THAT WAS NO APOLOGY

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Sorry, hell. Feeling the heat last week, the N.R.A. backed off its phenomenally successful recent fund-raising letter, the one blasting federal cops as "jackbooted government thugs . who, in Clinton's Administration . have the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens."

"If anyone thought [our] intention was to paint all federal law-enforcement officials with the same broad brush, I'm sorry," said Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.'s executive vice president.

Hear LaPierre carefully. He didn't say "Sorry about all that." He said "Sorry about some of that." Left standing as the N.R.A.'s chief enemy, which the association continues to demonize in its insatiable quest for new members and more money, is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "That was no apology," says Dewey Stokes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police. "LaPierre can't get off the hook by saying, 'Oops, I was really only talking about atf. Law enforcement is a family, and when you attack one member, you attack us all."

The N.R.A. could care less what Stokes or anyone else thinks. Browse through its venomous mailings and you quickly realize why it's sometimes easier to defend free speech when no one hears it. The N.R.A. is about power. It gets it by whipping its members to a frenzy of antigovernment paranoia. It holds their attention and picks their wallets by flaunting its control over politicians who crave its approval or fear its wrath or just want its campaign money. And it very clearly won't relinquish even an iota of its influence without a fight.

Which is exactly what Bill Clinton is eager to provoke. Clinton welcomed the N.R.A.'s faux mea culpa last Friday, but only as fodder. It gave him the opportunity to suggest that the N.R.A. donate to the families of cops killed in the line of duty the nearly $1 million that its offensive letter has already raised. That kind of talk will be heard often as the 1996 presidential season matures. Bashing the N.R.A. helps distinguish Clinton from his Republican rivals.

As Bob Dole proved last week. With his myopic focus on New Hampshire's gun-loving Republican voters (the primary's only nine months away), Dole had originally brushed aside the N.R.A. letter. They need "a little image-repair job," he said. So Dole's embrace of the N.R.A.'s "apology" as "the right thing" to have done is hardly surprising. "We're where the N.R.A. itself is right now," concedes a Dole adviser. "The sooner this mess is off the radar screen, the sooner they can go back to raising money and we can get on with running for President."