U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT • WWW.USNEWS.COM • MARCH 17, 2008 41

The scenario is all too familiar: Adisturbed gunman opens fire in aschool, an office, or a shoppingcenter and, before horrified spec-

tators, slaughters innocent men, women,and even children. After the massacresat Columbine High School, VirginiaTech University, and Omaha’s West-roads Mall, the question is always thesame: How could this tragedy have beenprevented? Inevitably, there are calls fortougher gun control, androutinely they are followedby arguments about Sec-ond Amendment rights,along with protestationsthat “guns don’t kill peo-ple; people do.” In the end, the reactions to thesetragedies serve only to re-mind how deeply dividedAmericans are when itcomes to guns.

Four out of every 10Americans own a gun. And nearly 3 out of 4 be-lieve that the SecondAmendment guaranteesan individual the right tohave a firearm. RecentGallup polls show that only38 percent of Americansthink the most importantway to combat gun violence is throughstricter gun laws; 58 percent believe moreshould be done to enforce current lawsinstead. And more than two thirds op-pose an outright ban on handguns.

Lost momentum. Perhaps that’s why,despite the steady toll of gunshot vio-lence, it’s been nearly 15 years sincethere has been a significant push forgun legislation on the federal level.Back in 1993, a Democratic-controlledCongress passed the Brady bill, whichimposed background checks on gunbuyers, and the following year, Con-gress banned private ownership of as-sault weapons. But the momentumdidn’t last. Months later, Republicanstook over Congress, and in 1996, theHouse voted to repeal the assault

weapons ban. Although the Senatefailed to follow suit at the time, in 2004Congress let the ban expire.

The Democrats learned the perils of reviving the gun control issue duringthe 2000 presidential campaign when candidate Al Gore pledged to limit hand-gun sales, crack down on gun shows, andsupport state registration of firearms. Itwas a liberal position that some thinkcost him the vote in a few southern, pro-gun states, including his home state ofTennessee. For many Democrats, the les-

son was clear: Gun control was a losing—and consuming—issue. “You can talkabout guns, or you can talk about every-thing else,” says Dane Strother, a Demo-cratic media consultant. “If you starttalking about guns, everyone bridles, beit pro-gun or antigun. You’ll never makeit to healthcare. You’ll never make it tothe economy.”

That attitude has carried the day asDemocrats have tried to pick up moreseats in pro-gun states like Missouri andin the Southwest. Many of the Demo-cratic victories in 2006 came from con-servative candidates like Virginia Sen.Jim Webb, a gun-owning former marinewhose senior aide was arrested last yearfor accidentally carrying Webb’s gun intoa Senate office building.

In the 2008 presidential campaign,neither Hillary Clinton nor BarackObama has talked much about gun con-trol. Both Democratic candidates haveendorsed the idea of tracking down il-legal guns, but both have dropped theironetime support for licensing gun own-ers and registering new guns. At theirNevada debate in January, Clinton saidshe would reinstate the assault weaponsban. And Obama vowed to increase ac-cess to data that help trace the originof guns used in crimes. But he ac-knowledged the gun control dividewhen he said: “We essentially have tworealities when it comes to guns in thiscountry. . . . We can reconcile those tworealities by making sure the SecondAmendment is respected and that peo-ple are able to lawfully own guns, butthat we also start cracking down on the

kinds of abuses of fire-arms that we see on thestreets.” Republican can-didate John McCain haslong endorsed an individ-ual right to have guns.

Under Republican lead-ership, Congress did littleto toughen gun controllaws, and what Congresshas done since then haslargely been to relax laws.In 2003, for instance, itpassed an amendment to block the governmentfrom publicly releasingmost data that trace gunsused in crimes. And in2005, Congress gave gunmanufacturers immunityto lawsuits if their firearmswere used in crimes. The

only significant federal gun control leg-islation, which increased funding formental health background checks, waspassed in December, under Democraticleadership and in the emotional wake ofthe Virginia Tech massacre. Other thanthat, says Andy Goddard, whose son wasinjured in the shooting, “people don’tknow how poorly protected they are.”

In the states, however, the debateover gun control is as robust as ever. Ina number of major cities, rising crimerates have pushed the issue to the frontof the public agenda. Gun control ad-vocates, led by New York Mayor Mi-chael Bloomberg, have been pushing forlaws that would help target illegal guntrafficking: allowing states access togun-trace data, requiring background

In Congress, the UphillBattle for Gun Control Why it’s been years since significant federal legislation

VIGIL. Gathering on campus to remember students killed at Virginia Tech

You can see a video on the D.C. police gun unit and comment on this article at www.usnews.com/gun

By Emma Schwartz

42 U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT • WWW.USNEWS.COM • MARCH 17, 2008

checks at gun shows, and forcing gunowners to report lost or stolen weapons.“We have more than 250 million gunsin this country, and not all of those gunsare in the hands of rational people,”says Jim Sollo, vice president of the Vir-ginia Center for Public Safety, a guncontrol advocacy group.

