brady bill
The legislative process in the United States Congress shows us an interesting drama inwhich a bill becomes a law through compromises made by diverse and sometimes conflictinginterests in this country. There have been many controversial bills passed by Congress, but among all, I have taken a particular interest in the passage of the Brady bill. When the Brady debate was in full swing in Congress about three years ago, I was still back in my country, Japan, where the possession of guns is strictly restricted by laws. While watching television news reports on the Brady debate, I wondered what was making it so hard for this gun control bill to pass in this gun violence ridden country. In this paper, I will trace the bill's seven year history in Congress, which I hope will reveal how partisan politics played a crucial role in the Brady bill's passage in this policy making branch. The Brady bill took its name from Jim Brady, the former press secretary of President Reagan, who was shot in the head and partially paralyzed in the assassination attempt on the president in 1981. This bill was about a waiting period on handgun purchases allowing police to check the backgrounds of the prospective buyers to make sure that g
The Brady bill passed the House in the 102nd Congress After almost four years from its first introduction to the Congress, the Brady bill was reintroduced to the House in the 102nd Congress as HR 7 on January 3, 1991, sponsored by 76 representatives including Feighan, William J Hughes (D-NJ), and Charles Schumer (D!-NY). As written, the bill provided for a five-day waiting period upon handgun purchases as well as the establishment of a national instant criminal background check system. On the floor, the GOP opponents proposed a series of amendments. In1994 elections, for example, the NRA spent $3. "4 This Reagan's remark was significant since he had long been a member of the NRA. Their most powerfulsupporter in the Congress is probably the House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who oncewrote in his letter to the NRA chief lobbyist Tanya Metaksa: "As long as I am Speaker of thisHouse, no gun control legislation is going to move in committee or on the floor of this House. However, meeting with strong opposition from Schumer and others, this amendment preempting State laws was rejected 75-257. Schumer argued that the Gekas'so-called sunset provision was an unrealistic deadline, pointing out the varying criminal record keeping of each States. The bill also had a provision requiring that the waiting period phase out upon the Attorney General's approval of theviability of the nationwide instant check. The NRA says it wants to repeal the waiting period as well as the backgroundchecks,14 which reveals the organization's true intention when it supported the backgroundchecks in its fight against the passage of the Brady bill. The House went on to approve the seven-day waiting period Brady bill by the vote of 239-186, placing it on the Senate calendar on June 3. However, the Brady Bill represented the first major gun control legislation passed by Congress for more than 20 years, and it meant a significant victory for gun control advocates in their way towardeven stricter gun control legislation in the future. The sunset provision was identical to the Gekas amendment passed by the House which would end the waiting period five years, and the preemption provision was the same as the McCollum amendment rejected by the House. The surge in the public support was promising; a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted during March 12 through 14 showed that 88 percent of their 1,007 respondents favored the bill. The Majority Leader then declared that he would now move on to eliminate those two provisions with which he totally disagreed.
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