National Rifle Association

Half an hour before the doors opened for a National Rifle Assn. get-out-the-vote rally here last week, Rich Hauxwell was standing in a line of more than 1,000 men and women that already stretched back to the parking lot. Bearded and burly, Hauxwell looked like most of those milling around him except for one thing: a black satin jacket that identified him as an executive of Local 87 of the United Dairy and Bakery Workers Union in Saginaw.

The City Council on Monday urged the National Rifle Assn. not to open a theme store and restaurant in Times Square. The NRA is negotiating to lease space for a restaurant tentatively called The N.R.A. Grille. An adjoining shop is to offer virtual-reality trap and skeet shooting, and hunting accessories. Bill Powers, an NRA spokesman, said the council action would have no effect on the group's plans.

Charlton Heston was unanimously reelected to an unprecedented third term as president of the National Rifle Assn. in Charlotte, N.C., at its 129th annual convention. He predicted membership would soar to 4 million by election day because "President Clinton's point of view on firearms has united a lot of people." The NRA amended its bylaws to allow Heston, 75, first elected in 1998, to run again. Traditionally, NRA officers are elected to one-year terms and may serve only two consecutive terms.

A week after the Million Mom March for gun control, the National Rifle Assn. showcased its own mothers at its convention in Charlotte, N.C. The mothers said they are just as concerned about their children's safety as the protesters in Washington and elsewhere. "I choose to own a gun because I am a good mother," said Maria Heil, an NRA member for eight years and Pennsylvania coordinator of the Second Amendment Sisters, who spoke at a seminar held by the NRA's Women on Target.

Shifting its sights from President Clinton to his would-be successor, the National Rifle Assn. unleashed a furious assault on Vice President Al Gore Saturday in an effort to mobilize its 3.6 million members for the November election. In a personal message delivered "especially for you, Mr. Gore," NRA President Charlton Heston brandished a gold-plated gun and declared that the only way the government would take it away was "from my cold, dead hands."

The National Rifle Assn., looking to expand its reach deeper into mainstream America, wants to set up shop in one of the country's marquee addresses. The group that has become synonymous with the gun industry said Friday that it is planning to build a massive, multimedia retail, dining and entertainment center in Times Square in New York City.

The 17-year-old son of Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound during the weekend, Stupak's office said Monday. Bart Stupak Jr. died early Sunday morning. The family released no other details. The elder Stupak, a former state trooper and policeman, was a longtime backer of the National Rifle Assn. But he broke with the gun lobby on one crucial vote last year--a House bill to require up to three-day background checks at gun shows.

Their counterdemonstration in support of gun rights will be smaller than the Million Mom March. But the gun-owning women who make up the Second Amendment Sisters feel just as passionately about their cause. "The anti-gun factions constantly say that if it saves one life, it's worth it," said Debra Collins, who once used a 12-gauge shotgun to defend herself from an attack by her ex-husband at 4 o'clock in the morning. "Well, my firearm saved one life--mine."

As he appealed to California's Latino voters Friday, Republican George W. Bush continued a sharp exchange about gun policy with his Democratic presidential rival, Al Gore. Texas Gov. Bush accused the vice president of flip-flopping his allegiance to the National Rifle Assn. Then he responded to a Gore challenge by suggesting that he would sign legislation as president that restricts local governments from suing gun makers.

Al Gore attacked George W. Bush Thursday as a pawn of the Washington gun lobby, quoting a National Rifle Assn. leader who said that electing Bush would make the Oval Office an adjunct of the NRA. The Texas governor brushed aside the vice president's attack as well as the assertion by Kayne Robinson, first vice president of the powerful lobbying group. "I don't want to disappoint the man," Bush said. "But I'll be setting up shop in the White House. It'll be my office."