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

DATE: MONDAY, May 22, 1995                   TAG: 9505230059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

NRA ATTEMPTS TO DISTANCE ITSELF FROM EXTREMISTS

The head of the National Rifle Association sought Sunday to distance his organization from the actions of anti-government extremists as he expressed support for congressional hearings on citizen militias and disavowed any NRA connection to the groups.

But Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre vowed that the NRA will keep pressing to repeal the ban on assault-style weapons, even as a key senator said the pro-gun lobby lacks the votes.

Appearing on the CBS news program ``Face the Nation'' on the last day of the NRA's national convention in Phoenix, LaPierre said he would support hearings on the activities of the paramilitary militias, which have been under scrutiny since the April 19 bombing in Oklahoma City.

At the same time, he made it clear that his 3.5 million-member organization has no plans to abandon its legislative priority of rescinding the prohibition against the manufacture and sale of 19 kinds of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons.

And he vowed that the NRA would seek to block the re-election of President Clinton, who signed the gun ban into law last year.

The NRA's increasingly militant image doesn't sit well with all its members, however.

Former President Bush, in one highly publicized example, relinquished his life membership last week over a controversial fund-raising letter, and on Sunday, former House Speaker Tom Foley said he would do the same.

But most of those at the NRA's annual meeting seemed to have accepted the shift as a necessary response to the threat of gun control, which the group has battled relentlessly for most of the last 30 years.

by CNB