RIOT AFTERMATH : Herschensohn Says Rioters, Killers Are Beyond Help : Politics: Senate candidate says underlying cause of violence is that ‘some people are rotten.’ He calls for repeal of the state’s 15-day waiting period to buy guns.

U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Herschensohn said Tuesday that people looted, burned and killed last week because they are rotten and there is no other underlying cause that can be cured by government programs.

Schools can teach the difference between right and wrong, the conservative Republican said in a statement, but he added: “I don’t in any way pretend that we are going to change human nature.”

Herschensohn, a Los Angeles radio and television commentator, called the news conference to declare that:

* The federal government should take command of the National Guard in any incident of “anarchy and terrorism” and deploy troops immediately. If necessary, the President should do so regardless of whether state and local officials have asked for help.

* Local officials should control the cleanup and reconstruction with requests for federal financial aid coming as a last resort. Washington can help by eliminating regulations that would delay or inhibit reconstruction.

* The state’s 15-day waiting period for the purchase of firearms should be eliminated. “I know many law-abiding citizens who had justifiable reason to get a gun last Thursday--not two weeks from last Thursday, but last Thursday,” Herschensohn said.

Herschensohn decried the appeal of many politicians to attack the underlying causes of the riots. Liberal Democrats have been the most vocal over the years in arguing that poverty, poor education and other social disadvantages breed crime and the potential for civil unrest. Government programs can help eliminate those conditions and thus reduce the prospects for violence, they say.

But Herschensohn said in his statement: “The underlying cause for burning, looting, stealing and murder is that some people are rotten. That’s the underlying cause, and those criminals exhibited no conscience and no empathy for the victims.

“It isn’t society. It isn’t a race. It isn’t a circled-off locality. It’s the individual. The entire skyline of Los Angeles was in smoke. On the same street or in the same apartment building, some looted while their next-door neighbors hid under beds.”

When asked if society would always have a certain number of such individuals, he said yes.

“There’s nothing that government can do about human nature,” he said.

Former Palm Springs Mayor Sonny Bono, one of Herschensohn’s opponents in the June 2 Republican primary, said Herschensohn’s comments are insensitive. “That’s not what people need to hear,” Bono said.

One reason for the explosion was “years of bypassed frustration,” Bono said. “They have said it over and over: ‘We’re frustrated. We’re frustrated. We’re frustrated.’ ”

Bono said the lack of preparation in dealing with the aftermath of the Rodney G. King verdicts was “a prime example of the failure of leadership. . . . There’s a message there that we have to pay attention to indicators before they become explosive.”

Another primary opponent, Rep. Tom Campbell of Sunnyvale, said he disagreed with Herschensohn about the underlying causes of the riot, but said he will wait to express his opinion because “it would be wrong now to send any message that the violence was in the slightest degree defensible. Undoubtedly, there will be debate in the coming months about the problems of the inner city.”

Campbell said he disagreed with Herschensohn’s proposal to eliminate the 15-day waiting period to purchase a gun.

“I would not rush to repeal California’s law requiring a waiting period. It is just as likely that someone would go out and buy a gun to snipe at a firefighter or police officer,” he said.