02/23/1993 By Helen Dewar Washington Post Staff Writer
   Congressional advocates of legislation to require a waiting
period for handgun purchases dusted off and reintroduced the measure
yesterday, guardedly optimistic that President Clinton's support
will overcome obstacles that doomed the bill for the last six years.
   The bill, named for former White House press secretary James
Brady, who was seriously wounded in an attack on President Ronald
Reagan in 1981, was approved by both houses of Congress last year
but died in the Senate in a partisan crossfire over anti-crime
legislation to which it had been attached.
   President George Bush had said he would sign the bill only as
part of broader anti-crime legislation. But Clinton supported the
measure without qualification during his campaign and listed the
Brady measure among his legislative goals in his State of the Union
Message last week, saying, "If you pass the Brady bill, I'll sure
sign it."
   "Mr. President, we intend to do just that," said Senate Majority
Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Maine), standing before a large sign
emblazoned with Clinton's words at a news conference called by the
bill's advocates to launch the drive for enactment by summer.
   But neither Mitchell nor others indicated they thought that
passage would come easily - a point reinforced by the effort that
went into the news conference, which featured congressional sponsors
of the legislation, Brady and his wife Sarah, police groups that
have endorsed the bill and local school children, including friends
of youngsters killed by gunfire.
   One of young people, Julian Rowand, a student at St. Albans
School for Boys, told of a friend who was gunned down in his
apartment house doorway last December and said, "His death made me
realize we have to do something to stop the senseless violence . . .
.  I'm afraid it may be me next."
   While expressing confidence that the bill will eventually pass,
Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), the bill's Senate sponsor,
warned that attempts probably will be made to entangle the proposal
in other controversial crime-related issues, such as death-penalty
appeals.
   Metzenbaum urged colleagues to avoid such "detour routes" and
insist on a vote on the Brady bill as separate legislation. But Rep.
Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), chief sponsor of the measure in the
House, said the bill may have to be combined with broader anti-crime
legislation if that appears to be the best way to assure prompt
passage.
   Metzenbaum said he hopes the Senate can act on the legislation in
no more than 60 days. Schumer said his goal is to have the
legislation on Clinton's desk for signature by Congress's August
recess.
   Clinton has not indicated whether he wants the bill passed
separately or as part of a broader measure, and legislative strategy
on the issue is not likely to take shape until the Senate acts on
the nomination of Janet Reno as attorney general and other key
positions at the Justice Department are filled.
   As introduced in the House yesterday and prepared for
introduction in the Senate Wednesday, the bill is identical to the
1991 legislation in calling for a waiting period of five business
days to allow police to conduct background checks of prospective
handgun purchasers. The background check is aimed at barring sale of
handguns to felons and others who would be barred by law from
purchasing the weapons.
   The waiting-period requirement would be phased out as states,
with some federal financial assistance, upgrade their criminal
record systems with the ultimate goal of a central national record
system that dealers can tap for instantaneous information about the
background of a would-be gun buyer.
   The bill anticipates that a national records system would be
established within five years. Any state that fails to bring its
record-keeping system up to a national standard, or keep it there,
after the national record system is fully operational would have to
continue requiring a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases.
   Although opposed by the powerful National Rifle Association, the
waiting-period provisions were approved last year by votes of 239 to
186 in the House and 67 to 32 in the Senate. But efforts to pass the
measure as part of a crime bill or as separate legislation failed in
the Senate, largely because of the election-year partisan dispute
over other anti-crime provisions - the same kind of threat that the
legislation faces this year.