CRIME: Assault on a Senator

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Senseless. Washington police and the FBI found no evidence that the assailants knew the identity of the victim, and they assumed it was a random robbery aimed at any affluent resident of the neighborhood. President Nixon called the shooting a "senseless thing" and praised Stennis as "the most indispensable" of all the Senators in helping achieve "the honorable peace" in Viet Nam. He said the weapon used apparently was a .22-cal. "Saturday night special," the kind of cheap handgun that the Senate last year voted to ban. (The bill died because the House did not agree.) Nixon said he was asking Attorney General Richard Kleindienst to work out a new gun-control bill with better prospects of passing.

In the past, Nixon has not strongly supported such legislation, calling it a matter for state control. The Stennis shooting has revived the issue, however. The Senate Democratic caucus urged "utmost dispatch" on measures to "inhibit the criminal and his access to deadly weapons." Illinois Democratic Senator Adlai Stevenson introduced a bill requiring federal licensing of all handguns. "What happened to Senator Stennis and Governor Wallace and Senator Robert Kennedy could happen to any citizen, and frequently does," he argued. A similar bill was to be introduced in the House by Democrats Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois and Jonathan Bingham of New York. The prospects of passage are not strong, for the nation's gun fanciers are numerous and organized. Among their defenders in Congress has been Senator John Stennis.