Compton City Council Tentatively Approves Disputed Handgun Ban

Ignoring advice that the action would be illegal, the Compton City Council has voted unanimously to outlaw the possession of handguns by almost anyone other than law enforcement agents or licensed collectors.

City Atty. Wesley Fenderson Jr. warned that passage of a proposed handgun control ordinance on first reading--another council vote is needed next week before it becomes law--was “an illegal and frivolous act” sure to be invalidated by the courts as unconstitutional. Such authority belongs solely to the Legislature, he said.

“Let the courts strike it down,” Councilman Maxcy D. Filer retorted.

The council’s 5-0 vote Tuesday evening, Filer said, will at least send a signal to state lawmakers that some kind of gun control is urgently needed in cities that suffer from high rates of violent crime.

Compton, a 10-square-mile suburb of about 93,000 predominately black and Latino residents just south of Los Angeles, is plagued by poverty, youth gangs, drug trafficking and a crime rate that is twice the state average and one-third higher than Los Angeles County’s.

In 1986, Compton police reported 62 murders, only one fewer than neighboring Long Beach, which has four times as many people. Compton’s murder rate--one for every 1,500 residents--was more than twice that of the City of Los Angeles, which had 831 murders, one for every 3,985 residents.

California law permits anyone, except convicted felons, drug addicts and certain mental patients, to possess handguns in businesses and private homes without a license. But the Compton ordinance notes that guns owned by law-abiding citizens “are frequently stolen and used in criminal activities.”

The ordinance would allow only police and a few others who use guns in their businesses, such as security guards, to have pistols, revolvers and “firearms capable of being concealed upon the person.” It provides for a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a fine of $1,000.

“There are probably more guns in Compton than any other community,” Filer said. “Every night, 90,000 citizens in Compton are subjected to gunfire. . . . We hear Uzis (a type of submachine gun) and everything else you can think of.”

Search Law Books

Filer argued that “because of what’s going on in the community,” the council should back the gun control measure at least until he and Fenderson search the law books one more time for some precedent that might shore up the city’s legal ground.

“If it could mean that it would save some lives,” Councilman Robert L. Adams said, “I’m willing to do that.”

Adams, who operates a funeral home in the city, brought up the crime issue earlier in the council meeting during debate on raising city utility taxes, in part to get money for additional police officers. There are “killings in the black community every day. . . ,” he said.

“The statistics are there,” Adams said. “If you don’t believe it, stop by the mortuary. I’ve got two of them over there now.”

The utility tax increase passed.

Councilman Floyd A. James said he supported the gun controls but was worried that the city might be liable for damages if police arrested someone under an ordinance that the council knew might be illegal.

“We need to do it if we face 100 lawsuits,” Adams replied.

‘Statewide Concern’

In a memo to the council, the city attorney noted that a gun control measure passed by San Francisco was thrown out in 1982 when an appellate court declared that firearms regulation was an issue of “statewide concern,” and thus up to the Legislature. Although the city cannot limit the possession of handguns, the memo said, it can regulate their use. It has long been illegal to discharge a firearm within Compton.

In 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review--and effectively upheld--a 1981 handgun ban passed by the Illinois city of Morton Grove. But Fenderson said a lower court determined only that such a law did not violate the U.S. Constitution and never addressed the law’s validity “under state statutes.”

The Morton Grove ban, he said, “would probably not be upheld in California,” which has state laws permitting gun ownership.

Write Lawmakers

Fenderson said that a “better effort” might be to simply write state lawmakers expressing the council’s concern about handguns. If the handgun ordinance is passed and arrests are made, he predicted, “we’ll spend $20,000 or $30,000 making a point. . . .”

“This case will be lost in the Superior Court and they (state lawmakers) won’t even know about it,” he said.

The city attorney also questioned the practicality of the measure, asking, “How are you going to get a dope dealer to turn in his Uzi?”