why they own Assault Weapons : To Many Gun Fanciers, a Semiautomatic Rifle Is Just Another Collection or Target Piece

Squinting down the sights of his rifle at the paper targets 100 yards away, yellow shooting glasses resting on his nose, Wayne Tom slowly squeezed off another round with a short but unremarkably loud bang. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Tom, shooting one of his two semiautomatic AK-47s at Irvine’s South Coast Gun Club, said the weapons are “part of a collection. And they’re fun to shoot.”

“They’re extremely accurate,” said Tom, a production manager for a remodeling company who lives in Corona del Mar. “People say you can’t hunt with them, but that’s not true.

“They’re excellent at medium range, for medium-sized game and plinking,” he said, referring to shooting at objects such as cans and bottles.

Tom, like other shooters of assault weapons at the range, said the rifles add variety to his collection. “I have about a dozen guns . . . and I like all my rifles equally,” he said. “These two are just something different.”

To Tom Mancusi of San Pedro, shooting his American-made AR-15 assault rifle a few positions down from Wayne Tom, military assault weapons offer practicality.

“It’s just a high-performance rifle,” said Mancusi of his gun of choice. “It’s a semiautomatic version of the military M-16, and it was meant to be abused. You can drop it, get it muddy. You don’t have to baby it. Some other guns you have to clean every five rounds, but this gun was meant to have hundreds of rounds run through it.”

And, he said, the AR-15’s service in Vietnam--as the M-16--enhances its appeal.

“It’s a little piece of history, really,” he said.

When Patrick Edward Purdy walked into a Stockton schoolyard Jan. 17 and shot five children to death and wounded 29 others with a semiautomatic AK-47 rifle, he ignited a firestorm of revulsion against military assault weapons.

Within hours of the massacre, an entire nation became familiar with the Chinese-made AK-47 and, in the following days, other assault weapons such as the Israeli Uzi and the U.S. AR-15.

With recognition came outrage. On Feb. 7 the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance barring the sale and possession of semiautomatic, military assault-type weapons. At least six more cities in the state have adopted similar laws, and at least 13 others are considering them. And throughout the country, nearly a dozen additional cities, from New Orleans to Boston, are pondering bans on assault weapons, as will the California Assembly and other state legislatures.

Assault weapons, their opponents say, are highly dangerous, are designed expressly for killing people, serve no other practical purpose and therefore have no place in the hands of private citizens.

Given all that, why would anyone want to own one?

That question genuinely puzzles the owners of assault weapons, who say the loathing directed at the guns makes no sense. To them, the weapons simply differ in look and feel, and possibly in capacity and caliber, from other, more conventional semiautomatic guns.

They see them instead as objects of history or nostalgia, curiosities for their collections, accurate long-distance rifles, target-shooting weapons or as effective means of personal protection.

Tihamer Bocz, a computer programmer from Buena Park, bought his AK-47 partly for protection. “If there’s going to be a big earthquake, there’s going to be some trouble, like looting,” said Bocz, a Hungarian immigrant who has lived in the United States for 10 years.

“This gun has a lot of stopping power. I don’t want to kill anybody, but if people loot or try to rape my wife, I’m going to shoot them. My father and my church have a different point of view, but I have a responsibility. My Christian mind says no, but for survival, I say yes.”

The weapon, he said, is also “fun for sharpshooting. And I will hunt with it, but not right now.”

Bocz said he “didn’t know (the AK-47) existed here until the news media brought it up (after the Stockton killings). Before they came out with all this, I never would have bought it.”

For another gun enthusiast, an AK-47 presented a shooting challenge, a weapon to learn and master on the range.

“People say, ‘Now why would you need that AK-47?’ ” said Steven D. Bromberg, a lawyer with a practice in Encino and a former AK-47 owner. “And in some cases that would be a valid question.

“If you were going to use it for hunting, they’d be right. But if you were going to use it for target shooting or self-defense, they’d be wrong.”

AK-47s, in particular, he said, appeal to the sport target shooter because of the weapon’s accuracy at long distances but are “very cumbersome for hunting.”

They also have the disadvantage of looking fearsome and deadly, he said, which has probably pushed many a hot button.

“I think the looks of the weapons have a lot to do with” opposition to the guns, Bromberg said. “When people see someone go into a schoolyard and shoot a bunch of children, their senses are so inflamed that all they see is an AK-47. If the crazies out there had been using something other than AK-47s, there wouldn’t be so much going on now about AK-47s.”

When Bromberg, a Newport Beach resident, owned his AK-47, he said, he used it strictly as a target rifle.

“I’m not a shoot-’em-up-type person,” he said. “I don’t hunt. But I like the idea of competing on the range, developing your skill at shooting a weapon. I’d practice and practice and be able to hit what I wanted to at 100 or 1,000 yards. I feel that’s an accomplishment.”

Bromberg sold his AK-47 2 years ago “because I had accomplished what I wanted to accomplish with it.”

