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Women's Rights
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WomenMatter will continuously post updates on all this and other issues as we monitor the continuing philosophical and practical debates nationwide.
Please check back often for updates. Past updates are available for reference on the Women's Rights Archives page.
Since Women's Rights is in many ways an umbrella issue, WomenMatter will highlight related updates from other Life Issue areas here:
Death by Amendment: The Surprising Defeat of the Gun Bill
On March 2, 2004, The Senate killed the Gun Liability Bill, legislation that would have both threatened and defended the gun industry. The bill was to protect gun manufacturers and dealers against wrongful-death lawsuits, but the amendments added to the legislation posed a risk to the gun industry, so at the last minute, supporters backed out.
Ah, amendments
Gun-control activists successfully lobbied for an amendment that would have extended a ban on 19 different military-style assault weapons. The Senate voted 52-47 to extend the ban, which was initially signed by President Clinton in 1994 and prevents semiautomatic weapons from being imported, manufactured, or sold in the United States.
Gun makers are adamantly against the ban, which is set to expire September 13, 2004.
Republicans are divided on the issue. The White House supports the ban, while many National Rifle Association (NRA)-endorsed Republicans are against it. Perhaps in an effort to ease the split, The White House issued a statement that Bush would like to see the bill passed without amendments, or a “clean" bill.
Democrats immediately criticized Bush for flip-flopping -- first supporting the assault weapons ban and then condemning any amendment that may delay the bill.
Not a "clean" bill
But by the time the ban was extended, the bill had already been altered. On February 25, 2004, the Senate amended the legislation to require handgun makers to include childproof locks with the sale of their weapons.
The New York Times reports that gun manufacturers were virtually unfazed by the provision because they already provide such locks voluntarily. Larry Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, called the amendment “unimportant" and “immaterial."
But gun-control advocates celebrated the amendment as a victory. The amendment’s sponsors, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Charles Schumer (D-NY) believed the addendum to be a major improvement to the bill. They hoped that the newly-required safety locks would reduce the number of children accidentally harmed or killed by handguns in the home. In her defense of the amendment, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) explained that an accidental shooting kills a child every 48 hours; the lock is a manual or electronic device that prevents a gun from being accidentally discharged.
“Gun show loophole"
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) also offered an amendment to close what critics call "the gun show loophole" that was created by the1993 Brady Bill.
Current law requires licensed gun dealers to do a background check on buyers, while unlicensed individuals including gun collectors may sell weapons without a check. The amendment passed 53-46 and requires all dealers to issue background checks at gun shows where at least 75 guns are sold.
Death by amendment
These amendments effectively killed the bill. The Republican majority that was originally in favor of the bill felt that the amendments ruined it and so decided to vote against it. Most Democrats were against the bill all along and thus voted it down. The result was a 90-8 vote to kill the bill.
What happened?
Shortly before the vote, the media was still reporting that the bill was likely to pass. So, what happened?
The firearms industry made it clear that it would rather lose the protection against lawsuits than reinstate the assault weapons ban. Without the support of the gun industry, there was little reason for Republican lawmakers to pass the bill.
Democrats who voted against the bill are still are in favor of continuing the ban on assault weapons, but they would rather extend it through separate legislation than pass it as an attachment to a bill protecting gun makers.
Critics say Democrats used the amendment process to sink the bill, though McCain, a Republican, was responsible for the second-most controversial amendment after the assault weapons ban.
What’s worth noting here is how quickly a bill can change through the amendment process. An amendment of any sort may be added to a piece of legislation; it does not have to be at all related to the underlying bill. In this case, the contested amendments happened to be connected to gun manufacturing and sales.
The bill was amended because lawmakers proposed provisions with comparatively broad support. Many legislators would like their records to reflect that they are in favor of child safety locks and background checks and against semiautomatic weapons reentering the market.
Watch for the sequel
Although the legislation looked as though it would pass, the amendment process created tradeoffs that many NRA-endorsed legislators were unwilling to accept.
Battles over the "gun show loophole" and the extension of the assault weapons ban are yet to come. Congress will surely revisit these debates; it is simply a matter of when.
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Article Posted on: 3/4/2004
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