McCain Says He Backs No Gun Control

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., right, answers questions at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Summerville, S.C., Wednesday, April 18, 2007. (AP Photo/Alice Keeney) (Alice Keeney - AP)

Top Republicans in the race are trying to close ranks with their party's conservative base on a variety of issues, making gun control an unusually sensitive one for them, too, thanks to their liberal views in the past.

With facts still unfolding, the killer was described as a creepy loner who had been accused of stalking two women, wrote violent schoolwork, been sent to mental health counseling for suspected suicidal tendencies, and scared some fellow students out of coming to class _ yet did not have a criminal record that might have stopped him from buying his guns.

Giuliani's emphasis on state-by-state solutions to gun control in the GOP primaries contrasts with his past enthusiasm for a federal mandate to register handgun owners _ an even stiffer requirement than registering guns.

Giuliani, as New York mayor and former Senate prospect, and Republican Mitt Romney, as Massachusetts governor and as a Senate candidate in the 1990s, supported the federal ban on assault-type weapons, background checks on gun purchases and other restrictions reviled by many gun-rights advocates.

The other New Yorker in this race, Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, also supported proposals for state-issued photo gun licenses, as well as a national registry for handgun sales, in positions laid out for crime-weary New Yorkers in 2000.

In this campaign, candidates in both parties who've ever taken a shot at a prey are playing up their hunting credentials. Others are highlighting their allegiance to the constitutional right to bear arms or avoiding the question altogether.

Democratic candidate John Edwards, despite recently highlighting his boyhood outings hunting birds, rabbits and deer as well as his respect for gun ownership rights, backed his party's main gun control measures when he was in the Senate.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, as a state lawmaker in the 1990s, supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tougher state restrictions on firearms.

Mass shootings have often been the catalyst for legislative action on gun control, with mixed results.

And with Democrats controlling Congress partly on the strength of new members from rural parts of the country, few lawmakers were expecting the Virginia Tech assault to revive the most far-reaching gun-control proposals of the past, such as national licensing or registration.

In 1999, after the Columbine High School killings in Colorado left 15 dead, lawmakers unsuccessfully introduced dozens of bills to require mandatory child safety locks on new handguns, ban "Saturday night specials," increase the minimum age for gun purchases and require background checks on weapons bought at gun shows.

A month after the Columbine shootings, then-Vice President Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to advance a juvenile crime bill that included gun show restrictions. But the bill died in negotiations with the House.

The Virginia Tech senior and South Korean native identified as the Blacksburg gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, was a legal permanent resident of the U.S., meaning he could legally buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony. The campus killings were carried out with 9 mm and .22-caliber handguns.

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Associated Press Writer Jim Davenport in Summerville, S.C., contributed to this report.