Bush's Smoking Gun?

The pictures are a bit grainy, but the enthusiasm was clear when 300 National Rifle Association faithful met privately in Los Angeles last February to hear what they can expect if George W. Bush becomes president.

"If we win, we'll have a Supreme Court that'll back us to the hilt," says Kayne Robinson, the NRA's first vice president. "If we win, we'll have a president - with at least one of the people who's running - a president where we work out of their office. Unbelievably friendly relations."

The NRA has always backed Bush, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart, but never before had they claimed such a close relationship with the Texas governor.

And now a gun-control group is turning the tables on the NRA, using the video in an ad that highlights Bush's ties to the gun-owners' lobby.

"It's your White House," says the narrator in the ad from the group Handgun Control. "Don't let the NRA control it."

It's the latest turn in what has become the hottest issue of the presidential campaign: gun control. Al Gore is for it. George W. Bush is not. And the governor has made the NRA happy by signing one law allowing Texans to carry concealed weapons, and another that bars Texas cities from suing gun manufacturers.

But campaigning in California on Thursday, Bush pointed out he's not a member of the NRA, and sought to downplay the group's ambitions.

"Well I don't want to disappoint the man, but I'll be setting up shop in the White House," said Bush. "It'll be my office. I'll make the decisions as to what goes on in the White House."

The vice president, meantime, took quick aim at his Republican rival's NRA connections.

"His agenda clearly and overwhelmingly reflects their influence," said Gore, who was campaigning in Chicago.

Gore spokesman Chris Lehane called the tape, "the proverbial smoking gun ... George W. Bush is carrying the NRA's legislative ammo bag but is trying to conceal it."

The 30-second commercial begins airing Thursday in seven states and will run for a week. Handgun Control, which would not identify the states, said it was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the ad buy.

The group obtained the Robinson clip from a videotape purchased from the NRA Web site. NRA officials did not back off their views that a Bush presidency would be good for their issue.

"I want tell you a piece of news that I just don't think that you probably knew before," Robinson said. "We like George Bush better than Al Gore."

The comment about working out of the White House, he said, was a response to the Clinton administration, where gun control advocates have found tremendous support.

"Handgun Control and the anti-gun people have had literally unlimited access to the White House ... working right out of the office," said Robinson, who also chairs the Iowa Republican Party

"We've been on the outside of the fence looking in," he said.

Under a Bush White House, he said, "We're looking at having something like the kind of access to the White House ... which Handgun Control has enjoyed."

Access often equates to power in the nation's capital. And it's not unusual for a lobbying group to brag about having influence with their candidate. What makes the NRA's claim more plausible than most is their intent to spend up to $15 million on this year's election to make it come true.