Gop Delays Assault On Gun Ban

House Republicans will delay a drive to repeal last year’s ban on assault weapons until May and separate it from overall revisions to the crime bill passed last year, the chairman of a subcommittee said Saturday.

Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., appearing on CNN’s “Newsmaker Saturday,” said House Republican leaders have decided to reconsider the assault weapons after the House has dealt with the legislation stemming from its so-called Contract With America.

“We’re going to address it because a lot of our members want to,” said McCollum, chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee.

But he emphasized that it won’t be done as part of the crime section of the Contract With America.

In his address Tuesday, President Clinton said emphatically that he would not let the ban be repealed.

Though McCollum predicted the House will vote to overturn the ban, Majority Leader Bob Dole of said the Senate is unlikely to follow suit.