Most Support President on New Gun Laws : Survey: Times Mirror poll finds that majority back Clinton’s vow to challenge the NRA. 51% oppose a ban on the sale of all handguns.

By a 2-1 margin, Americans back President Clinton’s vow to challenge the National Rifle Assn. and seek tighter gun control laws, according to a new Times Mirror poll released Thursday.

The poll also found that by a margin of 57% to 29%, the public approves of the way that Clinton has handled the issue of controlling handguns. The results are based on a survey conducted Dec. 2-5, immediately after the President signed the Brady bill, which requires a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases. The bill will become law in three months.

The President strongly supported the Brady bill, which had been opposed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush and by most Republicans in Congress. But he stressed that it is only a first step in tightening regulations. Gun violence, he said, has become so serious that he’s now considering a much broader range of options, including national standards for state registration laws.

Some gun-control advocates have called for banning all handguns, and Clinton has indicated that he would consider such a proposal. But he has said that he doesn’t think the public would back such a move at this time. In addressing that issue, the Times Mirror survey found that 51% of those questioned opposed a law that would “ban the sale of handguns,” while 45% approved.

But public opinion to put guns under further restrictions has been growing steadily in recent months, and a CBS poll earlier this week showed that Americans are evenly split, 49% to 49%, on the issue of banning all handguns except those issued to law enforcement officers.

The Times Mirror poll also asked about Clinton’s vow to challenge the NRA on gun control, with 61% saying it was a good idea and 28% calling it a bad idea.

*

The survey, conducted for Times Mirror under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates, was based on telephone interviews among a nationwide sample of 1,479 adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Times Mirror Co. is the owner of the Los Angeles Times and other newspaper, broadcasting and publishing enterprises.

The poll found that 45% of the respondents believe that the NRA has too much influence on gun-control issues, while 27% believe it has the right amount and 15% think the association doesn’t have enough influence.

The NRA and other gun enthusiasts frequently cite the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms” provision in opposing gun control. The Times Mirror poll found that by a wide margin--57% to 34%--Americans believe it is more important to control gun ownership than to protect the right of Americans to own guns.

However, 60% of Americans oppose a law that “would make it illegal for ordinary citizens to own handguns, except in special circumstances,” the poll found, while 35% would support it.

Of those interviewed, only 45% said that they have any guns in their household. The types of weapons were fairly evenly divided among rifles, shotguns and handguns.

The poll showed that majorities of women, blacks and Democrats think stricter gun control laws will be an effective way to reduce violent crime. But most men, whites and Republicans disagreed.

Forty-seven percent of women, but only 32% of men, favor a ban. Fifty-two percent of blacks, but only 37% of whites, favor a ban.