Magnum-Force Lobby

By WALTER ISAACSON

The N.R.A. is the toughest gun in town

Rows of keypunch operators sit in the marble and granite eight-story office of the National Rifle Association in Washington, feeding information into humming computers. Each of the association's 1.8 million members is recorded by zip code, congressional district and past support for the N.R.A. The voting records of Congressmen and Senators, and their answers to an 18-question N.R.A. loyalty test, are also tabulated--and graded from A to F. When there is a battle to be waged, the press of a button can send Mailgrams to loyalists around the country. Within hours, Mail-grams and letters from supporters are on their way to Washington--rallying, cajoling and threatening the legislators.

Among the nation's hyperactive special interest groups, from doctors to dairy farmers, none is as effective as the gun lobby in combining slick organization with membership zeal to create the perception of power on a single issue. For nearly 13 years, the N.R.A. and compatriot gun groups have successfully fought every attempt to strengthen the feeble Gun Control Act, passed after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Now, in the wake of the shooting of President Reagan, the lobby is ready to ward off another wave of proposed gun laws. Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Congressman Peter Rodino of New Jersey last week introduced a bill that would ban the import, manufacture and sale of cheap, easily concealable handguns, known as "Saturday night specials," and require a three-week wait between the purchase and pickup of any handgun. Not only does the gun lobby have its cross hairs set to shoot that bill down; gun lobbyists even hope to pass a gun bill of their own that would riddle existing federal firearm regulations with as many holes as a road sign used for target practice.

The gun lobby believes that the right to bear arms is essential to individual freedom and safety and is absolutely guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. This dedication produces a for-us-or-against-us bunker mentality that provokes unremitting opposition to any politician whose support is less than total. Early in his career, former South Dakota Senator George McGovern favored banning small handguns, but in the face of N.R.A. pressure, he ended up supporting efforts to decontrol gun purchases. Nevertheless, the gun lobby last fall threw its support, and more than $30,000, behind his successful pro-gun opponent, Republican James Abdnor. Says McGovern: "I think they're crazy, I really do. They think the most important issue in the country is to be able to walk around with a pair of six-shooters. It's maddening to reason with them."

The lobby's alarmist attitude sometimes leads it to trample on the truth by distorting an opponent's positions. Says Republican Congressman Robert McClory of Illinois, who supports handgun controls: "They misrepresent my stand completely. They invariably charge that I'm trying to take their guns away, and I'm not." Kennedy--the target of an N.R.A.-backed $205,000 campaign last year opposing his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination--spent much of his time trying to explain that the N.R.A. was wrong in charging that he favored the confiscation of hunting weapons. Says Kennedy: "There is no question that they tried to distort my views."

Understandably, there are not all that many politicians with the courage to buck the gun lobby. Gerald Ford originally favored a ban on cheap handguns but backed down in the 1976 presidential election. Former Democratic Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana was a chief sponsor of gun-control legislation in the mid-'70s; like McGovern, he ended up supporting an N.R.A.-backed bill to loosen controls when his 1980 campaign drew near--and, like McGovern, he was defeated.

Some examples of the gun lobby's tenacious success:

> In 1975, Congressman Marty Russo of Illinois, who has somehow survived gun-lobby attacks, sponsored a bill to ban concealable weapons. After the House Judiciary Committee, on a close vote, approved the bill one Thursday, a high-caliber barrage of telegrams was unleashed over the weekend. Result: on Monday the bill was reconsidered in committee and defeated.

> As part of a legislative package to fight terrorism, Congress considered requiring manufacturers of explosives to put tiny color-coded chips into their products to help in tracing the source of terrorist bombs. Partly out of fear that any kind of controls could be a first step to restricting the use of gunpowders, the lobby fought the proposal on the ostensible ground that it would make the explosives dangerous for use in old-fashioned muskets. The bill was narrowly defeated in committee last June.

> In 1978, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) proposed a series of regulations to make fit easier to trace guns used in crimes. Within two months, the gun lobby marshaled 350,000 letters to ATF, many claiming that the bureau was planning to confiscate all firearms. The author of the regulations, Richard Davis, was called a "liar and perjurer" in an N.R.A. magazine and received harassing phone calls. Says he: "They make life so hard that you just don't want to mess with them any more." Congress forced ATF to drop the proposal.

The sound and the fury of the gun lobby can also be seen whenever a bill is proposed in state legislatures. In Missouri, for example, a proposal was made to ban private handgun sales. At the hearings on April 1, only two people showed up to testify in favor of the ban. But the N.R.A. corralled 6,000 fervent opponents to converge on the capital, Jefferson City (pop. 57,000), jamming traffic into town. Willis Corbett, the N.R.A. regional representative, said such a bill was "dangerous." At a public hearing on a New Jersey bill that would ban handguns, held the day after Reagan was shot, 600 gun enthusiasts packed the hearing room. Explains one N.R.A. field representative, Lewis Elliott of Colorado: "Ours is a grassroots effort. Instead of paying a lobbyist, we just use the people."

In fact, at the federal level, the N.R.A. has five full-time lobbyists, a group headed by Neal Knox, a sharp-penned columnist for various gun magazines. They are well-informed, savvy professionals, but occasionally their zeal exasperates, rather than impresses, even congressional allies. Last fall, the N.R.A. repeatedly tried to attach a bill loosening gun regulations onto a proposed, long-overdue revision of the federal criminal code. Several senatorial supporters of the N.R.A., including Republicans Paul Laxalt of Nevada and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, were upset at the tactic, fearing that years of work on the code would be sunk by this extra weight. Neither the new code nor the N.R.A. bill ever made it to a Senate vote. Two other N.R.A. supporters, Republican Robert Dole of Kansas and Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia, were annoyed by the lobby's relentless but ultimately unsuccessful effort to block the confirmation last fall of former Illinois Congressman Abner Mikva, a strong gun-control advocate, as a federal judge.

Mikva, who survived six years of N.R.A. targeting, is cited as proof that the awesome aura projected by the gun lobby may be illusory when it comes to wielding votes rather than merely Mail-grams. Mikva feels that the best way to defeat what he calls a "paper tiger" is to stand up to it. Congressman Russo agrees: "The N.R.A. is indeed a paper tiger. I was their No. 1 target. Yet I've won by bigger margins every election."

But the defeated McGovern ruefully dissents: "Keep in mind that Ab Mikva comes from Chicago. No way is anyone from Montana or South Dakota going to agree that the N.R.A. is a paper tiger."

The N.R.A.'s muscle will be tested again this year. The Kennedy-Rodino measure--which N.R.A. Executive John Acquilino calls "probably the most bullshit bill ever proposed"--faces the prospect of early defeat, but the N.R.A. is nevertheless gearing up for a big battle.

One reason for the heavy mobilization is to rally support for a bill sponsored by Senator James McClure of Idaho and Congressman Harold Volkmer of Missouri. Supporters of the measure--which would ease restrictions on the interstate sales of guns--considered introducing it two weeks ago, but held off when Reagan was shot. No one seriously doubts that once the public outcry over the assassination attempt dies down, the bill will show up on the docket. Obedient to the tide of Mailgrams, hundreds of Congressmen will do their best to see that it becomes law. --By Walter Isaacson.

Reported by Evan Thomas/Washington.

With reporting by Evan Thomas

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