Assault-weapons ban hard to pass, Sen. Feinstein says

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California introduced legislation Thursday that would prohibit the sale or transfer of more than 150 of the most commonly owned militarystyle assault weapons and ammunition magazines that have more than 10 rounds.
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California introduced legislation Thursday that would prohibit the sale or transfer of more than 150 of the most commonly owned militarystyle assault weapons and ammunition magazines that have more than 10 rounds.

— A proposed ban on sales of assault weapons would likely be an “uphill fight” and it’s possible such a ban will not be part of gun legislation that reaches the floor of the Senate, a leading advocate of the ban said Sunday.

“This has never been easy,” Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said on CNN’s State of the Union. “This is the hardest of the hard.”

A ban on the military-style weapons is among the legislative goals President Barack Obama outlined in his recommendations to Congress on curbing gun violence after the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School slaughter of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn. Vice President Joe Biden said Friday that it will take “persuasion and information” to garner the necessary support in Congress to enact the White House package.

Feinstein introduced legislation Thursday that would prohibit the sale or transfer of more than 150 of the most commonly owned military style assault weapons and ammunition magazines that have more than 10 rounds. It exempts all assault weapons legally possessed before passage of the law and excludes more than 2,200 hunting and sporting rifles.

A 1994 assault-weapons ban, signed by President Bill Clinton, expired in 2004 and, until the school shooting in Newtown, there had been little effort in Congress to renew it.

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AP

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee and the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2012, said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press program that Congress should focus on the causes of violence and not the weapons alone.

Feinstein said Sunday that an assault-weapons ban might be left out of a package of proposals on gun regulation that the Senate puts forward for a vote. If that happens, she said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada assured her that it could be introduced by Feinstein as an amendment.

A ban would be defeated in the U.S. Senate today unless some members changed their current views, based on a Bloomberg review of recent lawmaker statements and interviews.

At least six of the 55 senators who caucus with Democrats have recently expressed skepticism or outright opposition to a ban, the review found. That means Democrats wouldn’t have a simple 51-vote majority to pass the measure, let alone the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster to move it to a floor vote.

Asked on CNN if she concedes such legislation will be difficult to pass, Feinstein said, “I conceded, because the NRA is venal,” referring to the National Rifle Association, which opposes new restrictions.

“They come after you, they put together large amounts of money to defeat you,” Feinstein said.

The association disputed her characterization.

“The NRA is a grass-roots organization. We have more than 4 million dues-paying members and tens of millions of supporters all across this country. Our political power comes from them. Decent and logical people would understand that,” spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to take up the proposal Wednesday and hear from the National Rifle Association’s chief executive officer and senior vice president, Wayne LaPierre.

Feinstein was more optimistic about the chances of the ban being approved during an interview Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, citing support for the measure from the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Major City Chiefs.

“I think I can get it passed, because the American people are very much for it,” Feinstein said.

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Face the Nation that he agreed with a ban on assault weapons, though he said the problem for large cities is concealable handguns.

“Only 2 percent of the people we have arrested for guns in the last two years have had assault weapons,” Kelly said. “We don’t want them on the street, make no mistake about it, but the problem is the handgun.”

Kelly said more than 6 million guns were sold last year without buyers undergoing a background check. He said a universal background check would help law enforcement identify so-called straw purchasers who legally buy weapons and then sell them to others who cannot lawfully buy guns.

It would “make them more aware of the fact that they’re now on record and you can record purchases that they make,” he said.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee and the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2012, said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press program that Congress should focus on the causes of violence and not the weapons alone.

“That’s what the background check issue is all about,” Ryan said. “We need to look into making sure that there aren’t big loopholes where a person can illegally purchase a firearm.”

He said the legislative response to Sandy Hook shouldn’t be limited to access to guns.

“We need to look beyond just recycling failed policies of the past. ... Let’s go beyond just this debate and make sure we get deeper. What’s our policy on mental illness?

What’s going on in our culture that produces this kind of thing? You know, we need to have that kind of a discussion and debate,” Ryan said.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., also urged lawmakers to consider mental-health issues.

“When I hear some of this conversation, I think that we’re looking at symptoms, we’re not looking at the root causes,” she said. “And I understand the senator’s [Feinstein’s] passion for this, but I got to tell you, an assault ban is not the answer to helping keep people safe.”

Obama this weekend said gun-control advocates should be better listeners.

In an interview with The New Republic, Obama said he has “a profound respect” for the tradition of hunting that dates back for generations.

“And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake. Part of being able to move this forward is understanding the reality of guns in urban areas are very different from the realities of guns in rural areas,” he said.

The president, who said he does “skeet shooting all the time” at Camp David, Md., added that it’s understandable that people are protective of their family traditions when it comes to hunting.

“So it’s trying to bridge those gaps that I think is going to be part of the biggest task over the next several months. And that means that advocates of gun control have to do a little more listening than they do sometimes,” he said.

Information for this article was contributed by Tom Schoenberg, Cotten Timberlake, Heidi Przybyla, and Julie Hirschfeld Davis of Bloomberg News and by staff members of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/28/2013

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