Clinton, NRA Trade Fire in TV ‘Shootout’

Charges of dishonesty and fear-mongering over tougher gun laws flew Sunday in back-to-back TV appearances by President Clinton and a top official of the National Rifle Assn., with Clinton accusing the group of “knee-jerk” opposition to any gun safety measure.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, in turn, accused the president of exploiting gun deaths for political purposes.

“I’ve come to believe that he needs a certain level of violence in this country,” LaPierre said. “He’s willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political agenda and his vice president too.”

One point at issue was a new advertising campaign in which NRA President Charlton Heston all but accuses the president of lying in his characterizations of the group as an impediment to sensible laws and public safety.

But the sparring was more broadly over Clinton’s effort to win congressional approval of some of the gun controls that have eluded him so far and to inject the subject into the presidential campaign.

Appearing on ABC-TV’s “This Week,” Clinton said the NRA was “ruthlessly brutal” in helping defeat members of Congress who voted for laws such as the Brady Bill, which requires a waiting period for gun purchases, and the ban on assault-type weapons.

He dismissed as “wounded rhetoric” the group’s contention that he unfairly overlooks the NRA’s record of promoting gun safety and tougher enforcement of existing laws, calling the protests “crocodile tears.”

“I don’t think it will wash with the voters, even with Moses reading the script,” Clinton said, referring to Heston, who played Moses in the movie “The Ten Commandments.”

LaPierre, appearing after the president on “This Week,” attributed Clinton’s renewed focus on gun control to his interest in getting Vice President Al Gore elected president. “The pollsters and consultants are telling them, scare suburban women,” LaPierre said.

Clinton is asking Congress to pass legislation making trigger locks mandatory on new guns and to institute background checks at gun shows, with the screening to take place within one day where possible and three days in other instances. Republicans in Congress have called the plan unworkable.

Clinton said the NRA, in seeking to defeat him all through his presidency, has lied about his record as well, by implying that his control measures would lead to a ban on all firearms.

The president said he’s a gun owner--though he hasn’t brought any weapons to the White House--and has hunted, with a borrowed shotgun, during his term as president.

“I’ve never called for banning guns, banning hunting. I’ve never been against sports shooting. I believe that people ought to have a right to do these things,” Clinton said.

Asked why he is not advocating universal gun registration, he said, “I can’t even pass the bill closing the gun show loophole through this Congress.”

But he added that Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, “have dramatically different positions on the whole issue of guns, and I think it ought to be a big issue in this presidential election.”