CHUCK SCHUMER was in the Judiciary Committee hearing room of the Rayburn House Office Building and his recollection of the place brought a smile.

This was where, as a House member who was a persistent and crafty advocate of gun control, Schumer had some memorable jousts with persistent and crafty representatives of the National Rifle Association.

``I think it was in this very room that we actually had the NRA admit they wanted people to be allowed to own bazookas,'' Schumer said with a chuckle.

Schumer, now a senator, and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., were in the hearing room to start another fight with the NRA.

The gun lobby has been saying the president is to blame for kids killing other kids and misfits of all description stocking up on weaponry and hunting people down. The means used to obtain these arsenals have much to do with the cavernous holes in our system for regulating who can get a gun, and how easily. These holes were cut wide by the NRA, which does everything in its power to keep and expand them.

The gun lobby has a durable grip on Congress. But it is not so influential with the public at large. People generally do not comprehend why background checks should not be performed on purchasers of all guns and why, for example, there should be any such thing as unregulated gun sales at gun shows or in kitchens or out of the backs of pickup trucks.

The NRA would like to keep all this just the way it is. But it would also like to change public opinion. So it has been claiming of late that the Clinton administration is soft on guns.

Enforcement, it says, is way off. Official statistics actually show federal and state gun prosecutions are up around the country, and gun crime down.

But, if you repeat the Big Lie enough, people start believing it. That is where Schumer and McCarthy come in. They have introduced a bill to toughen federal gun enforcement and they want the NRA to join hands.

``It answers, in my opinion, all the rhetoric we've been hearing from the NRA,'' McCarthy said.

The Schumer-McCarthy plan tries to repair the damage the NRA caused with a 1986 law it wrote that gutted the 1968 federal Gun Control Act. The plan would try to shrink the enormous network of unregulated private dealers, giving the Feds greater authority over them. It would help the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms target dirty dealers -- the 1 percent of licensed dealers to whom nearly half of all guns used in crimes can be traced.

The proposal would shut down an NRA- backed law that lets convicted felons get back their right to own a gun, though the very same convicts may never again be allowed to vote or even work at the mall. It also would expand a program called Project Exile, in which some gun violators who would normally be charged with state crimes can be prosecuted and sentenced instead by the Feds.

The NRA gushes about how successful this program has been in Richmond, Va. But the group habitually leaves something out. It was started and is run by a U.S. attorney appointed by none other than Bill Clinton. This is the part of the Schumer- McCarthy enforcement package the NRA supports. It wants zero tolerance for individuals convicted of gun crimes. That is, once they commit a crime. The NRA's overall policy is roughly akin to getting tough on cocaine users, ignoring the cartels.

Schumer and McCarthy invite the NRA to get its record on enforcing the gun laws as robust as its rhetoric. They know enough, though, not to sit idly by the phone awaiting a response.

©2000 San Francisco Chronicle

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