Bentsen, NRA Debate Need for Ban on Assault Weapons

Without the Clinton Administration-backed ban on assault weapons, ducks are better protected than people, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen said Sunday. But the head of the National Rifle Assn. said President Clinton does not understand guns.

The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre took issue with Clinton’s distinction between hunting rifles and the assault weapons that Clinton says are designed for battle and should be outlawed.

“The good guns they don’t want to ban and the guns they want to ban all fire the same--none fires any faster, none makes any bigger holes, none shoots any harder, none makes any bigger noise,” LaPierre said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” He insisted that “there is simply no distinction at all.”

In recent days, the Administration has intensified its lobbying for this week’s House vote on legislation to stop production and sale of 19 specific assault guns and copycat models, and limit detachable magazines to 10 rounds. The legislation exempts 650 named rifles and shotguns.

Similar provisions were incorporated in the Senate version of the crime bill still being reconciled between the two houses.

Bentsen said assault guns used in street crime and other violent attacks can carry as many as 90 rounds of ammunition. The law governing the hunting of migratory birds, on the other hand, limits firearms to three shotgun shells, he said.

“Why should we have laws that protect ducks more than human beings?” Bentsen asked.

Bentsen and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a leading supporter of the ban, said the fight in Congress is still uphill. But Bentsen, a former senator from Texas, contended that members of Congress should know that the volume of mail they get opposed to gun control is in fact generated by the NRA.

Feinstein said the votes were not yet lined up to ensure passage in the House, “but I think with some changes, we’re getting there.”

LaPierre said he believed that the NRA had the votes in the House to block the legislation.