Gun Control Activists Face a Harder Fight : Legislation: Activists won an assault weapon ban last year. But they are not finding the same support for a waiting period on rifle and shotgun sales.

Activists who last year overcame the fierce opposition of gun-owner organizations to outlaw assault weapons in the wake of the Stockton schoolyard murders are finding the political fires harder to relight for a separate control bill.

The bill for the first time would extend to sporting rifles and shotguns the 15-day waiting period already required for the purchase of a handgun.

In addition, the proposal by Assemblyman Lloyd Connelly (D-Sacramento) seeks to keep all firearms out of the hands of people who have been involuntarily committed for mental evaluations and those who have committed gun-related misdemeanor crimes.

Last summer, the Connelly bill passed the Assembly but failed by seven votes in the Senate in the final days of the session. At the time, Connelly blamed the National Rifle Assn. for exerting what he called immense pressure on the Senate.

Now, Connelly and Senate leader David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), co-author of the assault gun legislation, are preparing for a second run at winning in the Senate. This is an especially difficult task because 1990 is an election year and legislators are especially chary about gun control issues.

Meantime, the NRA, which boasts that its 280,000 California members “remember and vote,” is lobbying hard to defeat the 15-day waiting-period bill. NRA lobbyist Brian Judy said members are being urged to contact legislators and demand a “no” vote.

Judy and other gun-owner representatives assert that the waiting period would be an unnecessary burden on the law-abiding citizens. They favor a computerized “instant” background check, a proposal that state officials maintain is not now feasible.

Roberti indicated on Wednesday that he now counts 19 of the 21 votes needed for Senate approval of the bill. He said he expects to bring the bill to a vote by mid-February and secure the other two votes needed by “sort of putting feet to the fire.”

Although legislators for years had tried to ban assault weapons, it was the murders one year ago of five Stockton schoolchildren by a deranged drifter with an assault rifle that galvanized public support for a ban on such weapons. Twenty-nine other students and a teacher were wounded before gunman Patrick Purdy killed himself with a legally purchased pistol.

Gov. George Deukmejian was among those who came out in support of both the assault gun legislation and the 15-day wait for rifles and shotguns.

But the highly successful coalition of police, teachers, physicians, Los Angeles neighborhood associations, gun control activists and others who fought for the assault gun legislation has largely dissolved and moved on to other priorities.

Officials of the California Medical Assn. and the California Teachers Assn., for example, said Wednesday that their groups have not yet taken a position on the Connelly bill.

Luis Tolley, California director of Handgun Control Inc., said his organization is “trying to rekindle” the political fires that helped to pave the way for passage of the assault gun legislation last year and has zeroed in on five key senators. They are Democrats Wadie Deddeh of Bonita, Dan McCorquodale of San Jose, Rose Ann Vuich of Dinuba and Republicans Marion Bergeson of Newport Beach and William Craven of Oceanside.