Legislature Knifes Gun Control in the Back : Bombast on “three strikes”; wimpiness on Katz bill

The bill was endorsed by no less than California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

By Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block.

By L.A. Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti.

By the California Police Chiefs’ Assn.

By the California State Sheriffs’ Assn.

By the Professional Peace Officers Assn. of Los Angeles.

By the California Assn. of Highway Patrolmen.

And the list goes on.

The measure would have made it easier for authorities to prevent crime and to crack down on convicted criminals. It would have raised penalties and resulted in more prison time for more criminals. Passage should have been a no-brainer. But Monday, the state Assembly, in another dispiriting victory for the gun lobby, defeated the legislation in a 34-40 vote.

AB 1105, sponsored by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), was simple: It would have increased the maximum penalty for illegally carrying a concealed gun to close to the maximum penalty for illegally carrying a concealed knife. Although not all gun control measures are, in practice, crime control measures, AB 1105 clearly was. Why, after all, would someone illegally carry a concealed firearm unless that person contemplated using it illegally?

To add insult to injury, the same day the Assembly buried Katz’s bill, it passed, with blinding speed, no less than five measures aimed at locking up habitual criminals for life, sending those so-called “three strikes and you’re out” bills on to the Senate and what looks like legislative passage.

There is perhaps no clearer picture of California’s--and indeed the nation’s--backward response to the escalation of violent crime than that offered Monday by the Assembly, where a gaggle of lawmakers outdid one another with ever-tougher proposals to lock up repeat criminals and throw away the key--while at the same time defeating a measure that actually could have prevented some of those crimes.

Legislators, law enforcement officers and an overwhelming number of private citizens rightly are frustrated over the revolving door in the state’s overcrowded prison system, a door that sometimes allows violent criminals back onto the street well before they complete their prison sentences.

We share that frustration; we support the impulse behind these proposals. However, we are concerned about unintended effects: the cost of building new prisons to house these offenders, the cost of maintaining a large population of prisoners until they die and the question of appropriateness in, say, imprisoning a nonviolent, three-time-loser drug dealer for life but not a first-time murderer.

Doesn’t deterring criminals from committing their initial--let alone repeat--offenses make more sense? Illegal possession of a concealed gun is currently a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. Katz’s legislation would have permitted the filing of felony charges in such cases; conviction would have been punishable by up to three years in state prison.

Summary defeat of this measure by a Legislature that regards itself as now focused on gun crime as never before is, to quote Assemblyman Katz, “pathetic.” And disgraceful.