Today’s Crooks Could Outgun ‘Dirty Harry’

“Dirty Harry” Callahan--the detective character that made Clint Eastwood a superstar-- probably wouldn’t stand a chance today on the streets of San Francisco or any city.

Harry used a .44 magnum six-shooter revolver, a Smith & Wesson, reminding criminals it was “the most dangerous weapon in man’s history.” What Eastwood fan can forget his challenge to the “punk” serial killer Scorpio: “I know what you’re thinking . . . Did he fire five shots or six? Ask yourself . . . do I feel lucky?” He did and he wasn’t. Scorpio reached for a gun and Harry squeezed off his final round to blast the punk into the Bay.

But that was 22 years ago. Today, Harry likely would be outgunned by, say, a 9-millimeter Intratec DC-9 semiautomatic equipped with a 50-round magazine and “hell fire” multiburst trigger activator. They call that a pistol. In reality, it’s a machine gun. And attorney-hater Gian Luigi Ferri used two of them to kill eight and wound six in a San Francisco high-rise.

“Harry’d be a mess,” says Jack Edwards, deputy chief warden for the state Fish and Game Department. Because of the increased firepower of today’s punks, game wardens and other peace officers are rearming themselves with, for example, .40-caliber semiautomatics with 15-round magazines.

The cops can’t keep up with the crooks in this firefight. And it’s all crazy.

What normal people would consider to be a pretty routine, rational move--putting law enforcement, in effect, at least on an even plane with the criminals--meets stiff resistance from a gun lobby paranoid about losing the right to bear arms. Which it ultimately could in the next century, of course, unless it becomes more compromising and realistic about societal needs in an increasingly violent urban America.

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Statistics furnished by Handgun Control Inc. are familiar and numbing: Each year more than 24,000 Americans are killed with handguns, up to 250,000 firearms are reported stolen and at least $1 billion is spent treating gunshot wounds. In 1990, handguns were used to murder 13 people in Sweden, 87 in Japan, 68 in Canada, 22 in Great Britain--and 10,567 in the United States. There are more than 230 million guns in private hands, at least 10% of them in California.

The public clearly wants tighter restrictions on these weapons. When a Times poll asked Southern Californians last year what they thought of the state’s gun control laws, 67% said they should be more strict. Only 21% were satisfied with present controls, which basically consist of a 15-day waiting period/background check before any firearm can be purchased, and a ban on most assault weapons. A mere 6% thought the laws should be less strict.

The problem for politicians attempting to accede to the public’s wishes is that the people who say they want more gun control are not nearly as insistent as the small minority who vehemently want less. Gun lobbies--most notably the National Rifle Assn.--have been losing clout all over the country. But they still can harass officeholders. And many politicians, frankly, are cowed.

One who has not been intimidated is Senate leader David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), co-author of the law banning assault rifles and presently the target of a recall threat promoted by NRA allies. Another is Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, who worked with Roberti to smooth out kinks in the law and has been picketed by zealous gun owners.

Roberti and Lungren--unlikely allies--now have teamed up on a bill to limit firearms magazines to 17 rounds for pistols, 10 for rifles and six for shotguns. However modest, the proposal only narrowly cleared the Assembly Public Safety Committee Tuesday over the opposition of gun lobbyists and Republicans.

“It’s the same old story,” replied committee vice chairwoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills), when asked why she voted against the measure. “It’s not guns that kill people, it’s people that kill people. Crooks will always get guns.”

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Lungren has a different story that many citizens can relate to:

“When I was a boy I remember my father taking me out to the range with my .22 rifle. It was somewhat of a rite of passage . . . I remember my grandfather, who was a tremendous duck hunter. But I never heard him talk about the ducks they hunted having flak jackets or shooting back. I could never understand why you need 30- or 50-round clips to go after ducks or go after deer.”

Lungren says he agrees with the conservative icon Barry Goldwater, who once asserted: “I’ve never used a semiautomatic for hunting. It has no place in anybody’s arsenal. If any S.O.B. can’t hit a deer with one shot, then he ought to quit shooting.”

Warden Edwards says that makes sense to him; it probably does to most people.