ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 29, 1990                   TAG: 9006290702
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SENATE KEEPS GUN CURBS IN CRIME BILL

Police groups who have campaigned against semiautomatic assault rifles are getting the credit following a narrow vote by the Senate to maintain curbs on nine such weapons in an omnibus crime bill.

"Why we won is that law enforcement did a better lobbying job than the National Rifle Association," Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., said Thursday after the Senate voted 50-48 to maintain the curbs. Both Virginia senators voted to uphold the restrictions.

Tougher penalties for federal firearms violations, sexual abuse of children and selling the new narcotic "ice" also went into the bill as senators worked past midnight this morning.

The Senate also rejected efforts to drop numerous death penalty provisions in the crime bill. It did vote to let Indians decide for themselves whether to impose capital punishment for murders committed on reservations.

Central provisions of the bill call for capital punishment for 30 federal crimes and streamline the appeals process with an eye to ending delays of up to a decade in carrying out executions.

The Senate, adjourned until after the Fourth of July recess, plans to vote on passage of the overall crime package when it returns.

Forty-two Democrats and eight Republicans voted to uphold the ban on import or manufacture in this country of the nine semiautomatic assault weapons while 36 Republicans and 12 Democrats voted against.

The result was a further blow to the National Rifle Association,which has been fighting the restrictions.

The Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and an array of other law enforcement groups have been campaigning against assault weapons. They say the military-style rifles and semiautomatic pistols are too dangerous to be on the streets.

The crime bill had appeared dead when the gun provisions survived previous moves to scrap them and the threat of an unbreakable filibuster materialized. Two weeks of bargaining, however, produced agreement to resurrect the bill - once part of President Bush's crime package but now largely rewritten.

Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, led off Thursday's debate with a plan to scrap the assault weapons provisions in favor of mandatory sentences ranging from 10 years to life for firearms-related federal crimes and the death penalty in some gun killing cases.

"The sad, cold reality is that drug felons that are smuggling tons of illegal drugs into the country will smuggle firearms," said Gramm. " . . . They are going to have guns. The question is, are we going to have the stiff, mandatory sentences for those who violate the law?

"We are talking about crime control on one hand and criminal control on the other hand," Gramm said.

The Senate's 50-48 vote to uphold the gun curbs came on a DeConcini move to combine both the restrictions and Gramm's tougher penalties. 


 by CNB