Gun Control

Frustrated by the expanded power of Washington, a growing number of state lawmakers are defying the federal government and passing legislation aimed at rolling back the reach of Congress and President Obama. While many measures are symbolic ones declaring the sovereignty of states, some Westerners are taking more dramatic steps. One Utah lawmaker wants to limit federal law enforcement in his state.

Guns don't kill people, it's true. Bullets do. "Without ammo, a handgun is only good for pistol-whipping someone," notes Assemblyman Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles). "Ammo is the lifeblood of a handgun." On Sept. 11, the last day of this year's regular legislative session, De Leon narrowly won final passage of a bill to regulate sales of handgun ammunition. The assemblyman has a long list of gang shooting horror stories from his district, which stretches from Hollywood to the Alhambra city line and includes Echo Park, Lincoln Heights and part of East Los Angeles.

It is a rare piece of gun legislation that finds the National Rifle Assn. and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence on the same side, but President Bush signed such a bill Tuesday. The measure, Congress' response to last year's Virginia Tech shootings, is the first significant federal attempt to tighten gun laws.

In their legal battle over gun ownership and the 2nd Amendment, gun- control advocates never expected to get a boost from the Bush administration. But that's just what happened when U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement urged the Supreme Court in a brief Friday to say that gun rights are limited and subject to "reasonable regulation" by the government and that all federal restrictions on firearms should be upheld.

Gun-control advocates have been largely stymied in their efforts to get significant new firearms restrictions, but they still believe they can achieve one goal: closing a loophole that allows sales at gun shows without background checks on purchasers. This week, two Senate Democrats introduced legislation to close that loophole in federal law, despite a recent failure in Virginia -- where a gunman killed 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech in April -- to change a similar state law.

For more than 30 years, the District of Columbia has had the nation's strictest gun-control law -- a ban on having handguns at home for self-defense. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to that law from those who say it violates the 2nd Amendment's right to keep and bear arms. Few would cite D.C.'s gun ban as proof that gun control leads to crime control, as Washington continues to have one of the nation's highest rates of violent crime.

Eight years after a national debate over gun control helped keep Democrat Al Gore out of the White House, the National Rifle Assn. and its Republican allies are launching a new campaign to defeat Barack Obama. But this time, the issue that GOP strategists once relied on to provide crucial votes in close elections has lost much of its political punch. The NRA may have become a victim of its own success. Congress hasn't passed major legislation to restrict gun use in 14 years.

Presented with two historically plausible arguments about whether the 2nd Amendment secures an individual right to keep and bear arms, the Supreme Court on Thursday opted for the interpretation less suited to a 21st century America bedeviled by gun crime. That's the disappointing part of the court's long-awaited ruling striking down the District of Columbia's strict gun-control ordinance. Fortunately, even though the decision endorses the individual-right explanation, it may have limited impact.

Ben Cromeens has 17 guns at home, 13 that he bought and another four he inherited from his dad. He keeps two stashed in a secret compartment near his bed, just in case anyone thinks of messing with his family. To the 32-year-old son of Central Texas cattle ranchers, Thursday's Supreme Court ruling that individuals have a constitutional right to carry firearms for self-defense seemed about as obvious as the sun. But, Cromeens said, he travels and knows that not all Americans agree.

Emboldened by Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming the right of individuals to own handguns, advocates said they would immediately challenge a San Francisco law that prohibits guns in public housing and sue other cities nationwide to overturn gun restrictions. The California lawsuit, which the National Rifle Assn.