Bush Drops Curbs on Assault Weapons Ammunition : Gun control: He had sought a 15-round limit on clips. Now White House officials say they will support stiff penalties for crimes related to firearms.

The Bush Administration on Tuesday quietly backed away from its earlier proposal to curtail the ammunition capacity of semiautomatic assault weapons, as the Senate cast a preliminary vote against banning the military-style guns.

Under mounting pressure for federal action to take the weapons out of the hands of drug dealers and other criminals, the White House reluctantly announced a year ago that it would back a 15-round limit on the ammunition clips sold with the guns.

But White House officials are acknowledging that the Administration has shifted its approach, and is now supporting an alternative by Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) that would toughen penalties for gun-related crimes rather than slap new controls on firearms.

The limit on clips “didn’t meet with a lot of enthusiasm. It wasn’t pushed intensely,” said one White House official.

News of the shift came as the Senate rejected, 82 to 17, a proposal by Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) to ban 27 semiautomatic pistols and rifles that he claimed had become the “weapons of choice” of drug dealers and other criminals. The measure also would have imposed a 15-bullet limit on ammunition magazines.

Both California senators, Democrat Alan Cranston and Republican Pete Wilson, supported the Metzenbaum measure. Last year, the state of California and 27 cities and counties across the country enacted bans on the weapons. Last week, the New Jersey Legislature approved the nation’s toughest ban, including a provision that would require most people who legally bought the weapons to give them up.

The Metzenbaum measure was offered as an amendment to an omnibus crime bill heavily charged with election-year politics. The legislation would make extensive changes in the federal death penalty and rules of evidence and appeals process. It would also vastly expand aid to law enforcement agencies.

The Senate was expected to vote today on a narrower proposal by Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) to ban 14 semiautomatic firearms, which are designed to resemble fully automatic assault weapons used by the military.

Both the Metzenbaum and DeConcini proposals were aimed primarily at U.S.-made guns not covered by an import ban imposed last July by Bush on 43 foreign-made assault weapons. The President has opposed extending the ban to domestically manufactured assault weapons, which account for about 75% of such guns in circulation.

Metzenbaum noted widespread support for an expanded assault weapons ban in public opinion polls and by many law enforcement leaders, including Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates. But he said that numerous Senate colleagues had told him they feared voter resentment that could be stirred up by the National Rifle Assn.’s harsh rhetoric and organizing efforts.

“Don’t be afraid of the NRA,” Metzenbaum pleaded during contentious debate, noting that he had survived an attack at the polls in 1988. “The NRA is a paper tiger. Its bark is louder than its bite.”

And Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said, “Vote for the NRA or vote for your local police,” who, he said, are “outgunned by these types of weapons.”

On the other hand, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) protested that such a ban would not harm criminals, who could get the guns anyway, but law-abiding hunters and target shooters who “wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

What is needed to curb crime, Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) said, is not more gun control but an enforceable death penalty for 30 federal crimes ranging from assassination of the President to murder of egg product inspectors.

“Let’s try ‘em and fry ‘em--that’ll get things going,” Simpson said with characteristic irreverence.

Bush’s original suggestion to limit ammunition clips was part of an anti-crime package he proposed last May. At that point, pressure had been building to restrict assault weapons since the previous January, following a schoolyard massacre in Stockton, Calif. Rapidly firing a Chinese-made AK-47 with a huge ammunition clip, a drifter named Patrick Purdy killed five children and wounded 30 others.

In recent weeks, Bush’s comments on crime have focused on calls for greater use of the death penalty, particularly in cases involving drugs and the murders of law enforcement officers. He has criticized the Democrats’ crime package as a “weak imitation” of the Republican alternative, complaining that it would effectively nullify the death penalty and limit the use of evidence seized by police.