Heavy Lobbying by NRA : State Anti-Gun Measures Facing an Uncertain Fate

As legislation banning semiautomatic combat rifles nears its first showdown next week, supporters of the bill on Thursday cautiously predicted victory in the Senate. But in the Assembly, the measure’s fate could hinge on a single vote in a key committee, both sides agreed.

Lobbyists turned up the heat in advance of simultaneous hearings Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary and Assembly Public Safety committees. The panels will consider two nearly identical, emotion-charged bills by Senate leader David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles).

The two committees represent the first steps in what the politically tenacious National Rifle Assn. and opponents of semiautomatic assault weapons have said will be a major clash in the Legislature.

Roberti pronounced himself “moderately confident” that his law enforcement-backed proposal ultimately will pass the Senate. Indeed, a Times survey of members of both legislative committees indicated that the Roberti bill probably will survive its first hurdle on Tuesday. But the outcome of Roos’ bill in the Assembly committee seems too close to call.

NRA lobbyists and the legislation’s supporters agreed that the fate of the Assembly bill probably will hinge on a single vote--that of Assemblyman Charles W. Quackenbush (R-Saratoga), a relatively obscure second-term legislator who represents a highly affluent and well-educated constituency in the Silicon Valley of Santa Clara County.

Quackenbush, 34, a former Army captain who founded his own high-tech electronics company, has been singled out for extraordinary lobbying attention from both sides.

On the one hand, the NRA in a special letter to its 5,147 members in his district called on them to urge his “no” vote on the legislation. “If his phone is busy, keep on trying,” NRA spokeswoman Pam Pryor said the members were told. Added to this pressure is the fact that Quackenbush’s own Assembly GOP caucus informally opposes the bill.

On the other hand, members of the California Teachers Assn., local elected officials, law enforcement officers, clergymen, emergency room surgeons and others have applied what was described as “terrific pressure” on Quackenbush to vote “aye.”

Additional pressure on Quackenbush is planned for this weekend when supporters of the legislation have purchased air time for a television commercial in his area featuring former President Ronald Reagan declaring that the AK-47 is a machine gun and “not a sporting rifle.” The TV spot, paid for by Handgun Control Inc., was taken from a speech Reagan made earlier this month to students at USC.

In the speech, the former President also said he did not believe in taking away the constitutional rights of citizens to own firearms for sporting, hunting and home defense.

Luis Tolley, of Handgun Control, said other television and radio spots will be aired in Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles.

As the most heavily lobbied legislator on the politically sensitive issue, a somewhat weary Quackenbush conceded Friday that he had received “plenty of it.” He added, “As it stands right now, I am against (the legislation). There would have to be major changes for me to support it.”

Quackenbush and other opponents say the bills would ban some legitimate hunting rifles as well as assault weapons and say they could support a measure that contained a more exact definition of assault weapons.

Law enforcement officials argue that semiautomatic military-style guns are increasingly popular with drug traffickers and street gangs, whose deadly shootings terrorize entire neighborhoods, especially in Los Angeles.

Essentially, the legislative proposal, drafted by a task force of top law enforcement officials, including state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, would prohibit the manufacture and sale in California of such weapons as the Uzi, AK-47, AR-15 and other semiautomatic military assault guns.

The legislation also would establish stiffer penalties for those who commit crimes with such firearms and would create an appointed commission to decide whether new guns should be prohibited when they come on the market. Those who now own semiautomatic assault weapons that have been obtained legally under current law could register them with the state.

At a Los Angeles press conference Thursday, Van de Kamp accused the National Rifle Assn. of mounting a campaign of “lies” against the legislation.

“The NRA is churning out information in every possible form, much of it false,” said Van de Kamp, flanked by a line-up of Southern California police chiefs, as well as the widow of a Los Angeles police officer killed with an assault weapon.

Point by point, Van de Kamp sought to refute a Feb. 9 telegram sent by the NRA to its members, arguing among other things that the wire falsely stated that there is no difference between assault weapons and semiautomatic guns commonly used in hunting.

“Apparently it’s working,” Van de Kamp said of the NRA lobbying campaign. “Legislators are being flooded with calls and letters. . . . There is a real chance that this bill will be killed in the Assembly.”

The Roberti/Roos legislation had been advanced even before Patrick Edward Purdy, a deranged drifter who had a criminal history, sprayed a Stockton school playground with an AK-47 last month, murdering five children and wounding 29 other youngsters and a teacher. He killed himself with a handgun.

The Stockton incident, however, ignited what supporters say is an unprecedented public demand for elimination of semiautomatic combat firearms and renewed a national debate over gun controls.

The NRA, however, maintains that the actual culprit was a failure of the criminal justice system to keep Purdy behind bars. The NRA wants legislation that would prohibit the sale or possession of a firearm to anyone convicted of a felony, violent misdemeanor, illegal drug use or who had been ruled by a court to be mentally disturbed.

Such an NRA-backed bill has been introduced by Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks).

Members of the two committees said their mail and phone calls on the gun issue have been a mixed bag, although the volume intensified against the legislation after two statewide mailings by the NRA to its 250,000 California members.

Roos said he believes that public support for the legislation is picking up quickly. He noted that several cities, including Los Angeles, have independently passed anti-assault gun ordinances. However, their legality has been challenged in the state Supreme Court by NRA members.

Roos said local ordinances have “contributed to a good feeling that this just isn’t the idea of a couple of people in law enforcement and a couple of politicians. There is a strong notion out there that something must be done about this madness.”

At the heart of opposition arguments is the difficulty of defining what separates a semiautomatic military combat weapon from a civilian sporting firearm when both employ the same type of firing mechanism. Indeed, some hunting rifles are weapons once used for war.

A semiautomatic weapon fires one round with each pull of the trigger. A fully automatic firearm is a machine gun that will fire a burst of bullets with a single squeeze of the trigger. Machine guns are illegal.

Assemblywoman Carol Bentley (R-El Cajon), a member of the Public Safety Committee whose district includes 5,200 NRA members, said she is concerned that the Roos/Roberti bills define “some very legitimate hunting and sportsmen’s rifles” as assault guns.

“If they can come up with a definition that just applies to assault rifles, I’m very much for that,” she said.

Sources close to both Roos and Roberti, who asked not to be identified, said discussions are under way about possible amendments that would satisfy Quackenbush, Bentley and Sen. Robert B. Presley (D-Riverside), who also has expressed concern about the possibility of outlawing hunting and sporting arms.

At a press conference where his bill was endorsed by the statewide California School Boards Assn., Roberti said on Thursday that he is “trying to work on a tighter definition and a list of hunting weapons that would be (specifically) exempted” from the legislation.

One Roberti ally caught in the middle is Sen. Barry Keene of Benicia, the Senate Democratic floor leader who usually carries the banner of liberals on politically sensitive issues.

But Keene represents a sprawling coastal and inland district that stretches from rugged Del Norte and Humboldt counties in the north, where hunting is a major form of recreation, to more populous and suburban Solano County on San Francisco Bay. The NRA counts 10,000 members among Keene’s diverse constituents, one of the largest concentrations in a single legislative district.

Keene, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he has received “very heavy mail” generated by the NRA in opposition to the bill, while at the same time city officials in Vallejo, Santa Rosa and Petaluma “want some sort of controls.”

“It is a tough vote,” Keene said. “There is a division in my district. I’m probably not going to make up my mind until the hearing.”

Times staff writers Bettina Boxall in Los Angeles and Jerry Gillam in Sacramento contributed to this story.