To Ban Assault Weapons, Voices Must Be Heard

California is under siege by drug dealers and sociopaths who are no longer waging their wars with pistols, rifles and knives. They are now arming themselves with semiautomatic assault weapons, and innocent victims are getting caught in the cross fire.

Law enforcement is being overwhelmed by these weapons. Once-quiet schoolyards and neighborhoods are turning into battlegrounds. But a well-organized, highly vocal lobby is, once again, trying to persuade us that this carnage is the price we must pay to guarantee the “right” of a few gun collectors and citizens who want to target-shoot with these weapons of deadly force.

Is the right of a few gun enthusiasts and collectors more important than the lives of 21 children and adults who were massacred at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro by, among other weapons, an Uzi? Or more important to us than the lives of the five children who died and the 30 others who were wounded by an AK-47 assault rifle in a Stockton schoolyard?

I don’t believe that the Founding Fathers had Uzis and AK-47s in mind when they sought to ensure a “well regulated militia.” That is why I carried a bill last year banning the sale or possession of semiautomatic assault weapons in California.

I have read hundreds of letters from sportsmen and gun enthusiasts opposing my legislation. But I heard precious little from those who believe that we must put a stop to the rapid proliferation of these weapons of war. Unfortunately, most of my colleagues who voted against the bill had the same experience. Nevertheless, poll after poll tells us that the vast majority of Californians support such a ban.

We have been a silent, scared majority for far too long. The gun lobby has issued a political challenge that can be met and won only by a movement of individuals who are outraged by these senseless tragedies.

It has been made dramatically clear who pays the price for the unlimited access to these types of weapons. We all will carry with us the indelible memory of the grief-stricken faces of the parents and the horrified looks of the children in that Stockton schoolyard.

The gun lobby argues that it is criminal misuse of a weapon, not a particular type of weapon itself, that constitutes the danger to society. But modern technology has made firepower an issue of public safety. We should decide this issue as we decide other issues of public protection.

In a civilized society, any right of the individual must be weighed against the greater public good. We already have outlawed such weapons as machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, zip guns, brass knuckles, blackjacks, even most fireworks, because their ready availability posed too great a danger to society. And it has worked. No longer do we see the great proliferation we once saw when these items were freely available.

Yet we continue to allow the virtually unregulated sale of weapons made solely for the purpose of killing people.

In a recent survey of law enforcement throughout California by the Assembly Office of Research, the overwhelming majority of the more than 200 agencies responding cited firepower as the chief reason that criminals want assault-type weapons. For this reason, coupled with the easy availability of these weapons, law enforcement expects a continued dramatic increase in the sale and criminal use of semiautomatic rifles and pistols.

Faced with this inevitability, police chiefs and sheriffs throughout the state are leading the effort to severely restrict the availability of these lethal weapons. Yet a very vocal minority still manages to retain a virtual stranglehold on our lawmakers.

Why has this occurred? It has occurred because we have not given up our notion of the 1970s that a strong, silent majority with a righteous cause will somehow prevail. Because this issue arouses such high emotions, the coercive pressure on lawmakers is intense. If politicians do not hear a strong, unified voice demanding stricter controls of these weapons, they are not likely to exercise the political courage it takes to stand up to the powerful gun lobby.

It is unfortunate that it takes the lives of innocent children to generate widespread concern. But perhaps now, with the public’s heightened awareness, my legislative colleagues and the governor will finally be persuaded that the easy availability of such lethal weapons must be curbed.

For most of us it is long overdue. And unfortunately for some, it is too late.