Gun control policy of the Bill Clinton administration

Clinton reversed the tide by using gun control as an issue and calling Bush soft on crime for not pushing for passage of the Brady Bill or the nationwide assault weapons ban.

However, on March 15, 1989, less than two months after taking office, Bush temporarily banned, by executive order, the importation of various semi-automatic "assault weapons".

When he was campaigning for Governor of Arkansas he met a hardware store owner who had sold a handgun to an unstable Vietnam vet, who had just been released from a mental hospital.

One year after signing the Brady Law, White House lobbying also played a role in the passage of the 1994 Crime Bill, which included the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, commonly known as the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.

The law banned certain semi-automatic firearms with two or more specific design features, and also prohibited the manufacture of ammunition magazines that held over ten rounds.

[11] Certain aspects of the Brady Bill were ruled unconstitutional in court (Printz v. United States), and the government now uses an instant check system instead of a five-day wait, but otherwise it survived and is still in effect today.

Critics pointed out that by 1999, of the more than 23,000 cases that had been referred for prosecution by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the BATF had only arrested 56 people.

[12] In 1999, White House domestic policy chief Bruce D. Reed said, "The country is tired of waiting for Congress to respond to the tragedy in Littleton.

In 2000, the Clinton administration reached an agreement with Smith & Wesson, to end federal and state lawsuits, in exchange for marketing and design changes by the company.

[14] Smith & Wesson's ownership changed in 2001 and the agreement fell apart after George W. Bush came to office and supported lawsuit protection for gun manufactures.