Gun-Control Bills Get Clinton Backing : Legislation: He urges Congress to pass ban on sale of handguns to minors. Sales delays, semiautomatic curbs also are due for votes this fall.

President Clinton urged Congress Monday to pass legislation banning the sale of handguns to minors and prohibiting minors from possessing handguns except under adult supervision.

With Congress preparing to take up gun-control and anti-crime measures next week--and with polls appearing to show growing public support for once-stalled gun-control measures--Clinton also repeated his call for Congress to ban at least some assault weapons and to pass the so-called Brady Bill that would impose a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases.

“We’ve got 90,000 people in the last four years murdered in America, most of them by gunshots,” Clinton said. “That’s more in any single year than were ever lost in a single year during the war in Vietnam. And I think the time has come to do something about this.”

In the last few weeks, Clinton repeatedly has said that Congress should take steps to curtail the increasing number of gun crimes committed by teen-agers. But Monday’s statement, made during a question-and-answer session with radio reporters, was the first time he endorsed any specific proposal.

The bill that Clinton supported, sponsored by Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.), would make the sale of handguns to minors a federal crime, subject to a one-year sentence. The bill would impose the same sentence on minors caught possessing a handgun unless they were under proper adult supervision.

About a dozen states forbid minors to buy or possess handguns. Current law also bars federally licensed gun dealers from selling to minors but does not limit sales by private citizens.

Clinton said that he would not support a complete ban on handgun sales to adults. “There is a lot of evidence that Americans have used handguns responsibly for sporting purposes, that they’re not all used as weapons for committing crimes or killing people,” he said. Instead, Kohl’s bill is the “way to go,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s increased rhetoric on the issue of gun control--and the belief by many in Congress that at least some gun-control measures likely will pass this year--reflects a seeming change in public attitudes on the issue. Even the National Rifle Assn. appears to have moderated its position somewhat and has, for example, endorsed Kohl’s proposal--although it has opposed similar bills in state legislatures in the past and continues to oppose other gun-control bills.

The Senate is expected to begin debate on an anti-crime bill next week and Kohl plans to propose his bill as an amendment. The Senate also plans to vote separately on the Brady Bill--named for former White House Press Secretary James S. Brady, who was severely wounded in an assassination attempt on former President Ronald Reagan--and on an assault weapons ban.

Supporters believe they have the 60 votes necessary to avoid a filibuster on the Brady Bill but are uncertain of the votes on an assault weapons ban.

House leaders have promised votes on the crime package before Thanksgiving. The House has been more supportive of the Brady Bill than has the Senate, but less supportive of an assault weapons ban.

Sponsors of the assault weapons ban have split over how to define the weapons they seek to prohibit. A proposal by Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) that narrowly passed the Senate last year would specifically list certain weapons and forbid them.

Some gun-control advocates fear, however, that such a list could easily be evaded simply by making minor changes in a gun. A proposal to define the weapons more broadly, however, has raised opposition on the grounds that it could prohibit some common semiautomatic hunting rifles.