`You Don't Need An Uzi' To Hunt Deer -- Clinton Explains Ban On Import Of Assault Rifles

LAS VEGAS - President Clinton halted importation of Uzis and other military-style assault weapons that he said have been getting around a ban by the federal government because they were altered to pass as sport guns.

"We didn't fight as hard as we have . . . only to let a few gun manufacturers sidestep our laws and undermine our progress," the president said in his weekly radio address yesterday.

"We've banned these guns because you don't need an Uzi to go deer hunting, and everyone knows it," he said.

These guns "exist for no reason but to inspire fear and wreak deadly havoc on our streets," the president said.

Clinton ordered a 120-day suspension on import permits for 43 types of military-style rifles and told the Treasury Department to review its policies to determine whether rules should be tightened to keep out weapons that aren't really for sport.

`Try another sport'

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who led a drive in Congress to urge the president to take this action, applauded the decision.

"I believe that when the review is completed, hundreds of thousands of military-style assault weapons that have been marketed under the guise of `sporting weapons' will be permanently barred from importation," Feinstein said.

"Anyone who needs an Uzi to hunt a deer should try another sport," she continued.

Federal gun laws - created in 1989 during the Bush administration - ban the shipment of assault weapons and allow only guns for sporting purposes to be imported into the United States.

Some models have been reconfigured by manufacturers to appear more "sporting" and skirt the federal ban, Clinton said.

`Cosmetic surgery'

The modifications "amount to nothing more than cosmetic surgery," Clinton said. He directed the Treasury Department to determine "whether (the guns) can be permanently blocked from our borders and banned from our streets."

"Now that we've banned them in America, you've got all these foreign gun manufacturers who are trying to modify their assault weapons to get them in under the `sporting' definition," Clinton told a reception of donors to the Democratic National Committee in Las Vegas late Friday.

"I'm not going to let people overseas turn our streets into battle zones where gangs are armed like they were guerrilla warriors halfway around the world if I can stop it."

Clinton, long an advocate of tighter gun controls, was clearly piqued by a recent surge in permit applications for modified assault weapons.

In 1994, he pushed Congress to pass a statutory ban on the import, manufacture or sale of 19 types of assault weapons.

This year, firearms importers have obtained permits to ship in nearly 600,000 altered guns, Clinton said, and applications are pending for an additional 1 million. About 20,000 of the 600,000 weapons already have entered the country.

Clinton taped the broadcast in Washington on Friday before flying to Las Vegas to kick off a four-day, four-state swing to raise money for the Democratic Party.