that the public outcry was far more intense than it had been after other school shootings in recent years, partly because of the number of students killed and partly because of the cumulative effect of all of the incidents.
But critics of the gun-control measures, and pro-gun lawmakers who said they pulled back on their proposals only because of the political climate and not because of any lack of merit, said most of the new laws were an emotional fix that would do virtually nothing to prevent the kind of violence that occurred in Littleton. And some were particularly adamant that Littleton showed the need for more guns, not fewer.
In Michigan, state Rep. Mike Green, a Republican sponsor of the bill that would make it easier for people to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons, described the Littleton shooting as a "sad commentary on people being unable to defend themselves" and said that his measure would make schools safer.
"When we make gun-free zones like we do in the schools, we're really creating vacuums in those places, where anyone who wants to do harm knows there's no one there to stop them, other than hitting them with a stick or throwing a rock at them," Green, who is from Mayville, in central Michigan, said in a telephone interview.
"I believe in our schools there ought to be somebody, somewhere with a gun that could defend these kids, but everybody says, 'Oh My God, we couldn't do that, no guns in the schools."'
The Littleton school did have an armed sheriff's deputy assigned to it. He exchanged gunfire briefly with one of the suspects after the attack began, but was unable to stop them.
The Michigan measure, which would take discretion on permits away from county gun boards and basically create a right to carry concealed weapons as long as an applicant meets a series of requirements, was part of the campaign platform of many Republicans who ran for office last fall. The party took control of both legislative houses in that election.
But many Democrats said that public sentiment had definitely shifted against the concept, and they said they were dumbfounded that Republican party leaders were so intent on getting the measure approved.
"This is truly beyond me, for all my years in politics, as to why they are doing this," said Gilda Jacobs, a Democratic state representative from suburban Detroit, who said she and many of her colleagues had been flooded with calls from angry constituents about the bills. "You'd think that, just politically, they would say this doesn't make any sense to go through with this. Their timing couldn't be worse."
The issue represents a dilemma for Gov. John Engler, also a Republican and a potential vice presidential candidate. He indicated through a spokesman two weeks ago that he was inclined to sign the bills, but in recent days he seems to have backed off. This week he told supporters of the concealed-weapons measure that now might not be the best time to push ahead.
"You could certainly say the timing is open to misinterpretation," he said on Wednesday. "Some people will play politics with it."
But Green said he hoped the bills would be reconciled soon and turned into law, so that people could have at least a year to see that the idea works before he and his colleagues head into the 2000 elections.
In some ways, the setbacks encountered by gun-rights advocates began well before the Littleton shooting.
After the 1994 elections, when Republicans took control of Congress and many state legislatures, those advocates scored some of their most striking victories, including persuading 10 legislatures to establish or expand the right to carry concealed weapons. But such efforts have failed in at least eight other states in the past two years, and many states were already moving forward this year with restrictive measures.
In California, with Davis' strong support, the Legislature clearly seemed headed even before April 20 to impose a new ban on assault weapons and require child safety locks on guns. But the reaction after the Littleton shooting, including Floyd's emotional conversion to anti-gun causes, has clearly given new force to that side.
"What we've seen in the past is state legislators have often responded to the gun lobby" even if public-opinion polls favored gun control, said Joe Sudbay, director of state legislation for Handgun Control, an advocacy group based in Washington. "What's changed is that the public is now paying very, very close attention to what legislators are doing on gun issues. People really do think there's just far too much access to guns, and their lawmakers are hearing about it."
Gun-rights groups concede that there has been a public outcry since Littleton and the recent school shooting in suburban Atlanta, though they say that many of the gun-curbing proposals offered since then are misguided efforts to deal with a cultural problem not caused by guns.
And the National Rifle Association said that despite the attention focused on the gun-control measures now moving through Congress and the statehouses, it had achieved success in blocking many of the proposals.
It has defeated one-gun-a-month proposals in Pennsylvania and Illinois, the group said, and advanced on legislation pre-empting the rights of cities and counties to file lawsuits against the firearms industry.
So far this year, the rifle association said, such measures have been signed into law in seven states (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming), are awaiting a governor's signature in four states (Maine, Nevada, Texas and Tennessee) and are pending before legislatures in at least nine states.