Rifle Used in Carnage ‘Easier to Buy Than Handguns’

Within hours of the carnage in the Stockton schoolyard, law enforcement officials knew a lot about the semiautomatic assault rifle that Patrick Edward Purdy wielded Tuesday with such deadly accuracy.

They knew who manufactured it. They knew the name of its New York importer and the location of the Oregon store that sold it to Purdy. They knew that he had fixed a bayonet to the barrel and carved “Freedom” and “Victory” on the gun’s wooden grip. They even had a good estimate of the number of rounds of steel-piercing ammunition the gun had sprayed over the school’s playground in a span of three to four minutes.

But there was nothing they could do to prevent the AK-47 from being sold.

“Under the present laws, these guns are getting into the wrong hands,” said Mario Fontana, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Los Angeles. “They’re easier to buy than handguns.” Purchasers of handguns in California must wait for a 15-day background investigation by the state before they can obtain their weapons.

In Oregon, where Purdy purchased his weapon, and in California, where he used it to fire off more than 50 rounds of ammunition yesterday, state laws permit assault rifles to be sold over the counter--with no waiting and a minimum of paper work. And federal law requires little more than that the purchaser assert on paper that he is neither a felon nor “mentally defective.”

Purdy filled out such a form Aug. 3, the same day he took possession of his rifle.

Stockton police said Tuesday that the assault rifle they found lying near Purdy’s body had been purchased in Sandy, Ore., from a store called the Sandy Trading Post. Police Sgt. John J. Wilson said the rifle, which seldom costs more than $400, was manufactured in China and imported by a New York firm known as Sile.

Displaying the rifle to reporters in a trailer outside Stockton police headquarters, Wilson said the weapon’s punch is so great that bullets fired by Purdy penetrated several layers of classroom walls. One bullet ripped through a steel post--3 inches in diameter--that protruded from an overhead ladder in the playground, Wilson said.

Police recovered at least 50 spent rounds from Purdy’s rifle, some as far as 60 to 100 yards away from where they were fired. According to Wilson, Purdy had used a curved, 30-round “banana clip” and a 100-round ammunition drum during the three minutes of continuous firing. Police also recovered two unused but loaded banana clips on Purdy’s body.

First designed in 1946 in the Soviet Union by small arms designer Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, the AK-47 became a weapon prized by Soviet ground troops and by communist guerrilla factions, such as the Viet Cong, during insurgencies throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

In the last several years, law enforcement officials estimate that more than 80,000 Chinese replicas of the Soviet weapon--the kind apparently purchased by Purdy--have been imported into the United States. Police agencies say the rifles, which are too powerful to be used in hunting or target practice, are primarily used in street crimes.

“The laws are shamefully lenient restricting access to these weapons, particularly when you consider what a person’s purpose would be for owning such a weapon,” Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Lt. Fred Nixon said. “It is used strictly to kill other human beings.”

A statewide coalition of law enforcement officials was formed last fall to push for legislation in Sacramento to outlaw the manufacture and sale of assault weapons in California. The proposal would specifically outlaw the AK-47 but faces opposition by the powerful National Rifle Assn. lobby.

Hurst reported from Stockton and Braun from Los Angeles.