Senate rejects gun-maker legislation

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The Senate yesterday rejected a bill to grant gun manufacturers immunity from civil-liability claims after several amendments left it unpalatable to both gun rights and gun control supporters.

The final vote on the legislation, which failed 90-8, showed more division than it did uniformity in the Senate.

Senate Democrats despised the bill as a "special-interest giveaway" -- what they called a unique exemption for gun makers -- even though they successfully amended the bill with three measures dear to them: an extension of the assault-weapons ban, mandatory handgun trigger locks and the removal of the gun-show loophole.

Still, most Democrats voted against the bill.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans were unwilling to accept the amendments and decided that the underlying immunity bill should be scrapped and the issue raised another day. The original bill was designed narrowly to protect gun manufacturers and licensed dealers from frivolous lawsuits.

But Senate Democrats wanted the amendments debated on the Senate floor, not in conference committee as the Republican leadership had asked for.

"When it became clear we could not get a clean bill to the president and that [Democrats] would not participate in the conference on these amendments, we weighed it down," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, said.

The quick turn of events is highly unusual in national politics said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican. The judgment of interest groups also shifted just as quickly.After the gun-show and assault-weapons amendments were attached, Americans for Gun Safety, an organization that touts itself as supporting "centrist" gun-safety measures, endorsed the bill. But hours later, the group praised the defeat of the bill, calling it a "victory for [the] gun-safety movement."