WASHINGTON • In a dramatic appeal, wounded former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords urged Congress on Wednesday to enact tougher curbs on guns, saying, "too many children are dying" without them.
"The time is now. You must act. Be bold, be courageous, Americans are counting on you," she told the Senate Judiciary Committee at Congress’ first gun control hearing since 20 elementary school children were shot to death in Newtown, Conn., late last year.
Giffords spoke haltingly, a result of the wounds suffered when she was shot in the head in an attempted assassination two years ago that left six others dead.
But in conflicting testimony a little more than an hour later, a top official of the National Rifle Association rejected bans on certain assault weapons and high capacity magazines advocated by President Barack Obama and gun control advocates in Congress.
Under persistent questioning from Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the panel’s chairman, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre also conceded that in a reversal, his organization no longer supports universal background checks for gun purchasers. He said criminals wouldn’t subject themselves to a background check and the current system is a failure because the administration doesn’t prosecute potential violators aggressively.
"Back in ‘99 you said, ‘no loopholes, nowhere,’ " said Leahy, referring to testimony delivered more than a decade ago. "Now you do not support background checks for all."
Other Democrats on the panel disagreed with LaPierre.
"That’s the point. The criminals will not go to purchase the guns because there’ll be a background check. It will stop them from original purchase. You missed that point completely. It is basic," said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois.
Retired Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, Giffords husband as well as a former astronaut and also a witness, said a limit on the size of ammunition magazines could have made a dramatic difference when a man opened fire in Arizona two years ago.
He "showed up with two 33-round magazines, one of which was in his 9 millimeter. He unloaded the contents of that magazine in 15 seconds. Very quickly. It all happened very, very fast. The first bullet went into Gabby’s head. Bullet number 13 went into a nine-year old girl named Christina Taylor Green....
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"If he had a 10-round magazine -- well, let me back up. When he tried to reload one 33-round magazine with another 33-round magazine, he dropped it. And a woman named Patricia Maisch grabbed it, and it gave bystanders a time to tackle him.
"I contend if that same thing happened when he was trying to reload one 10-round magazine with another 10-round magazine, meaning he did not have access to a high-capacity magazine, and the same thing happened, Christina Taylor Green would be alive today."
Giffords was not on the list of witnesses released in advance of the hearings, and in an unusual show of respect, members of the committee greeted her warmly outside the hearing room as she and her husband made their way inside. The former Democratic congresswoman was grievously wounded in an assassination attempt in Tucson, Ariz., a little more than two years ago, and has become a public advocate for gun control.
Kelly described the effect on his wife of the events of two years ago.
"Gabby’s gift for speech is a distant memory. She struggles to walk, and she is partially blind. Her right arm is completely paralyzed," he told a rapt committee room.
In the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., massacre, Obama has issued a call for gun control legislation.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat and member of the committee, has introduced a bill to ban numerous assault-style weapons as well as high-capacity ammunition magazines.
The prospects for Senate passage are not strong, in part because of opposition from the NRA and in part from a reluctance among rural-state Democrats — Leahy among them — to support limitations sought by some advocates of restrictions on firearms.
Republicans pledged to listen carefully, and no more.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday that reviewing the issue was timely.
"But I’m a strong supporter of the Second Amendment," he said citing the constitutional provision that guarantees the right to bear arms, "and I don’t intend to change."
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the panel’s senior Republican, said that while the shootings in Arizona and Connecticut were terrible tragedies, they "should not be used to put forward every gun control measure that has been floating around for years." He also said any serious discussion of the issue ‘must include a complete re-examination of mental health as it related to mass shootings."
In an opening statement of his own, Leahy said it is "a simple matter of common sense" that there should be a strengthening of background checks and that doing so would not threaten gun owners’ rights. The checks are currently required for gun purchases from licensed dealers but not at gun shows or other private transaction.
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