SACRAMENTO, Nov. 11 – An ex-convict described as Charles Manson’s prison guru testified today Lynette Fromme asked him for help in getting guns two months before her alleged assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford.

Lanier Ramer, who refused to testify in Miss Fromme’s trial yesterday, changed his mind — in the face of being jailed for contempt —when he took the stand today.

“She asked me if I had any connections where she could get certain objects … a couple of guns,” said Ramer, who spent 16 years in prison before his parole last year.

Miss Fromme, 27, was not in court. For the second day in a row she boycotted her trial, ignoring an invitation from Judge Thomas J. MacBride that she would be “as welcome as flowers in May” to participate in the proceedings if she behaved.

But she refused, saying, “Your honor, my defense is the defense of the world. Without Manson, I am dead. No, I have to stick to my principles.”

In a near hysterical outburst Friday which resulted in her being thrown out of court, she demanded that Manson be allowed to appear at her trial as a defense witness.

Following her latest refusal, she was escorted to the U.S. marshal’s office near the courtroom where, as she did yesterday, she ignored the trial proceedings broadcast over a closed-circuit television system.

Under cross-examination, Ramer said that Miss Fromme, one of the original members of the Manson cult, made no mention of Ford during their meeting in July in Sacramento.

However, he testified she did refer to corporate executives she said were polluting the earth.

According to Ramer, Miss Fromme declared that she thought it “likely and probable some people were going to have to be killed to set examples to get that kind of thing stopped.”

Ramer said he did not help Miss Fromme because he is against violence.

Lamer, 43, said he had shared “insights” with Manson while both were in prison and that they had studied scientology together. He said he wrote to Manson following his release from prison last year and that he was later contacted by Miss Fromme.

In an interview outside the court he said he contacted Manson after learning the cult leader had been beaten up in prison.

Ramer said he told Manson “I was out and if there was anything I could do I would.”

In explaining his association with Manson, Ramer said, “Most of the books written (about the cult) mention me as Manson’s guru. It’s part of the Manson saga.”

Ramer said his refusal to testify yesterday was because he feared he “would lose the respect and trust and destroy the credibility with the people I’m working for” in prison reform.

He said he later met with Miss Fromme and her defense attorney, John Virga, and she “urged me to testify.”

Earlier in the morning, Harold Boro, owner of the .45 caliber pistol Miss Fromme is accused of thrusting at Ford Sept. 5, was recalled to the stand for cross-examination.

Boro, 66, of Jackson, previously testified the tiny defendant took the gun without his permission after he showed her how to use it.

Under questioning this morning, he said Miss Fromme told him she wanted the pistol for her own protection because “she said her life was in danger. She said Charlie had a lot of enemies.

“She said ‘they’ (the enemies) had connections on the outside and may come to hurt her,” Boro said.

Previously Boro, a retired McClellan Air Force Base draftsman, said he tried to talk her out of walking away with the pistol last July.

“I tried to tell her it was too big, complicated and dangerous,” he said. But, he recalled, Miss Fromme merely paused momentarily at the door of his apartment, then walked away with the weapon.

Boro said he first met Miss Fromme in the spring of 1974, but he did not elaborate on their relationship.

State investigators have identified him as a “sugar daddy” to Miss Fromme and her roommate, Sandra Good, another Manson cultist.

“I showed her how to pull the hammer back and the automatic safety. I told her how to remove the clip and how to safety it,” Boro said.

However, he said, he did not go into the details of pulling the pistol’s slide back to put a bullet in the firing chamber.

“I knew she wasn’t going to fire it,” he said, “but I didn’t tell her everything.”

The gun Secret Service agents are alleged to have wrested from Miss Fromme had four bullets in its clip but none in its firing chamber.

Boro admitted under defense questioning he saw Miss Fromme approximately a week after she took the pistol.

“You didn’t ask her to return the gun. did you?” asked defense attorney Virga.

“No, I didn’t,” Boro replied.

“In fact you gave her some bullets for it, didn’t you?” Virga asked.

“Yes, I did,” Boro said.

Another witness was Ed Louie, who operates a market near Miss Fromme’s apartment. He testified he was in his store the day before the alleged assassination attempt when Miss Fromme appeared and said, “I hate Ford.”

Louie said he was talking to a youth at the time and asked him if he was going to see the President. He said Miss Fromme interrupted the conversation with her remark.

Miss Fromme, in what is becoming a daily occurrence, had to be carried into the federal courthouse again today by a U.S. marshal. She wore the same blindfold she wore yesterday as the marshal lifted her from the police van for the trip inside.

By MAX MILLER