Washington (CNN) -- Eight weeks after the massacre
of 20 Connecticut first-graders, a ban on the kind of semi-automatic
rifle used by the killer remains elusive -- if not impossible.
Such a ban became a
rallying cry for victims' families, advocacy groups and politicians
supporting tougher gun laws in the emotional aftermath of the Newtown
shootings in December.
President Barack Obama
still calls for updating a 1994 assault weapons ban that expired 10
years later as part of his package of steps intended to reduce chronic
gun violence in America, especially in major cities.
However, fierce
opposition by the powerful National Rifle Association and millions of
American gun owners has shifted debate away from prohibiting specific
weapons to making it harder for criminals, terrorists and the mentally
ill to obtain guns.
Along with a renewed ban
on semi-automatic weapons, Obama also wants to limit magazine clips to
10 rounds, expand background checks to all gun sales, crack down on gun
trafficking, and strengthen efforts to prevent firearms from falling
into the wrong hands.
The multi-faceted
proposal provided Congress with options on legislation, enhancing
chances of passing some provisions, said Lanae Erickson Hatalsky,
director of social policy and politics at Third Way, a Washington think
tank that proposes policy compromises on major issues.
While her group supports a
renewed ban on military style weapons, Erickson Hatalsky said
"political reality" dictated a different approach.
"Keeping guns out of the
wrong hands is not only more politically palatable but also more
effective to stop gun violence," she explained.
That strategy reflects "an understanding of gun crime in the country," she added.
Opinion polls back up her assertion.
A Quinnipiac University
survey released Thursday showed that 92% of respondents support
expanding background checks to all gun sales. In households with guns,
support was 91%.
However, a majority of
households with guns opposed a renewed ban on semi-automatic weapons,
while the full survey showed 56% of respondents backed the provision.
The poll also found that 46% of respondents believe the NRA better reflects their views on guns, compared to 43% for Obama.
Diverse views in America
Obama acknowledged on
Thursday that Americans have diverse views on the issue, depending on
where they grew up and how they live.
"There are different
realities and we have to respect them," he told House Democrats at their
policy retreat, noting rural hunters and urban dwellers come from
distinct gun cultures.
At the same time, the
president called for action, saying "there are commonsense steps we can
take and build a consensus around, and we cannot shy away from taking
them."
Earlier this week, White
House spokesman Jay Carney made clear that the goal was progress on
reducing gun violence, rather than any specific provision.
Carney called proposals
backed by legislators from both parties "the first progress we've seen
in many, many years dealing with gun violence." But none of the measures
he mentioned -- expanded background checks, cracking down on gun
trafficking, criminalizing "straw" purchases in which legal buyers
obtain weapons for those unable to do so -- included a new ban on
semi-automatic weapons.
NRA President Bob Keene
said he expected few substantive changes in law because "people are
smarter than politicians," which means "common sense ultimately
prevails."
"They hope that they can
use emotion to achieve an anti-firearms agenda that they haven't been
able to achieve in the past," Keene told a recent Christian Science
Monitor breakfast event.
"I am convinced that as
these things are discussed, that we're going to come out about where we
have come out in the past," he added.
His organization keeps a
scorecard for each Washington legislator on gun issues, and spends
millions on campaign contributions to favored candidates.
In the nearly two months
since the Newtown shootings, Obama and the White House have sought to
maintain public attention on the issue.
Vice President Joe Biden will take part in a roundtable discussion on gun violence on Monday in Philadelphia.
Four days later, Obama
will award the Presidential Citizens Medal -- the nation's
second-highest civiian honor -- posthumously to the six educators killed
with the 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
In Congress, some
influential Democrats join virtually all Republicans in opposing, or at
least questioning, a renewed ban on semi-automatic weapons like the
Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle used in the Newtown shootings.
Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid, who gets high marks from the NRA for his opposition to past
gun control efforts, has indicated support for expanding background
checks but refuses to endorse a new weapons ban.
According to Reid, a
bill from the Senate Judiciary Committee was unlikely to include an
updated weapons ban, but he would allow a vote on the provision during
floor debate.
