WASHINGTON - As the 10-year-old federal ban on assault weapons expired yesterday, Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush of making life easier for terrorists and harder for police officers by letting the law lapse.
Kerry, who has been sharpening his attacks on Bush as he lags in the polls, accused the president of making a "secret deal" with the gun lobby not to renew the law, which had banned 19 military-style rifles and a host of gun features. The Massachusetts Democrat unveiled a $5 billion anti-crime plan that would extend the assault weapons ban.
As a candidate in 2000, Bush had backed the ban, and he said recently that he would sign it if the Republican-led Congress sent it to him. But he did not push for it.
And earlier this year he opposed the addition of gun control amendments, including an extension of the assault weapons ban, to a broader bill to shield gun makers and sellers from liability for violent crime. Bush's opposition helped defeat that measure in the Senate.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan called Kerry's assertions "another false attack." Bush's support for the ban is "well-known," he said.
At an event in Washington's Shaw neighborhood, Kerry said Bush "failed the test of leadership."
"When it came time to make a phone call, when it became time to fight, when it became time to lead, when it became time to stand up and ask America to do what was right, George Bush's powerful friends in the gun lobby asked him to look the other way, and he couldn't resist, and he said, `Sure,'" Kerry said.
Kerry's decision to highlight his support for the gun control measure marked a calculation for him on an issue that many think helped doom Al Gore's chances of beating Bush in 2000. Some voters in key states that Kerry would need to win in November are suspicious of any law that limits gun ownership.
Still, polls show that the assault-weapons ban, signed by President Bill Clinton, enjoys broad support, including among gun owners and especially among independent voters whose backing will be crucial on Election Day. Kerry is trying to weaken Bush on the gun issue while avoiding being pegged as a radical anti-gun liberal.
"I am a gun owner. I am a hunter - I've been a hunter since I was a kid," said Kerry, a former prosecutor who was endorsed yesterday by the National Association of Police Organizations. "But I'm also forever a law enforcement officer. And I know this: As a gun owner, as a hunter, I've never thought about going hunting with a military assault weapon - ever."
