Get It Done

When a deranged drifter named Patrick Purdy opened fire on a Stockton schoolyard with his AK-47 earlier this year, he did more than murder five innocent children and wound 29 of their classmates and one teacher. By turning a playgound into a killing field, this gunman stiffened the spine of California’s lawmakers, so that they could at last do what reason and decency have demanded all along: Ban semiautomatic assault weapons.

The question now is whether the Legislature can screw up sufficient courage to send Gov. George Deukmejian a bill that puts public safety ahead of political expediency.

In the immediate aftermath of the Stockton slaughter, two approaches to the problem emerged in the Legislature. The best of the two originally was advanced by Senate President Pro-Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), who would have written a generic definition of assault weapons into law and simply prohibited all guns it described. The other, sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), would outlaw specific weapons listed by model and manufacturer.

Roos, who initially favored a generic definition, was forced to adopt his more limited approach because so many of his Assembly colleagues fear the National Rifle Assn. and the small band of zealots it controls. Now, both chambers are preparing to pass bills that would ban only certain, specified guns. However, the two proposals may be different enough to require reconciliation by a conference committee. If that opportunity occurs, Roberti’s generic definition ought to be written back into the bill. Well intentioned though it may be, Roos’ solution is inadequate to the need. Gun makers could easily circumvent so specific a law by modifying existing assault weapons or introducing new models. Lawmakers then would be forced into a virtually endless series of votes on whether individual guns ought to be added to the list of those prohibited.

There is no reason to plant new legislative thickets from which the gun fanatics can wage their apparently endless guerrilla warfare against the forces of common sense. The governor has said he will sign a law banning all semiautomatic assault weapons, and the Legislature should give him the opportunity to do just that by sending to his desk a bill containing a comprehensive definition of such guns.

It also should send him a pair of bills introduced by Assemblyman Johan Klehs (D-Castro Valley). One of these, AB 565, would outlaw semiautomatic military-style shotguns. Had Purdy been armed with such a weapon--one model of which bears the charming designation Streetsweeper--the toll in Stockton surely would have been even higher.

Klehs’ other measure, AB 376, would ban guns with detachable magazines containing more than 10 rounds. As we previously have pointed out, hunters of migratory waterfowl have long been prohibited from using guns whose magazines hold more than three shots. California legislators should be able to find it in their hearts to give children under fire the same chance at survival the law already accords ducks.