Broad agreement on gun bill stalls

http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/article/20070927/NEWS/709270355/-1/State

Broad agreement on gun bill stalls

By Laurie Kellman,
Associated Press

Washington | Sometimes it takes some awkward hand-holding among sworn political foes to usher hard-fought bills through Congress. That's what seemed likely this week, with legislation inspired by the Virginia Tech shootings that would more easily flag prospective gun buyers with documented mental problems.

But even the combined superpowers of the National Rifle Association, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have been unable to push that bill across the finish line to President Bush's desk and make it the first major gun law passed in the last decade.

"We've told the whole Congress that we support it," said NRA chief Wayne LaPierre. "If you're a law-abiding person, everything in there is an advancement over current law."

"When the NRA and Chuck Schumer agree, that tells you it's something worth doing," said Schumer, a longtime foe of the gun lobby.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., disagrees - and that's all it takes to stop a bill in the Senate.

His concern is that billions of dollars of new spending in the bill is not paid for by cuts in other programs.

And he says the bill does not pay for appeals by veterans or other Americans who feel they have been wrongly barred from buying a gun.

"As Congress prepares to raise the debt limit once again, it is not too much to ask politicians to do the job they were elected to do and make choices," Coburn said Wednesday, backed up by another pro-gun group, Gun Owners of America. "Veterans, or any other American, should not lose their Second Amendment rights if they have been unfairly tagged as having mental health concerns."

That triggered a tough rejoinder from Bloomberg, who has his own national anti-gun campaign and left the GOP amid speculation that he may run for president.

"The fact that some senators don't have the courage to let it go to the floor for a vote is beyond reason," Bloomberg said in a statement.




--
"Police obey the law, pigs do not." -- Rev. Shawn Cole
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