Weeding Out the Bad Guys : Expanded law keeps 5,859 guns out of the wrong hands, but the NRA refuses to budge

How long will it take to sink in?

This week the California Department of Justice reported that in 1991 nearly 6,000 people--including convicted murderers, rapists, kidnapers and armed robbers--were denied firearms that would have been theirs for the asking except for a California law that requires a background check during 15 days between the purchase and the delivery of a firearm. The law, which previously covered only handguns, was expanded in 1991 to regulate rifle and shotgun purchases also.

Still the National Rifle Assn., which has repeatedly resisted appeals for reasonable controls on firearms, dismissed this news as irrelevant and called the numbers “meaningless.”

The NRA’s skewed interpretation of the Second Amendment of the Constitution as guaranteeing to every American the right to own a firearm without restriction continues despite a considerable body of case law to the contrary . . . and a rising body count.

Had such fallacious logic prevailed in the Legislature, as it has in Congress, 5,859 ticking time bombs--people with no business owning firearms--could have been legally armed in California. That chilling group includes 609 convicted for drug violations, 34 for homicide, 101 for sex crimes, 338 for burglary, 7 for kidnaping, 102 for robbery and 2,967 for assault.

Thanks to the perseverance and genuine courage of legislators such as Assemblymen Lloyd G. Connelly (D-Sacramento) and Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), proponents of rational firearms regulation--The Times among the growing numbers--are now having a greater impact in California.

Sensible gun regulation such as California’s waiting period, gun-safety exam and strict curbs on semiautomatic weapons should become federal law.

Rational firearm laws serve a dual purpose. They keep guns away from convicted criminals and the mentally disturbed while protecting the rights of hunters, marksmen and collectors to own and use guns.

Such laws do not represent, as some suggest, the first step toward confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens. What they do represent is a refusal to allow unregulated production and sale of weapons that could be used by criminals to gun down the innocent.

If that’s not sane and sound public policy, it’s hard to imagine what might be.

The resistance of the gun lobby to national gun control laws is more than tiresome: It’s dangerous.

The nation should follow California’s lead. And California needs to do more.