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CLINTON FREEZES IMPORTS OF ASSAULT WEAPONS
graphic November 15, 1997 Web posted at: 1:19 p.m. EST (1819 GMT)
LAS VEGAS (CNN) -- President Clinton has ordered a four-month freeze on the import of assault weapons while the administration and Treasury Department officials develop a plan to permanently ban the weapons.
Clinton announced his executive order, issued Friday, in his weekly radio address.
"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 could stop it," he told supporters at a Democratic fund-raising dinner in Las Vegas on Friday.
The freeze will keep an estimated 1.6 million weapons from coming into the United States while Treasury officials review a ban passed in 1994 as part of a larger crime bill. Clinton says overseas manufacturers are taking advantage of a loophole in the law by making cosmetic changes that enable the weapons to be imported for "sporting" purposes.
Clinton seems to be angered by a recent surge in the number of permit applications for the modified weapons.
Officials say firearms importers have obtained permits for the shipment of nearly 600,000 altered guns, and that an additional 1 million permit applications are pending. Approximately 20,000 of the weapons have already entered the country, officials said.
No more will be imported until the Treasury Department's review is completed. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms stopped taking applications last month, the Washington Post reported on Friday.
The National Rifle Association says Clinton's order "shows more hypocrisy and deception than ever before."
"The guns Clinton wishes to ban from importation conform in every way to the law Clinton wrote, signed, pledged would rid the streets of violence in 1994, and trumpets to the press whenever his scandals get out of hand," said NRA spokeswoman Tanya Metaksa.
Correspondent John King, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.