
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 25, 1994                   TAG: 9408250118
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

NRA FIGHTS GUN BAN BY NOT MENTIONING IT

Even as Sen. Arlen Specter was speaking on the Senate floor in favor of the crime bill, his office was logging 3,157 telephone calls from constituents, most of them opposed.

``It's about 3-to-1 against it,'' said Nicole Glushakow, an aide to the Pennsylvania Republican, who formally announced his support for the bill Tuesday.

Most callers oppose the bill's ban on assault-style weapons or what they believe is excess spending on social programs, she said. ``This is a hot issue.''

The primary lobbying group fanning the flames is the National Rifle Association, which for the occasion has transformed itself from defender of guns to defender of the treasury.

The group, recognizing that an outright defense of assault weapons would be a losing battle, is instead fighting the crime bill by casting it as a budget boondoggle.

The lobbying strategy ignores what for the gun advocates is a gut issue - the bill's ban on assault-style firearms - and instead focuses on social spending programs in the $30 billion measure.

``They're very smart,'' said Richard Aborn, president of rival Handgun Control Inc. ``They've figured out it's not politically wise to be against the assault weapons ban.''

When the NRA sought to defeat the ban in the House, ``they turned the issue into pork,'' arguing that the bill contained wasteful spending on social programs like midnight basketball leagues for inner-city youth, Aborn said.

``They succeeded for a while and created a lot of momentum on the pork issue,'' he said. ``But they lost.''

A key NRA supporter privately acknowledged that the strategy has been continued for the crime bill fight in the Senate. While unstated, ``the gun ban still is an overriding issue,'' the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The NRA created television spots featuring longtime NRA spokesman Charlton Heston. In one, Heston doesn't mention the assault-weapons ban but complains the bill has enough money to hire only 20,000 new police officers, rather than the 100,000 Clinton has promised.

In fact, the bill sets up a matching program in which the federal government helps localities hire new cops by paying 25 percent of the cost, while the local government pays the rest.

The ads, which have aired nationally on CNN and in some local markets which the NRA declined to identify, urge viewers to call their senators. Telephones at the Capitol have been burning with calls on the issue.

The NRA has also fielded its own team of half a dozen staff lobbyists and has stationed Tom Korologos, a longtime political consultant, in the office of Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan. Korologos sat just outside the door Wednesday as several dozen GOP senators held a strategy session.

by CNB