Police Net 104 Guns in Ducks Ticket Swap : Exchange: Anaheim officers and Disney hockey team officials say turnout exceeded their expectations.

There were tiny, pearl-handled pistols that looked like toys, a battered Egyptian field rifle, an 1881 Mauser military carbine and an illegal, sawed-off shotgun, the latter brought in only after a call from its owner seeking assurances that he would not be arrested on the spot.

The weapons were among 104 firearms surrendered to the Anaheim Police Department on Saturday in a successful, one-day tickets-for-guns exchange sponsored by the Mighty Ducks hockey team. The program, which joined two others in Orange County, was the latest version of the goods-for-guns craze that has caught fire across the nation and prompted the removal of hundreds of weapons from the streets.

Bearing bulky, long-barreled guns wrapped in blankets or small ones stashed away in pockets, people began lining up in the morning chill outside the Anaheim Police Department about 9:30 a.m. Saturday. By 10:02 a.m., two minutes after the exchange got underway, police and Ducks officials said the turnout already had surpassed their expectations.

“Whether we had gotten one gun or 1,000 guns, we would have considered it a success,” said Bill Robertson, a spokesman for the Mighty Ducks, as he gestured toward the line slowly winding its way toward him and the ticket payoff. “But we’re very pleased with this.”

The program, the first of its kind in the National Hockey League, awarded two tickets to one of the Ducks’ remaining home games to anyone who turned in a firearm. The exchange was scheduled to end at 1 p.m. but late in the day, officials said pairs of tickets would also be given to a few stragglers who brought guns in during the afternoon.

Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly, who stood in the Police Department’s breezeway Saturday, watching the progress of the line, said representatives from the California Angels baseball team also contacted the city this week, wanting to sponsor a similar exchange. Details have yet to be worked out, he said.

Tom Rosselli, a police firearms instructor who checked in each weapon, was taking no chances Saturday. Wearing a bulky, bulletproof vest under his uniform, Rosselli made sure each gun was unloaded, then tagged it with the owner’s name.

The owners waited in a second line to fill out an identification form, then moved down the way to pick up their tickets and a congratulatory handshake from officials of the Ducks team, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co.

The guns, including rusty revolvers, vintage rifles and a kit-made Derringer that looked straight out of the Old West, were placed in rows inside the department and will be destroyed in the days to come.

Among those waiting was Jim Londo, a 37-year-old general contractor who was eager to turn in a revolver he found in his front yard in Norwalk about seven months ago.

“I was just mowing my yard and found it lying there,” he said. “I live in a pretty high crime area, but I’d never seen anything like that before.”

Down the way was Robert Siordia, who drove from his home in San Bernardino to trade in the sawed-off shotgun, along with a .32-caliber pistol, after officers assured him over the phone that he would not be charged for possessing an illegal weapon.

Accompanied by his sons, Kyle, 9, and Joe, 16, Siordia said he had taken the shotgun away from a teen-ager on an East Los Angeles street about five months ago.

“This kid was maybe 13 and was just walking around with it,” Siordia said. “I just took it away and took the ammunition too. That gun’s not just to hurt someone; it’s meant to kill someone.”

A former Los Angeles Kings season ticket holder, Siordia said he was delighted to hear about the Ducks’ ticket exchange program. He and his sons received four tickets--in trade for their two guns--to the Ducks’ March 13 matchup with Ottawa.

Several other people said they were getting rid of guns they had bought or borrowed for protection during the period of high tension that followed the Los Angeles riots in 1992.

Mike Erlandson, 27, of Fullerton said he had carried his automatic pistol in his car for a time, fearing an outbreak of further violence during the second trial of the Los Angeles police officers charged with beating motorist Rodney King. But he said he saw no reason to keep it now.

Farther back in the line, Mark Ross, 30, was holding his 3-year-old daughter, Danielle, and keeping a wary eye on 6-year-old Matthew, who was playing on the edge of a puddle. Ross said he wanted to get rid of a .25-caliber handgun that a friend had given to him for his wife to use in traveling to her job as a school nurse in Los Angeles.

But Ross said his wife never wanted to carry the gun and having it around the house made him nervous, so he decided to use Saturday’s exchange to teach a valuable lesson to Matthew, who likes to play with toy guns.

“We’ve been talking about guns a lot and how real guns are not to play with,” he said. “I wanted him to see all the people here turning their guns in to the police.”

The ticket giveaway to the Ducks’ games is the most successful so far of several local gun exchange programs, including others sponsored by Aamco Transmissions and Metro Car Wash.

Orange police officials said the Aamco program, which is also being offered at nine other police departments throughout the county, has netted seven guns so far.

“I guess the Ducks are just more popular than transmission work,” Orange Police Lt. Art Ramo said.