In Age of Violence, Time Seems Ripe for New Gun Laws : Legislation: Public opinion is turning as crime escalates. Bills on dealers, sales to minors and waiting periods are expected to pass this year.

Not since 1968 has the prospect seemed brighter for new federal laws to try to stem the proliferation of guns in America. Just ask Rep. Dan Glickman.

Only a year ago, Glickman, a Democrat from Kansas, ranked high on the hit list of officeholders the mighty National Rifle Assn. wanted to gun down because of his support for gun control.

Despite the NRA’s fabled political clout, however, Glickman handily won reelection and, extraordinarily, is now working alongside the NRA on a bill to keep handguns out of the hands of those under 18.

The new atmosphere has been generated by an epidemic of gun-related violence. Americans own an estimated 200 million guns, and about one in every two people lives in a house with a gun in it.

Guns were the weapon in 15,377 murders last year and some 13,000 of those were handguns. Including accidental deaths and suicides, firearms killed about 38,000 people.

“Kids and guns are a symbol of what’s gone wrong in our society,” said Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.), Senate sponsor of the bill to outlaw the sale of handguns to youths.

That bill is given a strong chance of passage this year, as are proposals to regulate gun dealers more tightly and to require a five-day waiting period before the purchase of a handgun.

President Clinton’s support for gun control, on the heels of 12 years of Republican administrations that opposed it, has added to its prospects. Ronald K. Noble, assistant Treasury secretary for enforcement, said that increasing violence nationwide has made Americans “more open-minded to . . . regulation of assault and semiautomatic weapons and regulations to keep handguns out of the hands of minors.”

Public opinion polls document the sharp change in public attitude.

A Louis Harris poll found in June that 20% of adults knew someone whose child had been shot by another child. One in six parents knew a child who had been found playing with a loaded gun.

For the first time, a majority (52%) said that they favored “a federal law banning the ownership of all handguns,” according to the poll, which was done for the Harvard School of Public Health. Harris said that represented “a sea change of public opinion on this issue.”

Nine of 10 in the survey said that they supported the so-called Brady bill, which would require a five-day waiting period before a handgun may be purchased so that authorities would have time to check the buyer’s background.

Subsequent polls found the support had climbed above 90% for the Brady bill, named for former President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, James S. Brady, who was severely wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan. Brady and his wife, Sarah, a gun control crusader since 1981, are scheduled to meet with Clinton today to discuss strategy designed to secure enactment of the measure by Thanksgiving.

Although Clinton and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno are constantly plugging for gun control, the increased public support seems to be originating at the grass roots.

“People of the country are out in front of the politicians, and they’re demanding action,” said Jeff Muchnick, legislative director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, made up of 38 national organizations ranging from church groups and school associations to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Many states, including some where any limits on gun ownership have been anathema, now are adopting various forms of control.

The Utah Legislature, spurred by gang violence and teen-agers toting guns, earlier this month barred selling firearms to minors who are unaccompanied by adults. This followed the adoption of an ordinance by Salt Lake City requiring a five-day waiting period on the purchase of weapons by anyone younger than 26.

Elsewhere:

* Virginia, with a reputation as a “gun-running” state, this year limited the purchase of handguns to one a month.

* The New Jersey Senate refused to override Gov. James J. Florio’s veto of an NRA-backed repeal of the nation’s strongest assault weapon ban.

* Connecticut this year outlawed the sale and possession of more than 60 types of assault weapons, including the Colt AR-15 Sporter, made by the Connecticut-based Colt Manufacturing Co.

At the federal level, it has been a quarter of a century since Congress last enacted major gun control legislation after the assassinations in 1968 of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.). That law, which was relaxed in the 1980s to cover only handguns, barred the interstate sale of firearms and required gun dealers to keep records of their sales.

Since then, said Glickman, “the level of violence in society has gotten greater, and teen-age violence has grown exponentially. Even the NRA can’t ignore the facts.”

The NRA has indeed adapted to the times. In its effort to unseat Glickman last year, it used the gun control issue only in its appeals to its own members. For wider audiences, it attacked Glickman in radio and newspaper advertisements for supporting a luxury tax on aircraft, a hot local issue because Beechcraft, a major manufacturer of small planes, is located in Wichita.

Yet by some measures, the NRA has never been stronger. It claims a membership of 3 million--more than eight times the 360,000 claimed by its leading opponent, Handgun Control Inc.

The NRA gave $1.7 million to congressional candidates last year and spent an additional $870,000 in its own campaigns for or against particular candidates.

Even more awesome is NRA’s grass-roots strength, with members organized to write letters, make phone calls and otherwise let senators and representatives know that their stance on guns is being monitored.

But even the NRA keeps its finger to the political wind. Accordingly, it has tempered its opposition to the Brady bill and is trying to work behind the scenes for weakening amendments.

In the first of many tests before it can become law, the bill sailed through a House Judiciary subcommittee Friday on a 10-3 vote.

The NRA is also cooperating with the sponsors of the Kohl-Glickman bill, which forbids persons under 18 to own or possess handguns, and a bill sponsored by Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) to impose stricter regulation on the estimated 275,000 gun dealers and 30,000 retail gun stores.

James Jay Baker, the NRA’s chief lobbyist, said that the NRA is working with Simon “to produce a piece of legislation that we can support.”

In its present form, the bill increases gun dealers’ annual licensing fee from $10 to $750.

Prospects for legislation banning assault weapons are murkier. Baker said that the NRA objected because the bill permits the Treasury secretary to expand the list of weapons covered after the law takes effect.

Some veterans of the gun control wars say that, while prospects for federal legislation are the brightest since 1968, the result will not make much difference.

Gerald M. Caplan, dean of the McGeorge Law School in Sacramento and former general counsel for Washington’s police department, is one of those.

“Whatever progress there is comes at the margin--limiting types of weapons that can be sold,” he said. “The larger problem is insoluble because of the number of guns on the street. Even if we banned manufacture, there would be millions of guns on the streets.

“The only realistic program would be requiring people to surrender their guns and making possession a serious crime,” Caplan said. “I don’t think people are ready for that. The rest of it is symbolic but not relevant to public safety.”

Times researcher Edith Stanley in Atlanta contributed to this story.