Group: Drudge misidentifies Kerry rifle

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Matt Drudge says a rifle accepted by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, would be illegal under a Kerry bill, but one group says Drudge misidentified the weapon.

Online reporter Drudge speculates the rifle given to Kerry by a labor leader in West Virginia over the weekend may have been banned under Kerry's proposed assault weapons ban, which would have prohibited a "semiautomatic shotgun that has a pistol grip."

Drudge says that includes Browning Auto-5 shotguns.

But the Washington-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence said Kerry was holding a Remington 1100 Sporting 12, a popular hunting rifle.

The group said Kerry's proposed ban would not have affected the Remington or any other hunting weapon.

But gun enthusiasts said the incident smacked of insincerity on Kerry's part. "He tells union workers that he's a hunter, but the truth is he would ban their shotguns," Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told the Wall Street Journal's political diary online.

Active campaigning by the National Rifle Association, which opposes any sort of assault weapons ban, is considered a key factor in West Virginia and other border states going Republican in the 2000 presidential election.

Josh Horwitz, coalition executive director, said, "This dog won't hunt. It's clear that Matt Drudge is now getting story ideas from the gun lobby ... "