Gun Control Bill Missing Montoya : Legislature: The senator had been counted on to provide the key vote for passage. His expected departure could shoot the measure down.

The anticipated departure of Sen. Joseph B. Montoya from the Legislature has dealt a severe setback to a bill he favored that would impose a 15-day waiting period on the purchase of sporting rifles and shotguns.

Supporters of the bill had counted heavily on the Whittier Democrat to cast a crucial vote in favor of the legislation so it could finally win passage by the Senate. He had voted for the legislation earlier.

But Montoya was convicted Friday on seven felony counts of using his office for personal gain and faces expulsion by the Senate if he does not resign the San Gabriel Valley seat he has held since 1979.

On Tuesday, Montoya announced he will not seek reelection this year and will devote all of his energy to appealing his conviction. An aide to Montoya said the senator has not made a decision whether to resign his seat this week, as the Senate Rules Committee has warned that he must if he wants to avoid an expulsion vote.

The Assembly-passed gun bill--opposed by the National Rifle Assn. and already facing a severe uphill fight--teeters only one vote away from the 21 needed for Senate approval, in the assessment of its author, Assemblyman Lloyd G. Connelly (D-Sacramento).

“In my judgment, we are at 20 votes,” Connelly said. “It would be nice to have (Montoya’s) vote and we’d be at 21 today.”

Enacting new restrictions on gun ownership in California is always difficult--and it is even more so in an election year. Recently, a handful of senators obtained a delay in bringing the Connelly bill to a floor vote until after today’s deadline for legislative candidates to file their papers.

These reelection-minded incumbents wanted to avoid voting on the measure before they learned who their election opponents will be and where they stand on the gun-control issue. The NRA long has been effective in an election year because its single-issue members, totaling about 280,000 in California, are vocal, highly motivated and tightly organized.

In a strange political twist, some of those most contemptuous of Montoya’s activities and anxious for him to quickly quit the Legislature are among the strongest supporters of the Connelly bill. That includes Senate leader David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), who has characterized as “deplorable” the acts that led to Montoya’s extortion, racketeering and money-laundering convictions.

Stripped of all his committee chairmanships and assignments and bluntly asked by the Rules Committee to resign, no one is counting on Montoya to return to the Capitol to vote for the gun bill.

Even without Montoya, Roberti said the bill could pass. “It will be close, but I’m optimistic,” Roberti said. Montoya voted for the gun-control legislation last year, when it failed by seven votes. He had been counted on by Connelly, Roberti and others to vote for it again Thursday when it is likely to return for a second Senate vote.

“The outlook for passage is too close to call,” Connelly said in an interview. He characterized the NRA’s election-year lobbying of wavering senators as “very committed and pretty similar” in intensity to its unsuccessful efforts last year to defeat a ban on military-style assault weapons.

The pending bill, narrowly passed by the Assembly earlier, would extend for the first time to buyers of rifles and shotguns the 15-day waiting period long required of prospective handgun purchasers. Supporters say the waiting period would give law enforcement officials time to check the backgrounds of buyers to determine whether they have a criminal background or history of mental instability.

The bill also would put the purchase of firearms off limits to persons who have been involuntarily detained by law enforcement authorities for a 72-hour psychiatric examination and to offenders convicted of certain gun-related misdemeanors.

Gun-owner organizations contend, among other things, that criminals still would obtain firearms illegally as they do now, and that a 15-day wait imposes an unnecessary inconvenience on the law-abiding Californian who wants a long gun for home protection or sport.

As an alternative, the NRA favors creating a computerized “instant” background check that could be performed over the telephone between a gun dealer and law enforcement authorities. Officials of the state Department of Justice assert that such a system is not now economically feasible.

Supported by police officials throughout the state, the 15-day-wait bill is also characterized as providing a “cooling-off period” to curb crimes of impulse.

Connelly cited two recent cases in which a long gun legally purchased over the counter was used less than an hour later to kill loved ones. In one case, a Yuba City father bought a firearm and shot his daughters and himself to death. In a Sacramento incident, an enraged husband purchased a shotgun and box of ammunition and then killed his estranged wife.

“A situation like this occurs every two weeks or so,” Connelly said, contending that a 15-day wait may cool violent tempers. “These victims probably would have lived but for the failure to get the votes to pass the bill last year.”

A statewide survey by The Times last October found that roughly two-thirds of Californians favored stricter gun controls. Specifically, 84% of the public supported a 15-day wait for the purchase of any gun.

Times staff writers Richard C. Paddock and Mark Gladstone contributed to this story.