Giving Up the Gun: the Conversion of Henry Hyde

By Margaret Carlson/Washington

Conversions are a rare and risky business in politics. Such decisions, rather than coming across as principled, are often characterized as flip-flops, an outcome of pressure applied not by your conscience but by dark and unseemly forces. Sticking with your own tribe is almost always the best policy, particularly if the side you are on includes an organization as powerful and well-funded as the National Rifle Association.

But Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois took the risk last week, announcing ) that he would switch from opposing the ban on assault weapons to favoring it. His change of heart may have made the last-minute surprise victory for the ban a certainty. His maneuver brought along many of the 38 Republicans who voted with the Democratic majority, including minority leader Bob Michel.

Hyde voted against the ban in 1991 and is an outspoken supporter of the right to bear arms, applauding people who guarded their property with firearms in the wake of Hurricane Andrew and the Los Angeles riots. "I don't want to disarm the community. I'm convinced 911 might not answer when you need it. You may be all there is to defend yourself." This is the kind of talk the gun lobby appreciates. Yet the white-haired, 20-year veteran of the House is also known for his intellectual honesty. He follows his deeply held beliefs -- he is a devout Catholic who is against abortion -- but he keeps an open mind on many issues. In a fight where most minds are shut tight, that made him a long- shot possibility for the forces of Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Charles Schumer, the authors of the assault-weapons ban. "We knew it would take a lot to change the Congressman's mind, but we thought if we could just get all the information on these guns to him, we might be able to do it," says Feinstein press secretary Bill Chandler. Still, Feinstein did not feel comfortable enough to cold call Hyde. Illinois Senator Paul Simon was enlisted as intermediary.

As soon as the briefing book from Feinstein arrived at his Rayburn Building office, Hyde pushed aside the chaos on his desk, settled into reading the thick document with its seven sections and quickly came to the one made up solely of murders in Chicago, whose suburbs Hyde represents. There was Gerome Allen, a local basketball player who was shot with an AK-47 by another teenager outside a supermarket; the 7-year-old fatally wounded while walking to school with his mother; the Chicago Housing Authority police officer who was killed by an AR-15 as he walked back to his patrol car at the end of his shift. "At the end of reading this list of bloody crimes, I had to conclude these guns have no purpose but to kill a lot of people very rapidly," said Hyde. "It wasn't like falling off a horse on the road to Damascus. But like many things complicated and emotional, you don't dwell on them unless forced to. Then somebody grabs you by the collar when there's a vote coming up, the pieces fit together and you say to yourself, 'This is wrong.' "

As Hyde debated with himself, some of his supporters reminded him of the Second Amendment, which, he reluctantly concluded, can have its subtleties. "Certainly, the Founding Fathers didn't contemplate these weapons of mass destruction, that teenagers and grievance killers would have bazookas." Gun advocates, he said, "kept insisting you have to stop the criminals not the guns, and I'm sympathetic to that. But I told them the time has come to do both. We can walk and chew gum at the same time."

But there may be a price to pay at home. The N.R.A. promised to punish those who voted in favor of the ban more than those who supported the Brady Bill, because that bill only delayed ownership of handguns by five days and didn't ban them outright. Hyde, who voted for the Brady Bill, recognizes that the assault-weapons measure "is a bigger nose in a smaller tent," and he anticipates continuing static from the pro-gun forces. While there is growing concern about guns in his district, it is the other side that is galvanized to retaliate. "The N.R.A. is a master at organizing -- its intensity is amazing. The issue is as emotional as you can get, arousing more passion than abortion."

Asked about Hyde's about-face, a spokesman for the Illinois State Rifle Association said, "It is safe to say anyone who voted for the ban is someone we'll be looking to replace." Hyde says he has already been handed a picture of Hitler, compared to Marshall Petain and accused of betraying his oath. The experience has made him wonder whether "people can honestly change their minds and still be fellow citizens and deserve space on this planet." The N.R.A. will let him know.