NRA power. But supporters of gun con-trol say that the strength of the NationalRifle Association in many states makes itnearly impossible to even discuss laws tar-geting illegal guns. The powerful grouphas about 4 million members nation-wide, a $20 million to$30 million lobbyingbudget, and a strongyouth group raising anew generation ofmembers. In particu-lar, nra foes point to the group’s suc-cessful efforts to gain passage of state“pre-emption” laws that limit localpower over gun laws (box, Page 43). Ithas played a role in state and federalelections, for instance, joining thebroader Republican-led upset of SouthDakota Sen. Tom Daschle, a Democrat,after he supported gun control amend-ments to the manufacturers’ liabilitylegislation.

Not surprisingly, moderate andDemocratic states, where the nra is

less influential, have voted for thegreatest number of gun control laws.California, for instance, passed a lawlast year requiring that manufacturersstamp every firearm with a unique im-print so ammunition fired from it canbe traced. (Opponents argue that re-leasing this sensitive informationwould harm investigations.) And inJanuary, New Jersey legislators passedlaws calling for owners to report lost or stolen guns, requiring criminal andmental health background checks forammunition purchases, and increasing

penalties for illegal gun possession and trafficking.

The fault lines in the gun debate aren’tentirely partisan; they often mark divi-sions between rural areas, where hunt-ing is deeply embedded in the culture,and urban communities, where guns arelinked with drugs and crime. These cul-tural differences affect constituents’views: City dwellers tend to want moregun control than rural people do. And inrural districts, even Democrats oftensupport the nra.

For instance, the nra is pushing for laws to prohibit private businessesfrom barring employees from keepingguns in their cars in a company parkinglot. A measure to that effect introducedin Georgia, although it has stalled, won support from a number of Demo-crats, particularly those from ruralareas. In Arizona, Republican stateRep. Jonathan Paton introduced suchlegislation after hearing from a con-stituent who drove an hour each daythrough a dangerous border area towork. “There’s a lot of rural no man’s

land between where some people workand where they live,” he says. “This isabout people’s right and whether theyfeel safe or not.”

Part of the challenge in going after gunsused in crimes is the lack of solid researchon exactly which laws help reduce gun vio-lence. Researchers agree that where thereare more guns, there are more likely to beaccidents with guns. But beyond that, a2003 report by the Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention concluded, thereis “insufficient evidence” to measure the

Cover Story

FOUR OUT OF 10 AMERICANS OWN AGUN. TWO THIRDS OPPOSE GUN BANS.

1791 The Second Amend-ment is ratified.

1934 The National FirearmsAct imposes a tax on thesale and transfer of ma-chine guns and short-bar-rel firearms, includingsawed-off shotguns.Passed just after Prohibi-tion’s repeal, it followswidespread outrage overgangsters like JohnDillinger and Al Capone.

1938 The Federal FirearmsAct requires federal licens-ing of gun dealers.

1968 The Gun Control Act,following the assassina-tions of John F. Kennedy,Robert Kennedy, and Mar-tin Luther King Jr., ex-pands licensing andrecord-keeping require-ments. It prohibits felonsand the mentally ill from

buying guns and bans thesale of mail-orderfirearms, including riflesand shotguns.

1972 The Bureau of Alco-hol, Tobacco, and Firearms iscreated to oversee theregulation of gun sales.

1986 The Firearms OwnersProtection Act eases somegun sale restrictions andbars the government fromcreating a database of gundealer records. The law,which also authorizes salesof guns between privateowners, reflects the grow-ing influence of the Na-tional Rifle Associationand a strongly pro-gunReagan administration.

1993 The Brady HandgunViolence Prevention Act,named for the press secre-tary disabled by the at-

tempted assassination ofPresident Ronald Reaganin 1981, requires gun deal-ers—although not privatesellers—to run backgroundchecks on purchasers andauthorizes the creation ofa national database.

1994 The Violent CrimeControl and Law EnforcementAct, passed by a Demo-

cratic Congress, bans the sale of new assaultweapons for 10 years.

2003 The Tiahrt Amend-ment prohibits the disclo-sure of trace data aboutguns used in crimes. Fol-lowing a wave of lawsuitsagainst gun dealers, Con-gress also protects gunmanufacturers and dealersfrom lawsuits if their gunsare used in crimes.

2004 The assault weaponsban expires under a Repub-lican-controlled Congress.

2007 After the massacreat Virginia Tech, Congresscloses a loophole in the National Instant CriminalBackground Check System byrequiring states to auto-mate lists of people pro-hibited from buyingfirearms, including felonsand the mentally ill, and put them in the federaldatabase. –E.S.

