No Lessons Learned

One group of Americans was unmoved by the carnage in Texas last week: the Congressmen who voted 247 to 177 to defeat a measure that would have banned 13 different assault weapons and the high-capacity ammunition clips that make those guns even deadlier.

The proposal sought to close a loophole in an existing law on semiautomatic weapons, those rapid-fire guns that require a single squeeze of the trigger for every round discharged. In 1989, two months after a deranged man with a semiautomatic murdered five children at a Stockton, Calif., elementary school, President Bush was persuaded to place a ban on the importation of all such foreign-made weapons. But the edict was virtually meaningless, since the vast majority of "semis" purchased in the U.S. are manufactured at home.

Earlier this year, gun-control advocates won a rare victory on Capitol Hill when the House endorsed a seven-day waiting period during which police may check the backgrounds of prospective handgun purchasers. They argued that the ban on domestic semiautomatics and the restriction of magazines containing more than seven rounds was a logical next step that could prevent haunted individuals from committing mass murders. During the House debate, one legislator did switch his vote: Chet Edwards, a Texas Democrat and gun-control opponent whose district includes Killeen, site of last week's killings. "Suddenly, the old arguments ring hollow -- 'Guns don't kill people, people do' . . . This is one step, one reasonable, commonsense effort to put in regulations in the real world of crazed individuals and criminals."

But the horror of 23 dead did not counterbalance the well-established lobbying might of the National Rifle Association. Opposing what some pro-gun legislators called a "feel-good amendment," the N.R.A. mobilized its 2.5 million members in a relentless and successful campaign to defeat the measure. An Administration spokeswoman, employing one of the gun lobby's favorite bromides, said the President opposed the law because it is impossible to "legislate behavior." If that were really so, there would be no need for most of the laws that have provided the glue for civilization over the past 4,000 years.