Missing from Senate gun bill: Preventing kids' access

Malia Rulon Herman, Gannett Washington Bureau | GANNETT

WASHINGTON — A gun-control bill that survived a key test vote in the Senate on Thursday does not contain provisions to restrict access to guns by children.

That's significant in context with incidents such as an accidental shooting in Toms River, N.J., on Tuesday in which police say a 6-year-old was killed by a 4-year-old neighbor.

The shooting isn't an anomaly. At least three other people — including one child — were seriously injured or killed in accidental shootings over the past week in which a toddler obtained a loaded weapon.

According to the national Children's Defense Fund, no federal laws prevent children from accessing guns. New Jersey is among 27 states that have enacted laws designed to prevent children from accessing firearms, but those laws often aren't enforced.

New Jersey lawmakers and gun-control advocates say they support federal legislation that would make it a crime for adults to leave firearms where children could find them or would require that guns in homes where children live be locked up or equipped with trigger locks.

But it's unclear whether the political will exists to get such measures passed.

"I've authored this in the past. I think it would be great," Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey said of child-access provisions, adding that such measures should be "an important part" of any gun legislation.

But Menendez, speaking in the hallway of the Capitol shortly before Thursday's gun bill vote, said he worried that adding any potentially controversial measure to an already controversial gun-control bill would "upset the balance."

Republican senators had threatened to filibuster the gun legislation, which would expand gun background checks. Thursday's vote only came after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., struck a long-awaited deal on the background checks.

"I don't want to undermine... a compromise" that has a chance to pass, said Menendez, who voted in favor of keeping the gun bill alive.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., was not in Washington for the vote due to illness. His spokesman, Caley Gray, said the senator has long supported legislation and technology that would prevent children from accessing guns. But he doesn't plan to offer an amendment on that topic, Gray said.

Instead, Lautenberg is expected to offer an amendment he has long championed that would ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips. He also has pushed for a measure to prevent people on a terrorist watch list from purchasing firearms.

Shannon Watts, founder of the Million Moms Demand Action group, which has been active in pushing for gun-control legislation since the Dec. 14 shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, said she also supports a federal child-access gun law. But her group isn't pushing the issue.

"We're trying to get the basics done," she said.

Watts said there's a host of steps that could be taken to make American children safer, and the group plans on pushing this issue later, along with others.

"We're in this for the long term," she said.

Thursday's vote is the first step in what is expected to be a weeks-long debate over gun-control legislation. Likely amendments include proposals relating to mental health, and proposals to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.

Two New Jersey Democrats said Thursday that if the gun legislation passes the Senate and reaches the House, they would support efforts to add child-access measures.

"To me, it makes perfect sense: liminate the access to prevent a situation like this," Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of Long Branch said of the Toms River shooting. "It's certainly something that I would support and would try to get support for."

Democratic Rep. Rob Andrews of Haddon Heights agreed.

"It's a perfect middle ground in the gun debate," he said. "I don't see why anybody would be against that. Even if you believe there should be no gun control at all, you certainly would want to prevent a thief or a child from firing your weapon."

But including such a provision "isn't going to be politically easy," Andrews said.

"I'm in favor of a ban on automatic weapons and high-capacity magazine clips, but if we get the background checks passed, it's a good first step," he said.

Republican Rep. Jon Runyan, whose district includes Toms River, did not say whether he would support child-access gun provisions.

"Obviously, my heart goes out to this family as they endure the pain of losing a child, especially under these circumstances," he said in a statement. "Without knowing all of the facts in this case, all I can say is that this is a terrible tragedy for both families and the entire Toms River community."

The only child-access legislation introduced in Congress so far this year would prohibit adults from keeping a loaded firearm or an unloaded firearm and ammunition where a child could gain access to it.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, was referred to a committee and has not received a hearing. Lautenberg has introduced legislation on this topic in the past, most recently in 2005, his office said.

In addition to the Toms River shooting, a Tennessee woman was shot in the stomach Sunday after her 2-year-old found a loaded Glock 9mm under her pillow.

Another Tennessee woman was killed Saturday after a 4-year-old boy fired a handgun that the woman's husband, a sheriff's deputy, had briefly set on the couple's bed, according to police. And a 3-year-old died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in South Carolina on Tuesday after finding a loaded weapon in an apartment.