Stopping the Butchery

Both Congress and the California Legislature should act quickly to ban the sale of the AK-47and other military assault rifles of the sort used to mow down children at a Stockton school onJan. 17. One reason for haste is to get action before the National Rifle Assn. is able to mount a hysteria campaign designed to threaten lawmakers with certain defeat if they should dare vote for such a bill.

The NRA already is conducting a diversionary attack on such legislation by arguing that the problem would go away if only states like California had tough sentencing laws for criminals who use guns. But California has had such laws for years. They did not prevent Patrick Purdy from going into the Stockton schoolyard and killing five youngsters and wounding 30 in the space of about three minutes, including time for reloading.

Then the NRA argues that criminals will always be able to find some other weapon to work their evil will. But not one with such awful efficiency. Not a weapon that is deadly accurate at 100 yards or more. Not a weapon that fires a bullet every time the trigger is pulled. Not a weapon that easily can be converted to fully automatic operation, pouring out a stream of deadly continuous fire merely by holding the trigger back. Not a weapon that impresses purchasers with how much damage it can do in such a short period. That can propel its slug through a 3-inch-thick steel post. That can riddle a policeman’s flak vest like a down pillow. Not a weapon that can wreak such awful damage on 35 little bodies on a school play yard in such a shockingly short time.

The NRA should know that this is not the old-style gun-control battle over the so-called right to bear firearms of the sort that someone keeps in the nightstand to guard his home and family. This fight is over a machine made for mass destruction. Virtually anyone can buy such a weapon in a few minutes’ time. The assault rifle is not for recreational or sport shooting, but for killing people--like police officers. The NRA will find this time that it is on the wrong side of this issue from the great majority of law-enforcement officers in the United States--people like Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

State Senate Majority Leader David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) will introduce a bill in the Legislature on Monday to outlaw the importation, sale or resale of military assault rifles and to require the registration of currently owned weapons. There is no single legitimate argument for opposing this bill, and it deserves quick passage and the signature of Gov. George Deukmejian, who has said rightly that “there probably is no need to have any kind of military-type assault weapon available for the average citizen.”

Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) has introduced national legislation to outlaw the importation and sale of new assault rifles. The Metzenbaum bill should be made even tougher by banning as well the resale of the weapons. Then it should be passed into law.

The Stockton affair was sheer butchery of innocent lives. This massacre could not have been achieved without such an efficient destroyer of life. The sale of such weapons must be stopped.