A Ban on Carnage

Deadly military-style, semiautomatic assault weapons--AK-47s, AR-15s, Uzis and their cheap imitations--have no legitimate place in California. Hunters don’t shoot deer with weapons that can blast holes in concrete blocks. Sportsmen do not need rifles with clips of 20 to 70 rounds of ammunition for target practice.

The California Assembly can take these guns out of the hands of killers by standing up to the rich and powerful National Rifle Assn. and approving a ban on the most egregious semiautomatic rifles and pistols, the weapons identified by the state attorney general’s office as the cheapest and the easiest to get on the streets. The bill, AB 357, sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), is expected to come up for a vote on Monday.

The measure would ban the sale, manufacture, importation and possession of at least 46 semiautomatic assault weapons, including the popular Russian-made AK-47 and the Chinese copies; Uzis; AR-15s, and MAC-10s. It carefully distinguishes between the semiautomatic assault weapons used when the prey is human and legitimate hunting or sporting weapons. The legislation would require owners to register the military-style weapons starting Oct. 1. Gun dealers would have to sell or get rid of them by Jan. 1.

Passage of the bill isn’t guaranteed. Undecided legislators like Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier); Dave Elder (D-Long Beach); Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), and Ross Johnson (R-La Habra) should be persuaded by the haunting memories of Patrick Edward Purdy wielding a semiautomatic gun as he killed five little children and injured 29 youngsters and a teacher on the schoolyard of a Stockton elementary school two months ago. The murders of police officers and the slayings of bystanders trapped in the cross-fire or drive-by shootings of street gangs should convince additional uncommitted lawmakers like Doris Allen (R-Cypress); Gerald N. Felando (R-San Pedro); Richard E. Floyd (D-Carson), and Marion La Follette (D-Northridge) .

With an important showing of bipartisan support, the state Senate voted Thursday to ban the future sales and manufacture of a broad category of deadly, military-style, semi-automatic assault weapons. Twenty-one Democrats and five Republicans refused to kowtow to the powerful gun lobby. The Senate and Assembly bills have common goals, but the Senate bill defines the weapons more broadly.

California should again set the national trend by becoming the first state to ban these powerful, semiautomatic, military weapons of death.