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Senate Republicans Scuttle Gun Bill

Posted on: Tuesday, 2 March 2004, 06:00 CST

Senate Republicans scuttled an election-year bill to immunize the gun industry from lawsuits Tuesday after Democrats amended it to extend an assault weapons ban and require background checks on all buyers at private gun shows.

The National Rifle Association began pressuring senators to vote against the bill after Democrats won votes on the two key gun control measures. The 90-8 vote against the bill virtually ends any chance for gun legislation to make through Congress this year.

"I now believe it is so dramatically wounded that I would urge my colleagues to vote against it," said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, the sponsor of the gunmaker immunity bill.

Democrats won close votes on their amendments to change the Republican legislation, a strategy aimed at pressuring the GOP-dominated House to accept the restrictions to gain passage of the gunmaker-immunity bill.

While Democrats won't get the gun ban extension and the gun show legislation, they called the vote a success. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said, "The immunity bill was a terrible bill. We're better off at the end of the day than we were at the beginning of the day."

Underlining the importance of the day to Democrats, presidential contenders John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina broke away from the campaign trail to cast their first Senate votes of the year, joining the 52-47 majority on the assault weapons ban and the 53-46 majority on the gun show bill.

A dozen Republican senators voted for one or both of the provisions, allowing minority Democrats to gain victories on the amendments.

The House last year passed a bill to shield gunmakers and dealers from liability suits by crime victims. But Republican leaders in the House refused to allow a vote on continuing for another decade the assault weapons ban, which is to expire in September.

Democrats had hoped their victories in the Senate on gun shows and assault weapons would force Republicans to let the House also vote on them. But the White House said the two amendments would only kill the effort to immunize the gun industry from lawsuits.

"Some are simply more interested in undermining that piece of legislation than they are in necessarily getting the other legislation passed," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday.

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