In the End, Even NRA Opposed Bill

WASHINGTON —  An effort to pass a bill in the Senate that would have shielded gun makers and sellers from lawsuits related to gun violence collapsed Tuesday after gun-control advocates loaded the measure with two amendments that turned the bill’s sponsors against it.

The bill was a top priority for the National Rifle Assn. But before the final vote, gun control advocates successfully proposed amendments to extend the federal ban on assault weapons and to tighten background checks for sales at gun shows.

Just before the final vote, the NRA told its Senate allies that it could no longer support the bill, which had 54 sponsors as the day began. The chief sponsor, Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), then stunned colleagues by urging them to vote against his own bill.

With both sides of the issue now opposed to the bill, the vote to kill it was 90 to 8. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” said an amazed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) after the final vote. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a leader of the gun control forces, joked that the vote would jeopardize his 0% favorability rating from the NRA.

The vote sharply reduces the prospects for any gun legislation this year and could elevate gun control as an issue in the presidential campaign. The House passed a gun-liability bill with no gun control amendments attached, but now that measure has no companion in the Senate.

It was the first major gun control vote in Congress since 1999, the year of the shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

Sens. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina interrupted their campaigns for the Democratic presidential nod Tuesday to return to the Capitol and vote for the amendments. Kerry also voted to kill the bill; Edwards did not vote. Late Tuesday, Democratic Party sources indicated Edwards would quit the race.

President Bush has said he supports extending the assault weapons ban, but the White House urged Congress to approve the liability bill without the gun control amendments. Earlier in the day, however, senators voted, 52-47, to extend the assault weapons ban for another 10 years and, 53-46, to extend to unlicensed private sellers at gun shows the same requirement for background checks that applies to federally licensed dealers. Those amendments died, at least for the time being, when the Senate defeated the bill to which they were attached.

“The immunity bill was a terrible bill,” Schumer said. “We’re better off at the end of the day than we were at the beginning of the day.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and author of the 1994 assault weapons ban, said the vote emboldened her to continue to try to amend other legislation to include renewal of the ban on the manufacture and import of 19 military-style assault weapons, such as AK-47s and Uzis, before it lapses Sept. 13. However, the ban, regarded as one of the most significant gun control measures of the last decade, faces opposition in the House, where rural Democrats joined the Republican majority in 1996 to vote to repeal it. That repeal effort died in the Senate.

Republicans, who control Congress, planned to take gun control measures out of the liability legislation during House-Senate negotiations on a final bill. But Craig said Senate Democrats had threatened to use a procedural tactic -- withholding the appointment of Democratic negotiators -- unless Republicans agreed to include the gun control measures in a final bill.

In urging defeat of his own bill, Craig said the measure had been “so dramatically wounded it should not pass.”

“It’s not every day you see a senator, who has argued on behalf of a bill for the last five days, turn around and kill that legislation right as it was about to pass the Senate,” he acknowledged. But he said it was better to pass no bill than a “bad bill.” He said he hoped to try to pass it this year without amendments.

In a joint statement, Wayne R. LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, and Chris W. Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist: “While we will continue to work to save the U.S. firearms industry, we have said from the start that we would not allow this bill to become a vehicle for added restrictions on the law-abiding people of America.”

The emotionally charged gun issue has been largely absent from Congress’ agenda since Bush became president. Democrats have shied away from the issue, believing that their 2000 presidential candidate, Al Gore, lost support in rural states because he advocated gun control.

In a nod to the issue’s delicacy, Kerry opened his speech in support of the gun control measures by citing his enjoyment of hunting and support of the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. Edwards did not speak.

The 4-million-member NRA has made it a priority to pass legislation to stem what it contends are frivolous lawsuits designed to hold the gun industry responsible for harm caused by the criminal use of firearms. Supporters of the liability protection contend that the suits, which have cost the gun industry more than $100 million, are designed to drive gun makers and dealers out of business and disarm Americans.

Opponents of the liability protection said it could thwart lawsuits brought by victims of the Washington, D.C.-area sniper. They also said it could affect suits brought by cities and counties, including several in California, that seek to hold firearms makers and sellers liable for gun violence and to pressure the industry to better control weapons sales and add safety features. Feinstein said the measure would essentially give the gun industry “blanket immunity” from civil liability cases -- “an immunity that no other industry enjoys.”

Arguing in support of the bill, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said many of the suits brought against gun makers and sellers were akin to “suing a car manufacturer for drunken-driving accidents, or suing a fast-food company because its hamburgers contain too many calories.”

Feinstein and her California Democratic colleague, Barbara Boxer, supported the two gun control amendments and voted against the bill’s final passage.