ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Tragedy Shows Gap in Gun Law

On a quiet residential street in Westminster last Thursday, 21-year-old Thomas White gave the state Legislature a tragic example of why the lawmakers should have extended the two-week waiting period on handguns to all firearms when they had the chance last month.

Despondent, White killed his former girlfriend and then himself with a shotgun he had purchased only hours before.

At about the time in September that the legislators were considering extending the waiting period to enable the Department of Justice to determine whether a prospective purchaser was eligible for gun ownership, White was checking himself into a Long Beach psychiatric hospital. He had been despondent for some time over the breaking off of a romance by Krisden Yoshiko Tanabe, 18, a popular high school basketball star from Huntington Beach, who was then in her freshman year at Golden West College.

According to reports, White, back in the community only two days after his release from the mental hospital, approached Tanabe in front of a friend’s home. He was carrying the shotgun. Tanabe turned to run. White gunned her down. Then he turned the shotgun on himself. They both died at the scene.

Relatives and friends are left wondering why it all happened. And others are left rightfullypondering why it is that just about anyone can walk into a gun shop and walk out with a rifle or shotgun. And they also wonder how many more must die before the law is changed.

The state Senate last month rejected a bill by Assemblyman Lloyd G. Connelly (D-Sacramento) that would have extended to rifles and shotguns the present 15-day waiting period between the purchase and delivery of a handgun. The legislators were more concerned about the wishes of the National Rifle Assn. than the safety of their constituents.

Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith is not happy about the ability of people to buy long guns at will. “As far as I’m concerned, this thing would not have happened if we had a law requiring a cooling-off period for a few days . . . and that wouldn’t hurt the sportsman at all,” Smith said. Lisa Barros, Tanabe’s aunt, was more upset. “He (White) just got out of a mental hospital and he was able to walk in and buy a firearm. That, to me, seems criminal,” she said.

Surveys have shown that most people agree with Smith and Barros and support a waiting period for all gun purchases. Most people, that is, except the members of the California Senate, who still shamefully put accommodating the NRA ahead of public safety in their political priorities.