House Panel Approves Bill Banning Assault Weapons : Crime: Victims’ relatives join supporters of measure that would outlaw 19 models of rapid-fire guns. Legislation still faces its toughest test.

Starting a perilous journey, a House bill to ban rapid-firing assault weapons cleared its first hurdle Tuesday as it moved toward an expected showdown on the House floor.

The measure was approved by the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime and criminal justice on a party-line vote of 8 to 5, with Democrats in the majority. The bill, identical to legislation passed by the Senate as part of its crime bill, is expected to be approved Thursday by the full Judiciary Committee. Its toughest test likely would come on the House floor early next month.

President Clinton has promised to lobby members of Congress in hopes of winning over the 15 to 20 lawmakers needed to pass the bill in the House, which would assure that it would become part of the final version of the crime legislation expected to go to the Senate and House later in May.

At the same time, the politically powerful National Rifle Assn. is leading a high-powered campaign to defeat the proposed ban on future manufacture, sale or possession of 19 specific models of rapid-firing weapons listed in the bill. NRA members and their allies have deluged Capitol Hill with telephone calls.

Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee, acknowledged that the outcome remains in doubt, despite the all-out backing of the Clinton Administration. The House rejected a similar ban on assault weapons by a margin of 70 votes in 1991, he recalled.

“It will be a tough fight,” Schumer said. “Right now we’re behind by a little but, when the public gets a chance to focus on this issue, we will prevail.”

In an attempt to rally support for the ban, relatives of nine victims who died in assault weapons shootings in California and six other states joined with Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in a news conference on the Capitol grounds.

Among the speakers were Kenneth Brondell, the brother of slain Los Angeles police officer Christy Lynne Hamilton, and family members of three victims who were killed in a July 1 shooting in a San Francisco law firm.

“I think the insanity must stop,” said Brondell, a Los Angeles city firefighter. “Common sense dictates that the right to bear arms does not extend to what happened to my sister.”

Four days after she graduated as the Police Academy’s most inspirational new officer, Hamilton, a 45-year-old mother of two, was killed by a 17-year-old Northridge boy firing an AR-15.

Peggy Scully recalled how her son, John, a young lawyer at the Petit & Martin law firm in San Francisco, saved the life of his new wife by covering her body with his as a gunman wielding two TEC-DC9 assault weapons and 500 rounds of 9-millimeter ammunition fired at the couple.

“Our John is a hero but John is very dead,” Scully said. “He’s our youngest of seven children. They will never be the same. Dear God, you could be John. You could be me.”

The shootings left eight people dead, including Mike Merrill, whose wife, Marilyn, came to Washington to lobby members of Congress.

After hearing the stories of victims, Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) vowed that the crime bill will not pass without a ban on assault weapons.

“The remarks of those who have lost loved ones is very touching. . . . I will just deliver a message to members of the House: If you want a crime bill in 1994, include the assault weapons bill or there will be no crime bill,” Metzenbaum said.

Feinstein put it this way: “How many more people must die--how many more police officers must be shot--before the flood of these weapons to our streets is stopped?”