However, he said he now regrets selling it and is in the market for another one. Its “capacity and maneuverability and accuracy,” he said, recommends it as an effective self-defense weapon.

“I’m not a survivalist,” he said, “and I don’t believe that you or I have to turn our homes into arsenals against someone coming to get us. But if something catastrophic comes, like an earthquake, you should be able to protect yourself.

“If, God forbid, you are in a situation where you have to defend yourself with a handgun and your opponents are using a semiautomatic weapon, it would be like throwing rocks at them.”

(The AK-47, like the AR-15, the Uzi and all semiautomatic weapons, fires a round each time the trigger is squeezed. A fully automatic weapon, which fires a rapid, constant spray of bullets while the trigger remains depressed, is what is known as a machine gun and is illegal in California for the general public. Assault-type weapons sold legally in California are semiautomatic, although their military antecedents are fully automatic.)

Nearly all of the shooters and owners interviewed said they would not oppose registering assault weapons or having a 15-day waiting period imposed on their purchase. But every gun enthusiast interviewed strongly opposed legislation to bar the sale and possession of the rifles.

“I personally think the AK is ugly,” one shooter said, “but there’s no reason to hate it just because it’s a semiautomatic weapon.”

At a recent gun collectors’ show and sale at the Orange County Fairgrounds, exhibitors selling assault rifles encountered not hatred but a great deal of enthusiasm for the weapons.

“Business is booming,” said Maurice Danaher, a dealer for Mitchell Arms Inc. of Santa Ana. “Those clowns up in L.A. have got everybody scared. Before all the attention . . . I’d sell one or two assault rifles at a show. Now I can’t get enough. People who don’t even know how to load them are buying them.”

And buying continues to be a simple process.

By California law, such weapons can be taken home the same day, provided the buyer has the money and agrees to sign a form for the dealer asserting that the buyer:

* Is not a convicted felon or mental patient on leave from a mental institution.

* Has not been adjudicated by a court as being a danger to others.

* Has not been found incompetent to stand trial.

* Is not addicted to drugs.

* Has not been found guilty by reason of insanity in any crime.

(Buyers of handguns must wait 15 days to pick up their weapons while their backgrounds are checked. There is no waiting period for shotguns or rifles.)

While many buyers may be snapping up the guns in reaction to the Los Angeles ordinance, Danaher said, others are motivated by nostalgia.

“A lot of the people who buy them,” he said, “are Vietnam vets who are nostalgic for the type of gun they had then. With the younger guys, they buy them more for target shooting than anything else. That’s what they’re for: target shooting for fun.”

Standing nearby, Bill Spincola of Mission Viejo--an Army veteran who said he carried the M-16 during his 4-year hitch--said “there’s a kind of mystique about these weapons. I think it’s kind of like a trend. When the Rambo movies came out, there was a run on these kinds of guns. For me, (the AR-15 displayed at Danaher’s booth) has historical value, and it’s just a neat machine.”

Non-veterans, said Bromberg, a former Marine reservist, probably “have a fascination with military-style weapons. That’s probably part of the attractiveness of them, the opportunity to see what it’s like to shoot one. They find out it’s no different than any other semiautomatic weapon that you might use for hunting.”

However, he said, it may be more exciting to some, fulfilling a big-man/big-gun fantasy.

“I think a lot of people go for them because of the John Wayne syndrome,” Bromberg said, “but that wears thin after a while.”

Still, at the gun show, John Wayne was served up as a selling tool. One dealer who was selling semiautomatic versions of the Ingram Mac-10--a small, pistol-like military assault weapon originally manufactured as an automatic gun--attracted customers by playing a videotape of Wayne firing a Mac-10 in the film “McQ.”

In the film, Wayne, who is introduced to the weapon at a firing range, riddles a barrel full of water with a short, intense burst and walks away awe-struck.

Another dealer advertised, via another videotape monitor, a lever-type trigger assembly that allows the semiautomatic weapon’s shooter to modify the gun to fire a bullet when the trigger lever is both pulled and pushed. A gun modified with the device remains semiautomatic and therefore legal under federal law because the weapon is still not capable of expelling bullets in a steady stream.

Semiautomatic assault weapons in their present legal incarnations are not inherently more deadly than their more conventional hunting-style cousins, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block said.

Patrick Purdy, he said, “probably” could have wreaked equal havoc in Stockton had he used a more common semiautomatic weapon of caliber and clip capacity similar to the AK-47.

“I do not agree with those people who try to say that this (gun) is inherently more dangerous than that (gun),” Block said. “A semiautomatic rifle is a semiautomatic rifle, whether it was designed for military or other purposes, and the reality is that semiautomatic military weapons have been available for many years, certainly since World War II or thereabouts.

“But the reality also is that it’s only been in the last 4 or 5 years that semiautomatic weapons of this type have become a problem relative to criminal violence. This is a phenomenon that I really can’t explain, but it almost seems to correlate with the beginning of importation of significant numbers of these weapons from foreign countries.

