Gun Control Backers Are in the Cross Hairs

Politics isn’t always power, perks and photo-ops. Sometimes it’s like a cheap summer movie, a no-star horror flick.

Hate mail and death threats are the weapons of choice for a societal fringe that attempts to terrorize officeholders, particularly those who advocate gun control.

It can be unnerving, if not downright scary. And, of course, that is the attacker’s aim--to intimidate.

Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) long has been a prime target of ugly harassment, including suspicious home break-ins. And the volatile fringe really got agitated when he co-sponsored a 1989 bill to ban assault weapons.

“I hope you’ve got your life insurance paid up because someone’s going to blow your . . . head off,” read one postcard. Threatening messages were left on his telephone answering machine. A group calling itself “The Coalition to Stop David Roberti” sent flyers to voters falsely claiming he had “been repeatedly accused” of sex crimes. “Citizens Against Tyranny” sent him and other legislators “warnings” to “resign . . . Those of you who do comply will be ALLOWED TO LIVE.”

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Last year, because of reapportionment, Roberti switched from a Hollywood-based district to one centered in Van Nuys. The official election campaign was fought within accepted political ground rules--”Roberti’s a carpetbagger,” etc. But following him in the shadows was a nastiness that went beyond dirty tricks.

Somebody sent the senator a giant poster of Robert Kennedy assassination photos and scribbled, “You ought to think about this.” Roberti began getting compact laser discs with titles such as “Flesh and Blood”; they were addressed to “Liarberti.” Mrs. Roberti received an application for an inexpensive funeral with the notation that her husband may be needing one.

“It shook them both,” an aide recalls.

About the same time, the FBI informed the senator and former Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) that, through undercover work, they had quashed an assassination plot aimed at each. Roos, who resigned from the Legislature to head up LEARN, the education reform coalition, was co-sponsor of the assault gun ban.

“Some people out there have strange ideas about their rights,” Roos says. “All this stuff does is redouble your energy to take the guns out of their hands.”

Now, Roberti notes, “it’s starting up again” as he pushes a seemingly modest bill to limit the capacities of ammunition clips. One man called his office to say he wants to “plan a big party for the senator--a very explosive party.”

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“There are lunatics. I see them, people who are really out of orbit,” concedes Encino attorney Manuel Fernandez, an ardent pro-gun activist and one of the leaders of a new Roberti recall movement. “This issue attracts a lot of fringe people. They hurt our cause.”

But no organization he belongs to condones any of this “nut” stuff, Fernandez insists. He did, however, help found and sits on the advisory board of one pro-gun group, Californians Against Corruption, whose actions sometimes cross the line into poor taste. One example: Distribution of a “political pig hunting tag”--modeled after a legitimate hunting tag--with Roberti specified as the animal to be hunted. It was a fund-raising gimmick meant to be funny.

There is no hint of humor in a CAC internal document outlining rationale and strategy for the Roberti recall effort, soon to begin collecting signatures. It is filled with incendiary words such as: “The beast is wounded. It’s time to go in for the kill before he can run for something like attorney general.” Also: “We have to engage the enemy . . . to get in so close we can smell ‘em. We need to break his will to fight and fear is one of the most powerful motivators.” And: “Our methods are a last peaceful resort.”

Asserts Roos, himself a past CAC target: “This group arouses the very worst instincts in people.”

The CAC, now allied with other groups for the Roberti recall, urged the National Rifle Assn. to pitch in money. But the request “was dismissed out of hand,” says George McNeil, who heads NRA lobbying in all the states. “We don’t think it’s worth doing. Mr. Roberti is going to serve only one more year.”

Clearly, the CAC’s main purpose is not to oust Roberti. He’ll be forced to leave the Senate anyway in 1994 due to term limits. The No. 1 goal is to message politicians who support gun control, says the CAC document, that “they will see the light or they will see hell.”

Heavy stuff all around. And some of it not exactly what was envisioned by framers of the Constitution, including authors of the 2nd Amendment.

Notes Roberti: “People have a right to recall. They don’t have a right to engage in physical threats.”