Brown Favors Safer Gun Ban Route

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown on Tuesday cautioned against sending to a two-house conference committee a bill to ban the manufacture and sale of most military-style assault weapons in California.

The Speaker said there is too much “risk” of losing a second vote in the Assembly, where the bill passed Monday night without a vote to spare.

Brown (D-San Francisco) urged the Senate to send the measure by President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) directly to Gov. George Deukmejian, who has said he favors banning assault weapons.

Roberti indicated earlier this week that he might want to send the bill to a conference committee in order to “strengthen” it because law enforcement supporters of the proposal liked earlier versions better before it was “weakened” by the Assembly Public Safety Committee.

A conference committee’s final bill, however, still would be subject to votes on the floors of both houses--a prospect that Brown said he found unsettling, given the difficulty he has already encountered in rounding up a simple majority in the 80-member Assembly in support of even the milder version of the gun ban.

“If you only have 41 votes, you can lose one or two (votes) for whatever reason,” Brown said at a press conference Tuesday. “They could go away to a funeral. Something could happen to them on the roadway. They could become injured. When you operate with that margin, you don’t play with it.”

“The prospects of any increase in the 41 are fairly nil,” he said, adding that he believed it would probably take “five more Purdys in the next week” to increase the vote total.

His reference was to Patrick Purdy, the drifter who attacked elementary school students in Stockton with a Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifle in January. He killed five children, wounded 29 of their classmates and a teacher, and then commited suicide.

“I don’t want to run the risk of losing this opportunity,” Brown said. “This is a significant achievement. This is the first state, to my knowledge, that has gone as far as we have gone on semiautomatic weapons.”

The Senate is scheduled to consider concurrence in Assembly amendments to Roberti’s bill Thursday. At the same time, it is scheduled to take up a similar Assembly bill sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles). If Roberti decides against sending the legislation to a conference committee, it could then possibly go directly to the governor.

Both measures would outlaw the manufacture and sale of about 60 semiautomatic rifles, pistols and shotguns that are used by some street gang members and drug dealers.

A Roberti spokesman said the Senate leader and Roos are still talking about strategy. “He (Roberti) has not made up his mind yet,” said Bob Forsythe, the Senate leader’s press secretary.

At his press conference, Brown also said that:

- Assembly Democrats may strip some of the governor’s favorite programs, such as the Office of Tourism and foreign trade offices, from his proposed $47.8-billion state budget and use these items as leverage for negotiations with Deukmejian. “The budget problem is far greater than it has been projected to be,” the Speaker said. “It’s scary. It’s going to require some progressive leadership from the governor.”

- He does not know what will happen in the Assembly to a Senate-passed bill that would lower from .10% to .08% the blood alcohol concentration level at which a driver is presumed to be under the influence of alcohol. Sponsors argue that the measure would make it easier to prosecute and convict drunk drivers. Authored by Sen. Bill Leonard (R-Big Bear), it cleared the upper house by a 24-3 vote last week. “I frankly think we should have a bill that says if you drink, don’t drive, period,” Brown said. “I don’t understand the difference between .10% and .08%.”