Laying Down the Law James Bradyand wife, Sarah

DARRYL HEIKES FOR USN&WR

U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT • WWW.USNEWS.COM • MARCH 17, 2008 43

efficacy of various gun control laws, large-ly because of limited data.

For instance, laws requiring owners toprotect children by keeping their gunslocked or unloaded reduced deathsamong children in Florida, researchshows, but not in California or Con-necticut. Laws allowing individuals tocarry concealed weapons, which advo-cates say tend to discourage criminalsfrom shooting, have brought little mean-ingful decrease in crime. And the re-search is mixed on whether mandatorywaiting periods reduce the likelihood ofsuicides by impulsive gun buyers.

The effect of bans. The District of Co-lumbia gun ban now before the SupremeCourt has been at the center of con-trasting research. A 1991 study found analmost 25 percent decline in homicidesand a 23 percent drop in suicides byfirearms following the ban and no simi-lar drop in neighboring Maryland andVirginia, which don’t have bans. But astudy published five years later arguedthat the assessment wasn’t valid becauseit compared D.C. with prosperous sub-urbs rather than with another city, suchas Baltimore, where homicides also de-clined during the same period.

On the streets of D.C.’s rougher neigh-borhoods today, it’s hard to see how thehandgun ban has made much of an im-pact on crime. Last year, homicides—about 80 percent of which are caused byfirearms—were up 7 percent from theyear before, to 181. That makes D.C.’sone of the highest per capita murderrates in the country. If the gun ban isstruck down, the District will very likelysee an increase in firearms ownershipand perhaps a rise in burglaries by crimi-nals trying to obtain guns.

But a new police unit formed to targetillegal guns may be doing more for pub-lic safety than a ban alone. Every dayabout two dozen officers fan out acrossthe city’s roughest neighborhoods, stop-ping drivers and pedestrians for trafficand other offenses and executing war-rants in search of illegal guns. Some daysthe officers come up dry. But in the firstthree months of the program, they seizednearly 120 guns, increasing the city’s av-erage monthly recovery by about 35 per-cent from the previous year. The citywould have a program without a ban,and judging from those in possession ofthe guns, the program would most like-ly work just as well. Says police officerJames Boteler Jr.: “Most of the gunswe’re recovering are from people who,even without the ban, would not be al-lowed to have one anyway.” But, he adds,the ban doesn’t hurt, either. l

Homicides were rising twice asfast as in other large cities—anaverage of one gunshot murder

a day. If those statistics fromPhiladelphia in 2006 were terrifying,the numbers in City Council memberDarrell Clarke’s district were evenworse. On some blocks, the chanceof getting shot was roughly 1 in 50.The problem seemed clear: The cityneeded tools to keep guns away fromviolent criminals.

But Clarke has since learned

that in Philadelphia, as elsewhere,tightening gun laws is no simpletask. Pennsylvania, whose Consti-tution explicitly gives citizens aright to defend themselves, isamong a majority of states thatforbid cities to pass gun lawsstricter than those enacted by thestate. A challenge to these so-called pre-emption laws—lawspushed by the National Rifle Asso-ciation—has made Philadelphia amajor battleground over the Sec-ond Amendment.

The debate took off amid the vio-lence of 2006 when a group of politi-

cians, including Democratic Gov.Edward Rendell, asked the state leg-islature for a hearing on the prob-lem. The Republican-led body did soonly after the Philadelphia Democratchairing the House appropriationscommittee threatened to hold up thestate budget if it didn’t.

The divide that emerged mir-rored the demographic split overgun control nationwide. Urbanpoliticians wanted laws limitinghandgun purchases to one a month

and requirements that own-ers report lost or stolenguns. And they called for anend to the pre-emption law. But Pennsylvania, wheresome school districts markthe opening of hunting sea-son with a holiday, is alargely rural state. Andrural legislators opposedthe measures.

Change of heart. Last year,with Democrats in the state-house, the gun control advo-cates regrouped and, borrow-ing a move from the nraplaybook, took polls. Theymade a difference. Republi-can Rep. Kate Harper of sub-urban Philadelphia initiallyopposed the gun limit, advo-cating instead tougher en-forcement of existing laws.But when she saw that herconstituents largely favoredthe limit, she changed hermind. Countering, Republi-cans proposed hiring 10,000

more police officers. “Guns aren’t theproblem,” says Rocco Ali, presidentof the Pennsylvania Federation ofSportsmen’s Clubs. “The problem isthe criminal element.” Once again,the bills died.

Undeterred, Philadelphiapassed laws in May targetinghandguns and illegal purchases.The city can’t implement them, ofcourse. So the council has filed alawsuit to challenge the pre-emp-tion law. Even if they fail again,council members say they hope acourt case will change legislators’minds. –E.S.

The Deep Gun Control DivideA violence-plagued city bumps up against a rural state’s law

The mother of a Philadelphia gunshot victim

MARK STEHLE—AP