Gun Control, Rights Advocates Join Forces
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: This debate, as we said, has been revived quite a bit of late. Our Bill Schneider is standing by in Washington with the other side of this particular issue. What have you been hearing there -- Bill.</s>WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: This is an issue in which the gun control advocates and also the gun rights supporters joined forces. You saw, behind Carolyn McCarthy, John Dingell, congressman from Michigan, the dean of the Democrats in Congress. He is an opponent of gun control, closely allied with gun rights advocates and the National Rifle Association. It was mentioned at that press conference that the two have joined forces. This is not a new gun control law. This is a measure that would enforce a law passed back in 1968 -- the InstaCheck system -- that would prohibit nine categories of individuals including those with mental illnesses, fugitives, felons, people involved in domestic violence cases from buying guns. That system hasn't worked particularly well. A Republican congresswoman from Maryland, Connie Morella, pointed out that 283 buyers in her state -- one of the states that's been affected by the recent sniper attacks -- 283 buyers who should not have gotten guns --were found out to have gotten guns -- though InstaCheck information did not get through quickly enough. So, this law would not be a new gun control law. It would be a way of enforcing a law already on the books. Bill, while the new laws are one of the new issues that has been introduced, of late is this idea of perhaps keeping some kind of a national database on the fingerprint, if you will, of the rifling marks that are on some of these guns that are used in any kind of a crime and keeping them in a file so that if any gun is used again in a crime it can be tracked down instantly. Now, where do both sides fall on that particular debate?</s>SCHNEIDER: The White House has taken a sort of wait-and-see position on that issue. It said that it's not sure of the effectiveness of that kind of ballistic fingerprinting. A lot of the gun rights advocates do not support that, so that issue is still up for debate. But that's not what they were talking about at this press conference this morning.</s>HARRIS: Bill Schneider in Washington, thank you very much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com