New Eye-Catching Weapons Could Be Unavailable : Impact of Gun Law on Films Cited

A controversial new law easing federal gun controls inadvertently could terminate “the Terminator,” disarm “Rambo” and shoot down a whole genre of similar high-tech Hollywood shoot-’em-ups, according to officials of firms that procure weapons for television and film production.

Pushed through Congress by the National Rifle Assn. and signed by President Reagan on May 19, the law rolled back long-standing restrictions on the purchase and transportation of many weapons. But, at the insistence of law enforcement officials and gun control advocates, it also put a halt to the production and sale of new machine guns for private ownership.

Curb on Innovation

That curb, property firm executives contend, could make it illegal for them to develop new eye-catching weapons ordered by studios to spice up movies and television shows.

“Rambo makes it because of his machine gun, and the Terminator is a big (box-office) draw because of his weapons,” contends Tim La France, a San Diego gunsmith who prepares weapons for a variety of productions, including the popular TV police show “Miami Vice.” La France declares: “The action-adventure movies are really going to take a beating from this.”

While gun dealers and private citizens can still trade on the existing stock of legally registered machine guns in the country, the gun law bars the production of new automatic weapons for all but the police and military. Federal officials say there were about 127,000 registered machine guns in the country when the law went into effect, but the numbers could rise substantially as they process a last-minute rush of license applications filed by manufacturers trying to beat the deadline.

Most studios rent weapons from property firms rather than stockpile them. To enhance the realism of a production, property specialists say they use genuine guns, altered to fire only blanks, rather than replicas. They contend that audiences are increasingly sophisticated about arms and would be put off if the ban forced them to substitute old or fake weapons for the real thing.

‘Break the Illusion’

“People don’t want to see someone like Rambo standing up there with a World War II Tommy gun,” said Rick Washburn, president of the New York-based Weapons Specialists Ltd., a leading supplier of properties to film and television productions on the East Coast. “They want to see him with something like a Russian AK-47. It would be like trying to use an old car in a modern setting--you begin to break the illusion.”

Washburn and colleagues at the two major West Coast property firms contend that studios may try to get around the ban by producing more action films overseas. Sen. James A. McClure (R-Ida.), who sponsored the gun bill and reluctantly agreed to the machine gun ban, issued a similar warning in a May 28 letter to Stephen E. Higgins, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which oversees enforcement of federal gun laws.

“Movie makers will be forced to film in countries that allow the use of such properties,” McClure argued. “As you can imagine, this will drain an enormou s number of dollars out of the United States and administer a serious blow to our economy.”

ATF spokesman Jack Killorin said that officials at the agency are discussing whether some arrangement could be devised to accommodate the special needs of the entertainment industry, but he cautioned that the language of the law leaves authorities with little flexibility to bend it.

Unaware of Impact

Similarly, Lisa Behren, speaking for Florida Democratic Rep. Larry Smith, who authored the language of the machine gun provision, said that the congressman was unaware of its potential impact on the film industry when the bill was under consideration last spring.

“The intent was only to ban new machine guns around the country to crack down on crime,” Behren said. Smith is investigating ways to ease the burden on producers but has not decided whether to back legislation offering them a special exemption from the ban on new weapons, she said.

Barbara Lautman, a spokesman for Handgun Control, which lobbied for curbs on new machine guns, said the group sympathizes with the bind that producers may have been put in. “But the inconvenience is minimal compared with the lives we might save,” she argued, adding that film makers are resourceful enough to legally obtain the props they need without forcing any changes in the law.

“If movie companies can get . . . bazookas for war movies, there ought to be some way they can get machine guns for Rambo,” Lautman said.