Governor Signs Bill for Delay in Buying Guns

Gov. George Deukmejian, whose hard-core opposition to gun controls helped get him elected, on Saturday signed legislation making California the nation’s first state to impose a 15-day waiting period on the purchase of recreational rifles and shotguns.

Using a phrase reserved for his own pet political initiatives, the Republican chief executive termed the Democrat-authored bill a “common sense approach” to deal with criminals and the mentally unstable.

Partisans on both sides of the issue agreed that the legislation will be more far-reaching than the ban on assault weapons, which was enacted last year, because the new law will affect millions of ordinary Californians who buy firearms for sporting purposes or self-protection.

Elated gun control advocates forecast that the action by Deukmejian and the California Legislature will help overcome heavy resistance to pending federal gun control legislation.

“I think this is going to provide the momentum we need to pass a sensible national gun policy,” said Sarah Brady, chairwoman of Handgun Control Inc. “This enormous victory with such a comprehensive gun law is not going to be lost on lawmakers across the country, especially in an election year.”

But one top official of the National Rifle Assn., whose organization was first dealt a stunning defeat when California banned military-style assault weapons last year, sloughed off enactment of the 15-day waiting period bill as “irrelevant” elsewhere.

“People don’t follow California in any knee-jerk reaction,” said Richard Gardiner, Washington-based director of state and local lobbying for the NRA. “California passed the (assault gun) law, which Gov. Deukmejian signed, and not a single other state passed anything similar. Not one.”

Starting next Jan. 1, the bill by liberal Democratic Assemblyman Lloyd G. Connelly of Sacramento will extend to hunting rifles and shotguns the 15-day waiting period long required of handgun purchases. This will make over-the-counter and private sales of virtually all firearms subject to the delay while authorities run background checks on the purchasers.

Additionally, criminals involved in gun-related misdemeanors and dangerous persons involuntarily detained under existing law for 72-hour psychiatric examinations will be prohibited from buying shotguns and rifles for at least five or 10 years, respectively.

“It will help save the lives of many innocent victims,” Deukmejian said in his regular weekly radio broadcast. “And it represents a common sense approach to dealing with the criminal element in our society.”

Backers of the bill--including police chiefs, sheriffs and rank-and-file officer organizations--lobbied hard for the measure. They argued that a 15-day wait would provide a “cooling off” period and help curb impulsive crimes of passion in which family members are often slain.

It is not certain what effect the waiting period will have on gun sales before it goes into effect in 1991. Last year, gun stores were inundated by last-chance buyers shortly before the prohibition on assault weapons took effect.

When he was elected to his first term as governor in 1982, Deukmejian was a longtime foe of new restrictions on firearms. He strongly sided with the NRA and other gun owner groups in opposing a gun control initiative on the same ballot.

That proposal, Proposition 15, would have required the registration of legally acquired handguns and prohibited most sales of additional new revolvers and pistols. Deukmejian’s opponent, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, endorsed the initiative. Deukmejian narrowly defeated Bradley and the initiative lost by nearly a 2-1 margin.

Many analysts have credited Deukmejian’s opposition to Proposition 15 and the support he received from gun owners for his own election victory. But last year, he shocked both sides by coming out in favor of banning assault weapons and imposing a 15-day waiting period on long guns.

Political intimates of the governor have said he was profoundly shaken by the 1989 murders of five Southeast Asian refugee children in a Stockton elementary school yard by a deranged gunman, Patrick Purdy, who wounded 29 other children and a teacher. Reloading twice, Purdy sprayed at least 105 rounds from his legally purchased assault rifle into the children and then killed himself with a pistol, also lawfully obtained.

Although voicing support for the “concept” of the Connelly bill, Deukmejian during the last two weeks sent puzzling and ambiguous signals about whether he would sign or veto it. The bill was Connelly ‘s first gun control measure and the lawmaker said Saturday that he lost sleep worrying about a veto.

Connelly conceded that the new law will not come close to eliminating gun-related crimes in California, but based on experience, “we know for a hard fact that 10,000 folks who otherwise would purchase firearms will be precluded from doing so.”

State officials estimate that about 1 million background checks will be conducted annually on purchasers of long guns. Already, about 300,000 checks are run on handgun buyers.

The NRA has argued that waiting periods for gun purchases inconvenience law-abiding citizens and do not work because criminals get firearms from illegal sources anyway. The NRA does, however, support proposed computerized “instant” background checks that would link gun sellers to police records.

In his radio speech, Deukmejian said he will pursue unspecified legislation to automate the background checks, a proposal favored by Assembly Republicans and the NRA.

The new law will roll back the waiting period for rifles and shotguns from 15 to 10 days in 1996 in anticipation that an automated system in the state Department of Justice would be operational by then.

Other gun bills are pending in the Legislature, but their future is uncertain. One would require prospective handgun purchasers to enroll in firearm safety classes, while the other would restrict the number of bullets in ammunition magazines to 15.

Brian Judy, the NRA’s California lobbyist, said polls showing public support for controls reflect a “lack of understanding of the issues and ramifications. We intend to start getting out our side of the story better than we have, raise the educational understanding and have an impact in the (1990) California elections.”

Relatively soon, Congress is expected to take up the so-called “Brady bill” to impose a nationwide seven-day waiting period on the purchase of handguns, and separate legislation to outlaw the domestic manufacture or sale of assault weapons or the importation of such arms.

James Brady is the former White House press secretary who was severely wounded in the 1981 attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. Brady and his wife Sarah, of Handgun Control, have made the bill’s passage a personal cause.