Gun Foes Protest at Moorhead’s Area Office : Legislation: Groups do not want congressman to vote to repeal assault-style weapons ban. Spokesman says he won’t change stance.

As part of a nationwide campaign urging House Republicans not to repeal the national ban on assault-style weapons, gun-control supporters held a brief protest Wednesday at the offices of Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead, but a spokesman said Moorhead disagrees with them and is “not going to change.”

About a dozen members of Handgun Control International, the nation’s largest gun-control lobby, and several other groups picketed Moorhead’s district headquarters on Brand Boulevard, calling assault-style weapons needless tools of crime.

Moorhead (R-Glendale), a 12-term incumbent, accepted $3,200 in campaign contributions from the National Rifle Assn. in recent elections, then voted “their way on everything from the Brady Bill to the assault weapons ban”--even though polls show that most voters support it, said Heather Morse, a spokeswoman for the coalition.

Moorhead was in Washington. Peter Musurlian, his local representative, confronted the protesters in Moorhead’s offices, saying Moorhead has a “philosophical difference” with supporters of the ban.

“He [Moorhead) believes before you start going after the rights of people to own firearms that you should go after the criminals,” Musurlian said. “He’s pro-life too, and the majority of his constituents are not pro-life. There are just some issues that philosophically he’s not going to change on.”

Before the April 19 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, the political momentum in the Republican-controlled Congress appeared to favor the NRA’s call for repeal of the ban on assault-style weapons, enacted in the 1994 federal crime bill, which outlaws 19 types of semiautomatic weapons.

But the Oklahoma attack has put the NRA on the defensive, identifying the group with those contending that the federal government oppresses individual rights. Former President George Bush quit the NRA last week to protest a fund-raising letter that described federal agents as “thugs.”

Musurlian said Moorhead has not yet decided whether he would vote to repeal the ban. The protesters said the congressman does not realize the problems posed by semiautomatic, military-style weapons such as Uzis and AK-47s.

“Assault weapons are of particular concern because they seem to be used by disturbed, disgruntled people and they can’t be subdued in an attack because they’re firing off rounds at such rapid speed,” said Virginia Classick, 52, a Woodland Hills social worker.

Officials with Handgun Control said the organization, which has an estimated 1 million members nationwide, staged similar protests outside the offices of 19 other House members across the country Wednesday.

The demonstrators said they believe that the ban should not be weakened or repealed, although they described it as flawed, saying some manufacturers can market slightly changed versions of the banned guns under new names. They also said they would eventually like to see other types of guns banned, some of them saying all handguns should be outlawed.

“Obviously, this legislation does not do everything we wanted it to do. There are ways to get around it,” said Bob C. Holmes, 59, a professor of accounting and computer science at Glendale Community College. “If we’re going to get these things off the streets, we’re going to have to eventually amend it and make it stronger.”

While picketing Moorhead’s office, the protesters were confronted by Gene Pukite, 50, a Glendale real estate agent who said he emigrated from Soviet-controlled Latvia 30 years ago.

Pukite engaged the picketers in a fierce debate, saying gun-control laws undermine the Constitution. “Individual freedom and responsibility is my point,” he said. “The laws should be designed to make people adhere to responsibility, not restrict their rights.”