Senate Moves Toward Key Gun Control Votes; Crime Bill Stiffened : Legislation: The heavily lobbied lawmakers press hard to wrap up passage of a far-reaching measure before their Fourth of July recess.

Pressing to wrap up a far-reaching crime bill before its Fourth of July recess, the Senate on Thursday night moved toward showdown votes on proposals to impose a seven-day waiting period on handgun purchases and to expand a ban on assault weapons.

Close votes were expected as the gun lobby pushed to junk the proposed waiting period and to block broadening the ban on the sale of military-style, semiautomatic firearms.

The Senate approved a host of amendments to the omnibus crime bill, whose main provisions would expand the federal death penalty law, curb Death Row appeals, increase aid to law enforcement agencies and add the new gun controls. The Senate has been working on the bill much of the last two weeks.

Major amendments adopted Thursday would significantly stiffen federal penalties for:

--Using a gun in a felony.

--Selling drugs at truck stops and public housing projects.

--Exploiting minors in the commission of a crime.

--Pirating computer software.

--Trafficking in counterfeit goods.

--Being convicted of at least three violent or serious drug crimes.

With lawmakers clearly using the crime bill to score points with voters in next year’s elections, the Senate adopted other amendments that ranged from cracking down on telemarketing fraud and drug paraphernalia to banning the advertising of marijuana seeds.

Another amendment added to the bill, offered by Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.), would order government agencies to study legal issues surrounding women who violently retaliate against physical abuse from men.

“The admissibility of ‘battered women’s syndrome’ as a defense” in a criminal trial “is being debated in a number of states, including California,” Seymour said. “Some of these women have taken the law into their own hands to bring a halt to their torture. Frankly, I sympathize with them . . . . Both Congress and the courts need a thorough psychological and legal analysis of the issue.”

The day’s most sweeping amendment, approved by 88 to 11, would require a minimum 10-year sentence for using a gun in a felony, at least 20 years for firing it and a minimum of 30 years for using a machine gun or a silencer.

“It’s time for real gun control,” declared the author, Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.).

A day earlier, he won Senate adoption of an even tougher amendment, authorizing the death penalty for any murder involving a gun transported across state lines. That measure would let federal prosecutors seek executions in 14 states where capital punishment is not on the books.

On the proposed waiting period on handgun purchases, the Senate measure calls for giving police seven days to run a background check on prospective buyers.

The House last month adopted a similar version of this so-called Brady provision, named after James S. Brady, the former White House press secretary who was wounded in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

The National Rifle Assn. and its legislative allies seek to replace the waiting period with a computerized, instant background check. Critics complain that such a system would take years to implement at a cost of millions of dollars.

On assault weapons, the Senate legislation would extend President Bush’s ban on 47 types of imported assault weapons to 14 domestically produced models. The NRA vigorously opposes the ban as unconstitutional.

As it stood Thursday night, the omnibus bill gives President Bush nearly all he has sought on expanding the federal death penalty to cover 52 crimes and on curbing so-called habeas corpus appeals by prisoners on Death Row.

But the Senate on Tuesday voted to reject his proposal to ease restrictions on the use of illegally seized evidence in criminal court. Republicans have indicated that they may take another run at winning adoption of Bush’s plan.

The President has opposed the bill’s assault weapons ban. But he has said he would consider accepting some sort of check on handgun purchases if Congress approved his proposals on the death penalty, habeas corpus appeals and illegally seized evidence.

The Administration also has objected to Democratic-drafted provisions that would increase aid to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies by $3.2 billion.

Part of the aid would fund a “Police Corps”--college students who would agree to join police forces in exchange for a free four-year education. Although the bill authorizes only $30 million in start-up funds, Administration budget officials estimate the eventual cost of educating 80,000 students annually would hit $1 billion.