Lungren Will Face Early Test on Late Gun Registration Policy

In one of his first acts after taking office on Monday, Atty. Gen.-elect Dan Lungren must decide whether to give local law enforcement agencies the names and addresses of assault gun owners who mailed their registration documents too late and are liable for prosecution.

Under the policy of retiring Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, police and sheriffs will be notified of assault gun owners who missed last Monday’s midnight deadline to register their assault firearms with the state.

As of New Year’s Day, possession of an unregistered assault gun became punishable by a minimum $350 fine for first-time offenders. The law includes stiffer penalties as well, including confiscation of weapons and possible imprisonment in a local jail or state penitentiary.

So far, no local law enforcement agencies have been notified. Regulators at the state Department of Justice are now sorting through an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 applications mailed at the last minute.

Some gun owners complained Thursday that giving police the identities and addresses of those who submitted their documents but missed the deadline unfairly targets them for enforcement. By contrast, they say, those who simply ignore the registration requirement, including criminals, are unlikely to come to the attention of law enforcement unless they are caught with the banned weapons.

“It’s a trap and a violation of the Fifth Amendment (protection against self incrimination),” charged Mike McNulty, spokesman for the Gun Owners’ React Committee, an Orange County-based organization that claims a following of up to 5,000.

Statewide, there are an estimated 300,000 military-style semiautomatic firearms defined as “assault weapons” in private hands. Department of Justice officials said about 8,000 had been registered since the law took effect 18 months ago, about 3,000 in the past four weeks alone.

All applications processed through Thursday were postmarked on or before Dec. 31. It will probably be sometime next week before the applications posted after the deadline are handled, said Robert Drake, the retiring department official who oversees gun registration.

Dave Puglia, press secretary to Lungren, said because of the “hectic” transition from the Democratic Van de Kamp administration to the Republican Lungren administration, the issue has not been “specifically addressed at this point.”

But he said when Lungren takes office Monday, the new attorney general “will be taking a close look at this whole issue” of whether to implement or scrap Van de Kamp’s policy.

Police and sheriff’s departments throughout the state said they have not adopted policies for enforcing the registration provisions, but have indicated they plan no intense, special effort to apprehend violators.

Registration of such high-firepower guns as the Uzi, the Mac 10 and the AK47 was required under a far-reaching 1989 California law that banned the manufacture, sale and possession of assault guns. Registration was intended to enable citizens who legally acquired these weapons before June, 1989, to keep them.

Local law enforcement agencies are responsible for enforcing the new law.

McNulty said the policy of notifying local authorities of assault gun owners who missed the registration deadline was intended to free the Justice Department of liability for failing to take action against someone known to possess an illegal gun.

Drake said the policy, which was not required by law, resulted from a “decision that this is the appropriate way to discharge our responsibilities. . . . It was strictly an administrative decision.”

Under the policy, Drake said, registration materials and fees would be returned to gun owners who missed the Monday deadline along with a letter “advising the submitters that possession of the weapon is illegal.”