House Moves To Toughen Federal Gun Laws

The U.S. House yesterday passed what could become the first major federal gun control law in over a decade, spurred by the Virginia Tech campus killings and buttressed by National Rifle Association help.

The bill, which was passed on a voice vote, would improve state reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to stop gun purchases by people, including criminals and those adjudicated as mentally defective, who are prohibited from possessing firearms.

Seung-Hui Cho, who in April killed 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech before taking his own life, had been ordered to undergo outpatient mental health treatment and should have been barred from buying two guns he used in the rampage. But the state of Virginia had never forwarded this information to the national background check system.

If it moves through the Senate and is signed into law by the president, the bill would be the most important gun control act since Congress banned some assault weapons in 1994, the last year Democrats controlled the House. In 1996, Congress added people convicted of domestic violence to the list of those banned from purchasing firearms.

Senator Schumer of New York, a proponent of gun control legislation, said the chances of Senate passage were "very strong." He said, "When the NRA and I agree on legislation, you know that it's going to get through, become law and do some good."

The bill was the outcome of weeks of negotiations between Rep. John Dingell, a Democrat of Michigan, the most senior member of the House and a strong supporter of gun rights, and the NRA, and in turn, with Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a Democrat of New York, a leading gun-control advocate.

"This is good policy that will save lives," Ms. McCarthy said.

The NRA insisted that it was not a "gun control" bill because it does not disqualify anyone currently able to legally purchase a firearm.

The NRA has always supported the NICS, said the organization's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre. "We've always been vigilant about protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens to purchase guns, and equally vigilant about keeping the guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally defective and people who shouldn't have them."

Under a gun control act that passed in 1968, the year President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were killed, people barred from buying guns include those convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, illegal drug users, those courts find to be mentally disabled, and illegal immigrants.

The legislation approved yesterday would require states to automate and share disqualifying records with the FBI's NICS database. The bill also provides $250 million a year over the next three years to help states meet those goals and imposes penalties, including cuts in federal grants under an anti-crime law, to those states that fail to meet benchmarks for automating their systems and supplying information to the NICS.

House action came as a panel that President Bush ordered to investigate the Virginia Tech shootings prepared to make recommendations on ways the federal government can prevent such tragedies.

Also yesterday, Governor Kaine of Virginia said that in ordering state executive branch agencies to upgrade background check reporting last month he had found that Virginia was one of only 22 states reporting any mental health information to the NICS. Mr. Kaine, a Democrat, said the House bill was "significant action to honor the memories of the victims who lost their lives at Virginia Tech."

A 2005 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that about 18 states cite privacy laws as an obstacle to sharing complete mental health records, and 10 others cite inadequate communication between agencies, incomplete records or lack of resources.

West Virginia does not report involuntary psychiatric commitments to the FBI because the state doesn't know how many such commitments there are. The NRA did win some concessions in negotiating the final product.

It would automatically restore the purchasing rights of veterans who were diagnosed with mental problems as part of the process of obtaining disability benefits. Mr. LaPierre said the Clinton administration put about 80,000 such veterans into the background check system.

It also outlines an appeals process for those who feel they have been wrongfully included in the system and ensures that funds allocated to improve the NICS are not used for other gun control purposes.