Today in the Senate

On Guard, America
September 11, 2004

As regressive milestones go, few are as frightful in this new era of homeland security as the decision by Congress and the Bush administration to allow the expiration of the 10-year-old law protecting the public from assault rifles and other rapid-fire battlefield weapons. The law -- a far from perfect but demonstrably effective restraint on high-tech gunslingers -- expires on Monday with not a whimper from the White House. When George Bush was a candidate four years ago and under campaign pressure from moderates, he announced that he did support the renewal of this highly popular law. It turned out that he was shooting rhetorical blanks; his support depended on the renewal's ever getting through Congress in the first place. As president, Mr. Bush has never once demanded that his G.O.P. leaders cease playing first responder to the demands of the gun lobby and take the initiative on this public safety issue. A decade's experience with the assault weapons ban showed clearly that the only people who were inconvenienced were the criminals, the gun lobbyists and the least responsible gun dealers. Certainly the Second Amendment rights of responsible hunters were never crimped. Anyone taking to the woods next week with a freshly unfettered AK-47 or Uzi, or a TEC-9 assault pistol, will only make mincemeat of the game and a mockery of sportsmanship. Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford pleaded with President Bush to do more than give passive lip support to the ban, just as most major law enforcement agencies told him the law was a vital check on gun mayhem across the nation. But rather than protecting the law, the administration invested its single-party control of government on behalf of the National Rifle Association, not the public. Instead of trying to control assault weapons, Republican Congressional leaders tried to outlaw legitimate damage suits by gun victims against irresponsible manufacturers and dealers. Now the greedier gun dealers are preparing to profit on the law's expiration as if it signaled the arrival of Beaujolais nouveau. The Bush administration has allowed the right to bear arms to degenerate back to the right to brandish battlefield weapons on the home front.