“For some reason, the American-made, existing, semiautomatic military weapons don’t seem to have any great appeal to gang members and drug dealers.”

The foreign-made weapons, particularly AK-47s, are popular with drug dealers and gangs because of their easy accessibility and their low price, Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Don Lawrence said.

“A lot of the rapid-fire weapons are in the price range of $600, $700 or $800,” he said. “But you can buy an AK-47 for around $300 or so.”

Also, Lawrence said, a weapon such as the AK-47 may become “the weapon of choice because it’s talked about a lot” in gang hierarchies.

“Let’s say that I picked up an AK-47,” Lawrence said, “and I have a lot of people who look up to me. They might say, ‘Hey, Don has an AK-47. I want one too.’ ”

Block said he favors removing the guns that generate that appeal.

“The effort I support,” he said, “is one that tries to focus on that narrow range of weapons . . . (and) prohibit semiautomatic, military assault weapons generically, but provide an exemption for those semiautomatic or hunting weapons that have been on the scene for years.”

Also, he said, referring to the Los Angeles prohibition of assault weapons, “I do not subscribe to the recommendations for confiscation (of any weapons). If the weapon was obtained legally and in good faith by a law-abiding citizen, that person should be able to apply for a license for it and be scrutinized for criminal background or drug use or mental illness.”

Orange County law enforcement agencies also are seeing more assault weapons being used in crimes, although no countywide ordinance to ban the weapons is being considered.

“We have seen more heavy armament on the streets than in years past,” said Santa Ana Police Department spokesman Lt. Bob Chavez. “That’s pretty much a trend throughout the state.”

Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigator Bob Rivas said that the guns are “becoming the favorites” of drug dealers and street gangs in communities such as Santa Ana, Westminster and Garden Grove “where the gang situation is more prevalent. The guns give them more immediate firepower” than a handgun.

In the current panic-buying climate, however, even people with an aversion to the weapons are buying them as a hedge against the day when they may be illegal, one Orange County gun show dealer said.

“People tell me, ‘I don’t like the AK, but I’m gonna buy a couple of them now,’ ” said Darren Johnson, who said he had sold nearly 200 AK-47s in 1 week.

“People don’t need them,” he said. “They don’t really have a purpose for them. People like to go out to the desert and shoot and feel powerful.”

The desert is where James Everett fired his assault weapons, an AR-15, a Galil (an Israeli-made assault rifle) and an Italian Fie SPAS 12-gauge shotgun.

However, he tired of them and took them to the gun show to sell.

“I never thought I’d buy an assault rifle,” said Everett, a Santa Ana resident who works in the personnel section on the battleship Missouri in Long Beach. “I bought these just basically to plink around. I also collect. They’re kind of another facet of the firearms realm. I like the range and the capacity of the rifles, and the shotgun is just fun to shoot.”

Still, Everett said he does not know “what drives people to buy them. The animal instinct to destroy something, maybe. There’s no purpose to having them in your home. The big revolution isn’t coming.”

Likewise, Chris Draper, a Huntington Beach tool dealer, said he has no intention of using his AR-15 for protection.

“I think the AR would be a fairly stupid home-protection weapon,” he said. “There are pistols that would more than adequately accomplish that. Even if civil disorder should strike, using that weapon against people hasn’t even crossed my mind.”

Draper said he bought his AR-15 in reaction to the Los Angeles ordinance and the news coverage that accompanied it.

“It was in my plans to buy an assault-type rifle for my gun collection,” he said, “but I wouldn’t have bought it now if it hadn’t been for the media hype. I think that the prices will be driven up on these types of weapons, and there’ll be restrictions as to their availability.”

Draper said his AR-15 is a target-shooting weapon only.

“I’m not much of a hunter,” he said. “I just find target shooting kind of relaxing and challenging at the same time.”

But why the AR-15 and not a more conventional target gun?

“That’s a good question,” Draper said. “I probably would just have bought a .22 (-caliber) long rifle before all the news media reports about the assault weapons. That and the fact that if I didn’t it would probably be worth twice as much in 6 months. I bought mine for $735, and I figure I got a deal.”

For Draper, the long-distance accuracy of the AR-15 is the big plus.

“My attraction to the AR,” he said, “is that it’s a very well-crafted piece of weaponry, very easy to handle, and when you’re shooting it’s a lot of fun. The object of target shooting is to lay in a fairly tight group of your shots. If you can’t do that, the piece isn’t fun to shoot. If you can, it is.

“It isn’t that much different from getting up on Sunday morning and driving a ball accurately off the tee.”

Many foes of the weapons, of course, do not see such a relationship. They see killing machines. But, their defenders assert, had Patrick Purdy opened fire on the Stockton schoolchildren with a semiautomatic, hunting-style rifle with clip capacity, caliber and power similar to the AK-47--a gun just as cheap and easy to obtain--the consequences would have been just as horrifying.

Other semiautomatic guns “don’t kill you any less,” Bromberg said. “There’s no good way to die.”