Democrat, Republican senators clash at latest hearing on guns

WASHINGTON - The plague of gun violence in the U.S. makes it plain that current firearms restrictions are insufficient and new federal limits are needed, a top Democrat told a Senate hearing on gun control Tuesday. A Republican argued that gun rights must be protected, even amid horrors like the recent mass shooting of school children in Connecticut.

"There are too many families who now face an empty seat at the dinner table" because of gun violence, said Sen. Richard Durbin, chairman of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. He said that while opponents of stricter gun limits claim that existing laws simply need to be better enforced, "that's not enough. There are so many gaps in those laws."

Durbin said restrictions such as requiring background checks for all gun purchases could be written that would still protect the Constitution's Second Amendment right to bear arms. Currently, such checks are required only for sales by licensed federal dealers.

Sen. Ted Cruz, the top Republican on the panel, expressed sympathy for those directly affected by gun violence. But he added that constitutional rights must be protected "not just when they're popular, but especially when passions are seeking to restrict and limit those rights."

Cruz said he believed that "stripping the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens does nothing to stop criminals" from committing violent acts.

The renewed focus on guns on Capitol Hill comes after the December killings of 20 young children and six adults in Connecticut. Some family members of those shot there were in the hearing room Tuesday.

President Barack Obama wants Congress to enact new curbs, including bans on assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines and a requirement that all gun buyers be subject to background checks. Obama is expected to push for his plans in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Democrats have been more receptive to Obama's proposals than Republicans, most of whom -- along with the National Rifle Association -- have opposed them.

The universal background check has the broadest support and is expected to be a centerpiece of legislation that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy hopes to write in the next few weeks. The assault weapons ban is given little chance of enactment, and passage of a ban on large-capacity magazines also seems doubtful.

Timothy J. Heaphy, the Obama-appointed U.S. attorney for the western district of Virginia, said in his written statement that the federal background check system has kept more than 1.5 million guns from criminals and others prohibited from having them since 1998, when the system began. Even so, he told the subcommittee that the background check requirement needs to be expanded and he called for federal laws prohibiting illegal gun trafficking.

"Without more meaningful penalties for those who traffic in firearms, we will continue to find it difficult to dismantle the criminal networks that exploit these statutory gaps," he said.

In prepared testimony, Suzanna Gratia Hupp described being in a restaurant in Texas when a gunman crashed his truck through the front window and fatally shot 23 people, including her parents, and wounded many others. Hupp says she left her gun in her car because Texas law barred her from bringing it into the restaurant.

"The only thing the gun laws did that day was prevent good people from protecting themselves," Hupp said.

Taking a different view was Sandra J. Wortham, whose brother, Thomas E. Wortham IV, was shot dead outside their parents' home by robbers, though he and his father, a retired police sergeant, fired back.

"The fact that my brother and father were armed that night did not prevent my brother from being killed," Wortham said in prepared testimony. "We need to do more to keep guns out of the wrong hands in the first place."

Laurence H. Tribe, a liberal Harvard Law School professor, said in his prepared testimony that nothing Obama has proposed "even comes close to violating the Second Amendment" right to bear arms.

But attorney Charles J. Cooper, representing the NRA, said Obama's proposed assault weapon and high-capacity magazine bans were unconstitutional because gun rights "cannot be circumscribed by appeal to countervailing government interests."

Also testifying was Daniel W. Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, which favors tighter gun control laws. Webster said in his prepared statement that 2004 data on prisoners who had committed gun-related crimes showed that nearly 8 in 10 had obtained their firearms from unlicensed private sellers, whose transactions do not require background checks.

"Laws such as background check requirements for all gun sales will help law enforcement combat illegal gun trafficking and keep guns from prohibited individuals," he said.