Posted on 05/14/2003 2:32:06 PM PDT by Godebert
By JIM ABRAMS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -
President Bush should take the lead in overcoming resistance within his own party to extending an assault weapons ban due to expire next year, Democrats said Wednesday.
"If the bill dies we will lay it at the president's doorstep," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said a day after House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told reporters that the 1994 law banning the manufacture of 19 types of common military-style assault weapons would not be renewed.
Schumer said the gun bill would be an issue in the 2004 election, a development that could pose problems for Democrats who represent districts with strong gun rights sentiment. The assault ban vote was also a campaign topic in 1994, the year Republicans recaptured the House after spending 40 years in the minority.
Bush, taking a position at odds with the National Rifle Association, has voiced support for extending the ban, and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer on Wednesday said that support would carry weight in Congress.
"This is a matter that the House has to work out, of course, by listening to the will of its members, but the president's position is clear on it," Fleischer said. "When the president states his position like that, it helps get the message to the Congress."
Fleischer would not say whether Bush would pressure DeLay to bring such a bill up for a vote. DeLay, R-Texas, on Tuesday indicated that there would be no effort to renew the current law before it expires on Sept. 13, 2004. "The votes in the House are not there to reauthorize it," he said.
"The real question is will the president weigh in and ask the leaders to schedule a vote," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., who as a senior adviser to President Clinton played a key role in guiding the 1994 legislation through Congress.
(Excerpt) Read more at lasvegassun.com ...
But Mr. LaPierre of the NRA said reports of the issue causing a rift between the president and one of his most loyal political allies have been overblown.
"I'm sure that the anti-firearms senators and congressmen and their allies in the national media would love to make this about President Bush and the NRA," Mr. LaPierre said. "But the truth is, it's going to be resolved in the Congress.
"We're going to try to make sure that they never get this phony bill passed into law again," he said.
Are you ever sober enough to take a good long look at your lonely, pitiful existence and wonder why?
Everyone knows that you need crank. I hope you live.
You must have learned that in your 12-step program before you were expelled.
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