Assault Gun Registration Rush Is On

Facing the prospect of severe criminal penalties, thousands of procrastinating California assault gun owners are now rushing to register their firearms by the Monday midnight deadline.

“We’re getting hundreds of calls and thousands of applications in the mail,” Jay Johnston, a state Department of Justice official, said Thursday about a newly sparked stampede to register the military-style semiautomatics.

Failure to register can result in the owner of such weapons as Uzis, AK47s or AR15s being fined, serving a jail term or being sent to state prison as a felon.

Johnston reported that applications for registration are arriving in such heavy volume that officials now believe that up to 12,000 assault guns will be recorded by the deadline, nearly double the number they had estimated only four weeks ago.

Even if the forecast is accurate, it will hardly reflect on the total number of privately owned assault weapons in California. Although no one knows for certain, the department and the National Rifle Assn. estimate there are at least 300,000 such arms statewide.

Although gun owners have had since June, 1989, to register their legally obtained assault rifles, shotguns and pistols, only 5,150 had done so by late last month. After publicity of the dismal showing and a recounting of possible criminal penalties for failing to register, assault gun owners suddenly began besieging the department, Johnston said.

In the past few weeks, Johnston said, an additional 2,098 assault arms have been registered, bringing the total to 7,248. “We get over 2,000 (applications) a week and we are anticipating that we’ll get 11,000 to 12,000 before the filing deadline,” he said.

Earlier, an executive of the National Rifle Assn. suggested that California assault gun owners were not registering their firearms in a demonstration of massive civil disobedience against a law they consider unconstitutional.

However, some complained that they tried to comply with the law, but were turned away by uncooperative local police and sheriff’s departments and by the state Department of Justice itself.

Sanctions for failure to register range from a minimum $350 fine to a misdemeanor jail term and/or fine to a felony sentence in state prison.

The registration requirement was included in 1989 landmark legislation that banned nearly 60 different assault weapons in California. Enactment of the first such prohibition in the nation followed the murders of five schoolchildren in Stockton by a deranged, combat-clad rifleman armed with an AK47, who then killed himself.

Registration was intended to allow law-abiding owners of assault weapons acquired before June, 1989, to keep them after the ban took effect. But at the time, many gun owners told the Legislature “no thanks” because they consider registration a violation of their constitutional right to keep and bear firearms free of government regulation.

Preliminary figures by the department showed that the most populous regions generally had the largest numbers of guns registered with Los Angeles County, as expected, leading at 1,778. Other counties’ figures were San Diego, 547; Orange, 456; Sacramento, 307; Alameda, 249; San Mateo, 235; San Bernardino, 217; Santa Clara, 212; Riverside, 129 and Ventura, 98.

Next Tuesday, the day after registration of assault guns ends, California purchasers of shotguns and rifles will face another first: a 15-day wait before they can actually take possession of their long guns. The delay has applied to handgun buyers for years.

The 15-day wait will enable law enforcement agencies to examine the backgrounds of long-gun purchasers for a history of crime or mental instability that would preclude them from legally purchasing any firearm.

Historically in California, rifles and shotguns could be purchased cash-and-carry over the counter with no questions asked. Consequently, criminals and the mentally unstable could and did easily buy long guns and commit crimes with them, supporters of the new law contend.

No records are kept on the number of long guns sold in California. But Shelley Rife, manager of the Department of Justice’s firearms purchase unit, said officials estimate that about 1 million rifles and shotguns will be involved in the 15-day delay in 1991.

Gun store operators estimate that sales of long guns surpass those of handguns by 3 to 1. Last year, 333,069 handguns were sold. Through November of this year, 302,882 pistols and revolvers were purchased and this total excludes the traditionally heavy Christmas season.

To pay for the additional costs of background checks, including the salaries of about 50 newly trained department employees, each purchaser will pay $7.50, a sum that is subject to change depending on workload.