Weapons like the
Bushmaster mimic the appearance and some features of fully automatic
military rifles, though they technically do not meet the definition of
an assault weapon because they are semi-automatic -- meaning each shot
requires a trigger pull.
Supporters of a ban say
such weapons have no place in the general public because they are
designed solely for rapid-fire killing capacity, rather than hunting or
sport shooting.
Right to bear arms
The NRA and other
opponents contend that any limit on private gun ownership violates the
constitutional right to bear arms. Even partial steps in that direction,
such as prohibiting specific models, are considered a path to potential
confiscation or other future elimination of Second Amendment rights,
they argue.
In recent decades, the
NRA has led lobbying efforts that shifted the discussion away from
stronger gun controls -- such as an outright ban on handguns and a
national registration of gun ownership pushed by top Democrats in the
1980s and 90s -- to the incremental measures under consideration now.
Erickson Hatalsky of
Third Way noted examples of the NRA's influence in the last significant
gun legislation -- the Brady Bill of 1993 that required background
checks on guns purchased from licensed dealers, followed by the limited
assault weapons ban a year later.
While the Brady Bill led
to the background check system in use today, the NRA made sure it
didn't apply to private sales, such as those at gun shows, she said.
Obama and other Democrats now want to close what they call a loophole to make background checks a requirement for any gun sale.
The issue gained
prominence after the Columbine high school shootings in 1999 in which
three guns used by the two underage killers had been purchased by
18-year-old Robyn Anderson at a Colorado gun show to avoid a background
check.
Anderson later told a Colorado House of Representatives committee that the gun purchases had been "too easy."
"I wish it had been more difficult," she said. "I wouldn't have helped them buy the guns if I had faced a background check."
The 1994 weapons ban
targeting military style weapons was gone 10 years later, when Congress
let it expire in the administration of President George W. Bush -- an
outcome sought by the NRA.
Keene and other NRA
officials argue the ban failed to reduce gun violence because it
targeted firearms used in only a fraction of the nation's gun violence.
They also contend the government isn't properly enforcing the background
checks created by Brady Bill, making an expansion illogical.
"We are not willing to
support measures we feel unduly burden innocent and law-abiding
Americans, and on the other side do not have any real impact on the
problem we're trying to solve," Keene said.
To Erickson Hatalsky,
the goal is to get laws on the books that make it harder for criminals,
terrorists and the mentally ill to obtain guns -- either through private
sales or from traffickers through straw purchases.
Minor exceptions would
apply to family members giving guns to each other, or people borrowing
guns on a hunting ground, she said.
"How are they going to stop somebody who's a gun trafficker if there's no federal law against that now," she wondered.
Limits on magazine rounds
A tougher issue involves
proposed limits on ammunition magazines to 10 rounds, she said. Larger
capacity magazines allow semi-automatic weapons to fire dozens of rounds
in seconds.
At a Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing on gun control last week, Mark Kelly argued that the
proposed limit could have prevented the death of a young girl in the
Tucson, Arizona, attack that seriously wounded his wife -- former Rep.
Gabrielle Giffords.
According to Kelly, the
13th shot fired killed 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, and the
shooter got tackled when trying to reload. With a 10-round limit, Green
might still be alive, he said.
The NRA and its
supporters say larger-capacity magazines are popular, with millions
already in the possession of American gun owners who want them to feel
secure against criminals armed with similar firepower.
They also contend
citizens have the right to such weaponry to protect against future
government tyranny, which they say was the intent of the Second
Amendment's right to bear arms.
Erickson Hatalsky
rejected any inference by the NRA or its supporters that Obama's
proposals or other measures being discussed in Congress amount to taking
away people's guns.
She praised the
president's strategy of presenting a broad package for Congress to
consider, saying: "It behooves people who are working on this issue to
keep the NRA arguing about lots of different issues, rather than
allowing it to concentrate on one and defeat it."
CNN's Halimah Abdullah contributed to this report.
