Thursday May 4 4:06 PM ET
Group Seeks To Link Bush, NRA
By LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - George W. Bush (news - web sites) today dismissed a gun control group's new TV ad featuring tape of a National Rifle Association official touting its clout in a potential Bush White House, saying he isn't influenced by the NRA. ``My job is to do with I think is right,'' he said.
``I'll be setting up shop in the White House. It'll be my office, I'll make the decisions as to what goes on in the White House,'' Bush told reporters at a campaign stop in Mission Viejo, Calif.
The TV ad being distributed by Handgun Control Inc. shows a tape of Kayne Robinson, the NRA first vice president, telling a gathering: ``If we win we'll have a president ... where we work out of their office.''
The group calculates that voters will be less likely to support Republican Bush - and more likely to back Democrat Al Gore a gun control advocate - if they know the Texas governor's pro-gun views.
Gore moved quickly to capitalize on the news, rewriting a speech on child health care in Chicago to include a blistering attack on Bush.
``Governor Bush has convinced the NRA that he wants to take the gun lobbyists out of the lobby and put them right in the Oval Office. Maybe he would pick Charlton Heston as the next surgeon general,'' Gore said.
``His agenda clearly and overwhelmingly reflects their influence: a highly flawed health care plan and more concealed weapons on our streets and even in our churches and synagogues,'' he added.
The Bush campaign said that's not true. ``Neither the NRA nor any special interest group sets Governor Bush's agenda,'' said Bush spokesman Scott McClellan.
Meanwhile, negotiations have broken down between gunmakers and 31 cities that have sued them in an attempt to hold gun manufacturers liable for gun violence, accusing them of failing to use safety features.
A gun industry representative, Robert Delfay, said today that gunmakers don't want the Clinton administration, which has threatened a federal suit of its own, to be part of the talks.
``If there is a Republican administration in 2001, there will be a much more favorable view of an American's right to keep and bear firearms than there currently is,'' said Delfay, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
The ad says Bush signed a law that allows concealed weapons to be carried, ``in churches, nursing homes, even amusement parks.'' Actually, the laws bans concealed weapons from such places, but Bush signed follow-up legislation saying the law can only be enforced if visitors are notified of the rules in posted signs or with hand-out cards, for example.
``This is a record that only the gun lobby could love, but for most Americans, it's pretty scary,'' said James Brady, the former White House press secretary who is at the forefront of gun control efforts.
The 30-second Handgun Control spot begins airing today in seven states and will run for a week. The group, which would not identify the states, said it was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the ad buy.
The group obtained the Robinson clip from a videotape purchased from the NRA Web site, and NRA officials did not back off their views that a Bush presidency would be good for their issue.
``I want tell you a piece of news that I just don't think that you probably knew before,'' Robinson said. ``We like George Bush better than Al Gore.''
The comment about working out of the White House, he said, was a response to the Clinton administration, where the gun control advocates have had found tremendous support.
``Handgun control and he anti-gun people have had literally unlimited access to the White House ... working right out of the office,'' said Robinson, who also chairs the Iowa Republican Party. Reaching for his Iowa roots, he said the gun control people have been like a giant pig at the state fair while the pro-gun side is just a ``poor little duck.''
``We've been on the outside of the fence looking in,'' he said.
Under a Bush White House, he said, ``We're looking at having something like the kind of access to the White House ... which Handgun Control has enjoyed.''
