County Sales of Handguns Soar to 50,600 : Weapons: That 1993 estimate, supplied by the state, represents a 102% increase over a seven-year period, and far exceeds the comparable statewide rate.

Orange County gun buyers, whose weapons purchases surpass the California average by almost half, bought more than twice as many handguns last year as they did seven years ago, according to newly released figures from the state Department of Justice.

Handgun sales in Orange County, second only to those in Los Angeles County, are projected to have topped 50,600 last year, compared to only 25,026 in 1986, when record-keeping began. Elsewhere in the state, handgun sales over the same seven-year period increased by roughly 70%, compared to the 102% increase in Orange County.

Local police officials have long maintained that the proliferation of handguns in the county is partly to blame for the dramatic increase in reported violent crimes.

Overall, serious crime in Orange County has actually decreased on a per-capita basis over the past seven years. But crimes of violence--murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault--soared by 32% during the same period.

The increase in violent crime, however, could be somewhat exaggerated due to a change in the state’s crime reporting policy in 1986: Serious domestic assaults--previously reported in a separate category--were considered to be aggravated assaults, one of the eight serious felony crimes tracked nationally by the FBI.

No one contends, however, that the dramatic increases in murders--particularly gang-related slayings--are any less than they are reported to be.

It was because of the large number of violent crimes committed here that Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen this week selected Orange County--once considered a haven from its more violent neighbor to the north--as one of 10 localities nationwide where federal authorities will begin investigating the origin of firearms used in crimes. The effort will look at how the weapons were brought in, who transferred them, and where they came from.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice study, the 10 metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles and San Diego counties, account for 23% of the nation’s felonies--crimes serious enough to warrant prison terms instead of time in a local jail.

Once the new federal investigation of firearms is completed, authorities may have more concrete answers to questions at the heart of a national debate over the relationship between legal firearms sales and violent crime. Among the questions to be answered are: Do criminals use handguns purchased from firearms dealers? Are these firearms dealers the sporting goods stores or the pawn shops that advertise guns in the Yellow Pages? Or do criminals get their weapons from a less visible network of arms merchants?

Of the 1,600 gun dealers with firearms licenses in Orange County in 1992, less than 100 of them were engaged in open retail commerce with the public. Most of the remaining gun dealers, federal officials said, are individuals who buy and sell firearms from locations that range from back rooms in their homes to the trunks of their cars.

In a transparent attempt to drive some of the smaller arms dealers out of the business, the Clinton Administration announced with considerable fanfare this past week a sharp increase in the fee for a federal firearms license to $600 annually--nearly 10 times higher than the fees adopted under recently enacted gun control legislation known as the Brady bill.

Since 1968, dealers have paid $30 for a three-year license. With passage of the Brady bill, the fee for a three-year license was to increase to $200 for new licensees, with a $90 renewal fee.

Administration spokesmen have said that the steep increase will drive out 80% of the individual gun dealers, many of whom are hobbyists who acquire the licenses just so they can buy firearms at wholesale prices, avoid state and local taxes, or ship weapons across state lines.

But in interviews, many Orange County gun owners and gun dealers criticized that view, arguing that the proposal is a possible prelude to confiscation of arms. They are being unfairly punished for criminals’ misdeeds, the owners and dealers said, adding that neither the license fee increases nor the cooling-off period newly imposed by the Brady bill would hamper people who are already selling firearms illegally.

“All (the Clinton Administration) is doing with this approach is trying to eliminate law-abiding citizens from dealing firearms,” said an angry Barry Kahn, a corporate owner of Westminster’s B & B Sales, whose 20,000-gun inventory makes it one of the largest gun dealerships in Orange County. “They are blaming us for crimes we didn’t commit, crimes committed by people who aren’t being punished properly.”

In Orange County last year, the number of homicides reached a record high. There were 212 murders in 1993 compared to 173 the year before. A decade ago, there were 83 homicides in the county.

Such statistics, gun dealers and law enforcement officials said, prompt more people to arm themselves for protection.

“People are getting to a point where they feel that they can be endangered no matter where they are,” said Bob Stevens, an owner of Hock It to Doc pawnshop in Anaheim, one of about 30 in Orange County licensed to sell firearms. “Your castle is not safe anymore.”

While Stevens and other dealers are reluctant to discuss the number of handguns they sell for business or security reasons, all said that most prospective buyers these days are interested in firearms for protection, and not for sports as in years past.

Richard Gordon, 42, of Costa Mesa has owned a rifle and a handgun since 1970, and he said he uses them mostly for target shooting in the desert. However, these days he thinks of the guns as instruments that will save his life in case of a burglary or robbery at his home, he said.

“If you own a gun and are responsible, having a gun would make you feel more confident and calm about living in a dangerous world because you don’t feel like a victim,” Gordon said one day as he perused a glass case of semiautomatic handguns at the Grant Boys gun store in Costa Mesa. “We live in a changing world. . . . I’d like to be prepared and not wait until someone comes through my door and I have no way of defending myself.”

Tale of the Guns

Handgun sales by dealers have risen steadily in Orange County, increasing 76% between 1986 and 1992, the most recent full year for which information is available. Based on the 37,940 guns sold in the first nine months, the 1993 total will reach 50,600--an increase of more than 100% over the past seven years. Orange County sales by dealers:

1988: 28,071 1989: 33,571 1990: 35,382 1991: 36,058 1992: 44,012

County Comparison

During the first nine months of 1993, the most recent period for which information is available, Southern California’s five urbanized counties were the busiest in the state for handgun sales. The combined total equaled 61% of sales in California during the period.

Los Angeles: 95,882 Orange: 37,940 San Diego: 20,883 San Bernardino: 16,956 Riverside: 14,222

Hottest Market

Although more guns are sold in Los Angeles County than any other, Orange County has by far the highest rate of sales in Southern California. Gun sales per 10,000 residents in 1992:

Orange: 172.1 Los Angeles: 127.8 Riverside: 116.3 San Bernardino: 116.0 San Diego: 106.7 5-county region: 129.2 Statewide: 116.4

Market Share Increasing

Handgun sales in Orange County as a percentage of all sales in the state and in the local five-county region have increased steadily, if slowly. County as a percentage of statewide, Southern California sales:

Statewide 1993: 12.4*

Southern California 1993: 20.4*

*January - September

Source: California Department of Justice, Department of Finance; Researched by LILY DIZON / Los Angeles Times