Wounding The Gun Lobby

By Richard Lacayo

Until a few weeks ago, the National Rifle Association's well-planned ambush of New Jersey seemed as if it might succeed. The specific target was the state's three-year-old ban on military-style semiautomatic weapons. Relentless lobbying and fistfuls of NRA campaign money appeared to have done the job. Never mind that polls showed 80% of New Jersey residents in favor of the ban -- both houses of the state legislature voted last summer to repeal most of , it. When Democratic Governor Jim Florio vetoed their action, the assembly voted in February to override. The senate was expected to follow suit last week. Gun lobbyists smelled victory.

They were wrong. Last week the senate voted -- unanimously -- not to overturn the ban. What had changed? Citizens swamped lawmakers' offices with calls supporting the ban after Florio stumped the state, appealing to voters to voice their feelings about such weapons: pistols that whip off 10 shots or more from a single clip or the rapid-fire shotgun that drug dealers like to call "street sweepers."

The NRA, which used to have little organized opposition, now faces a coalescing counterlobby. In the cities and suburbs, where muggings and carjackings are a daily concern, voters are wondering how many of the nation's 200 million guns are pointed at them. Or at their children. In Los Angeles schools last year 405 guns were confiscated -- 28 of them in elementary schools. In Louisiana and Texas more people now die from gunshot wounds than from car accidents.

Sensing the change, politicians of both parties have felt it easier to buck the gun lobby -- especially since the NRA seldom budges from its never-give- an-inch credo. The New Jersey defeat came just three weeks after Virginia, an NRA stronghold, adopted a one-per-month limit on handgun purchases. The aim was to discourage bulk buyers who had turned the state into a firepower exporter to street criminals everywhere. "People recognize that this random gun violence is out of control," says Susan Whitmore, communications director of Handgun Control, a lobbying group. Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana and Minnesota have all adopted stronger gun-control legislation recently. Later this year Congress is expected to pass the so-called Brady bill, which requires a five- day waiting period for purchasing handguns. President Clinton has declared support for a federal law limiting the sale of assault weapons. He recently told a New Jersey audience that protecting the right to bear arms for sport or self-defense does not mean "that everybody in America needs to be able to buy a semiautomatic or an automatic weapon built only for the purpose of killing people."

To counter the NRA's clout, politicians and activists have started their own coalitions. Virginia's Democratic Governor L. Douglas Wilder joined forces with Richard Cullen, a Republican who is U.S. Attorney in the state's eastern district, to organize a group of business, police and citizen organizations called Virginians Against Gun Trafficking. The group raised $100,000 for a media effort, just a fifth of what the NRA reportedly spent to oppose the bill on the grounds that it abridged the constitutional right to bear arms and would not work to stem crime. But the gun-rationing campaign was built around an uncomfortable question: Who needs more than one handgun a month? The implicit answer: bad guys. As in New Jersey, the campaign produced a fusillade of citizen calls to the Virginia legislature in support of the proposed law. "The NRA kept saying, 'We can defeat you.' " says Scott Bates, secretary of the commonwealth. "We stuck out our chins and said, 'Come on.' "

For all that, the NRA remains a powerful force to be reckoned with. New Jersey and California are still the only states where assault weapons are outlawed. Three weeks ago, in the face of strong NRA opposition, the Georgia senate voted down a bill that would make it unlawful for an adult to keep a loaded firearm within reach of a child.

Since 1991, when NRA membership dipped below 2.5 million, an aggressive campaign has restored the rolls to more than 3 million. "When gun owners perceive their rights to be more threatened, they tend to join," says James Baker, the NRA's chief lobbyist. The membership drive has been expensive, however, contributing to the NRA's operating loss of $29.8 million for the first 11 months of 1992. Mindful that his group is in danger of being seen as a mouthpiece for arms dealers to the underworld, NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, a hard-liner who took charge two years ago, has inaugurated a $3 million get-tough-on-crime campaign. "I want this organization to become the No. 1 crime-fighting organization in the country," he says. "We're going to go out and fight for prison building, to reduce plea bargaining, to lobby for more probation officers."

The NRA stress on tougher sentencing -- even in a country in which prison populations have more than doubled in the past decade -- is in keeping with its argument that gun-control laws are just cosmetic gestures against crime. The group's leaders expect public opinion to swing back their way when citizens realize that measures like the Virginia gun-rationing law don't work. "All they have to do is pay more than one person to go in and buy a gun for them," says Richard Gardiner, the group's legislative counsel. "Easy."

But the NRA may have become too tough for its own good. "I don't know why they're so hyper about a waiting period for handguns," says Alan Sless, a shooting instructor from Margate, New Jersey, who has been an NRA member for 20 years. "And I see no reason that hunters need semiautomatics." The organization's take-no-prisoners lobbying techniques have alienated many old supporters. In New Jersey, an NRA counteroffensive backfired when pro-gun legislators felt cornered by panicky gun lobbyists. Lobbyist Rodger Iverson vowed to raise $100 from every one of the state's gun owners to unseat lawmakers who defied him on the assault-weapons ban. During a session of the state legislature last week, a flustered Iverson rose from the spectators' gallery during a speech supporting the law, directed an obscene gesture toward the legislative floor and stormed out of the hall.

In November the gun lobby will try to make good on its promises to punish legislators who have opposed it. After the New Jersey vote, senate president Donald DiFrancesco, a Republican who initially supported repeal of the assault-weapon ban, set up a campaign fund to assist legislative candidates that the NRA had targeted for defeat. To make sure the organization got the message, he made the first contribution himself -- $10,000 that the NRA had contributed to his own campaign fund over the past two years.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: From a telephone poll of 800 adult Americans, including 374 gun owners, taken for TIME/CNN on March 18 by Yankelovich Partners Inc. Sampling error is plus or minus 3.5% and plus or minus 5% respectively..

CAPTION: Do you have any guns in your home?

Would stricter gun-control laws reduce the amount of violence in the country?

Do you favor stricter gun-control laws?

Does the National Rifle Association have too much influence over gun-control laws?

With reporting by Wendy Cole/New York, Julie Johnson/Washington and Lisa Towle/Raleigh