Wilson Stand on Gun Issues Will Be Put to the Test : Weapons: When he left the Senate to become governor, he arrived in Sacramento with a mixed record on firearms. Now a stack of control measures await his decisions.

Untested as governor on politically explosive firearms issues, Pete Wilson is about to take a stand in the national debate over gun controls by deciding the fate of a stack of bills sent to him by the Legislature.

When Wilson moved from the U.S. Senate to the governor’s office nine months ago, he arrived with a mixed record on guns, but leaning toward “reasonable controls.”

Now, the moderate Republican governor must translate his beliefs into action on a range of gun bills. They include a measure granting 90 days of amnesty to assault weapons owners who failed to register their arms and a bill requiring potentially hundreds of thousands of first-time handgun purchasers to first complete a gun safety course.

Wilson can sign, veto or let the measures become law without his signature. Whatever action he takes will occur against a backdrop of rising conservative opposition to Wilson within the GOP at the same time he is being talked about as a potential presidential candidate in 1996.

“He’s not a sure thing for us, but he’s been very good in the Senate,” said Luis Tolley, Western director of Handgun Control Inc., a national advocate of stricter regulation of firearms ownership.

On the other side, H.L. Richardson, a former GOP state legislator and founder of Gun Owners of California, characterized Wilson as “one we deem we cannot count on. He is the ultimate pragmatist. He’ll look at an issue and see what he stands to gain out of it. We are not really crazy about him.”

Officials at National Rifle Assn. headquarters in Washington said they were unprepared to assess Wilson’s record on guns, although the NRA is opposed to the legislation awaiting his action that would provide the unprecedented 90-day amnesty for gun owners who failed to register their semiautomatic assault weapons by the Dec. 31 deadline.

The governor, who aides say was an expert marksman in the Marine Corps, has not taken a position for or against any of the gun bills passed by the Legislature. The aides said his time has been too consumed by last summer’s budget crisis and the current reapportionment battle for him to examine gun legislation.

“The fact that he has not reacted to a bill is in no way indicating his position,” said press secretary Bill Livingstone.

Livingston did note, however, that Wilson has said that if he were governor in 1989 he would have signed the landmark bill that banned semiautomatic civilian versions of military assault guns. The legislation allowed those who already owned these firearms to register and keep them.

During his 1990 race for governor, Livingstone said, Wilson sought to strike a more moderate tone on gun control than the “very strong” support position assumed by the Democratic nominee, Dianne Feinstein. “We were trying to differentiate ourselves from her,” he said.

As a successful candidate for the Senate in 1982, Wilson opposed Proposition 15, a far-reaching ballot initiative that would have immediately banned the importation of additional handguns into California, required existing pistols and revolvers to be registered and virtually banned the sale of new ones.

The voters crushed Proposition 15. But even today, how a candidate stood on the proposal is widely applied as a political litmus test by many individual gun owners and their organizations.

As a senator in 1983, Wilson was a co-sponsor of the NRA-opposed bill to outlaw the so-called “cop killer” bullet. Three years later, he sided with the NRA in supporting proposals to weaken parts of the Gun Control Act of 1968, enacted after the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

But in 1988, Wilson announced his support for the so-called Brady bill carried by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), which called for a waiting period of at least seven days between the purchase and possession of a handgun. The NRA vigorously opposed it. (California has had a 15-day wait for some handgun purchases since the mid-1970s.)

Last year, Wilson sided with Handgun Control Inc. and peace officer organizations in voting to support two assault gun ban proposals advanced by Metzenbaum and Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) An HCI spokesman called Wilson’s support of the DeConcini plan “pivotal.”

Press secretary Livingstone said that, in the Senate, Wilson “felt it was important to have reasonable controls to support law enforcement while not undermining the legitimate rights of law-abiding gun owners.”

Although as governor Wilson has not committed himself, supporters of the proposed 90-day amnesty bill for registration of assault weapons are optimistic that he will sign the measure, which is sponsored by GOP Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

The 1989 law that banned nearly 60 different semiautomatic rifles, pistols and shotguns gave owners of legal assault guns until last Dec. 31 to register them or face penalties ranging from a minimum $350 fine to eight years in state prison for possession of an illegal firearm.

Some owners claimed they forgot to register, never knew about the law, refused to obey it or were turned away by police when they tried to comply. Only a few thousand of the estimated 300,000 privately owned assault guns in California were registered by the deadline.

To give these gun owners a second chance, Lungren asked Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), Senate author of the original law, to carry remedial legislation granting a 90 day “forgiveness.” During this period the guns could be registered without their owners being subjected to criminal charges.

Lungren’s bill, passed by the Legislature and awaiting action by Wilson, also seeks to correctly identify by brand name and model number specific guns on the prohibited list. Lungren has complained that inaccurate identification of guns on the original list so skewed the law that it made it practically unenforceable.

But one of the bill’s major provisions is in dispute. It attempts to correct the flaws but at the same time adds guns that were not on the original list.

NRA lobbyist Brian Judy has said that this puts law-abiding gun owners in the position of being unable to register them and in jeopardy of being charged with a crime. However, drafters of the Lungren-Roberti bill maintain it does allow the registration and merely “clarifies” the Legislature’s intent in 1989.

A second major bill facing Wilson would require most first-time handgun buyers to take a two- to four-hour course in firearms safety as a precondition to purchasing a revolver or pistol. The course would be developed by the state Department of Justice and offered at a cost of $10 per applicant.

Proficiency in safe shooting would not be required. Critics claim an applicant could complete the safety course without ever handling a firearm or even viewing a photo of one.

Sponsors of the bill, by Assemblyman Rusty Areias (D-Los Banos), cite gun accidents in the home as a leading killer of children and insist that, at a minimum, adults should be instructed in gun safety and secure storage before being allowed to purchase a lethal weapon.

Exempted from taking the course would be retired members of the military, former peace officers, licensed hunters, those having concealed weapons permits and those who passed an equivalency test.

Other Gun Bills

Besides bills on assault-gun registration and gun safety training, these gun-related bills face action by the governor: * CHILDREN: Supported by historic adversaries, the National Rifle Assn. and Handgun Control Inc., a bill by Assemblyman Lloyd Connelly (D-Sacramento) would make a careless parent or other adult gun owner subject to a maximum three-year prison term if someone was killed or severely wounded by a child with access to a loaded firearm. The bill also would provide lesser penalties for adults whose loaded guns were left where children could get them and injure others.

* TRIGGER LOCKS: Introduced by Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco), this legislation would require that firearms sold by a dealer be fitted with a trigger-locking device whenever possible. Backers of the bill argue that trigger locks would prevent death and injury by the accidental discharge of a gun. The NRA contends that the vast majority of the 6 million gun owners in California already are safety-conscious and should not be compelled to purchase a trigger lock.

* INHERITANCE: A bill by Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-La Mesa) would allow someone who inherits a legally owned assault weapon to register and keep it. Under current law, the only way to legally dispose of a firearm classified as an assault weapon is to turn it over to a licensed gun dealer or to make it inoperable.

* DRIVE-BYS: This bill would make the illegal carrying of a loaded firearm on the second offense punishable as a possible felony carrying a prison term. Authored by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles), the proposal is aimed at drive-by shooters.