Gun Control Advocate Praises Roberti : Politics: Sarah Brady makes appearances for embattled state senator, who is facing recall campaign.

Nationally known gun control advocate Sarah Brady swept into Los Angeles on Thursday to throw her support behind embattled state Sen. David A. Roberti, who is fighting a recall effort being staged by what he calls “assault weapon extremists.”

Brady, the wife of former White House Press Secretary James Brady, who was badly injured in a 1981 assassination attempt against President Reagan, was the big attraction at both a news conference for Roberti and later at a $250-a-plate fund-raising dinner attended by about 350 people at the Biltmore Hotel.

“He’s our hero,” Brady said at a news conference of the Van Nuys-based Democrat who faces an April 12 recall election.

Brady, who heads Handgun Control Inc., the national organization that took the lead recently in winning passage of a federal gun control law, praised Roberti for what she called his courage in authoring a 1989 California ban on military-style semiautomatic weapons, often loosely dubbed assault weapons.

Roberti, who put in an appearance at the news conference via a satellite feed from Sacramento where he was attending to earthquake legislation, has complained that the recall is the work of a small band of gun-rights advocates who are trying to punish him for his 1989 law.

In response to a question, Roberti said that it was not the Religious Right out to get him but “more the survivalist and the Aryan rights” groups.

At the same time Brady appeared on behalf of Roberti, his foes stepped up their efforts to broaden the appeal of their campaign to recall the senator.

Documents released by Kevin Washburn, an attorney who has been a leader in efforts to pass the “three strikes and you’re out” initiative and heads the pro-recall forces, cited newspaper reports of Roberti’s support for former California Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird and his personal antipathy of the death penalty.

Thursday’s initiative was seen as an attempt by Roberti’s foes to shed the image that they are--as Roberti has repeatedly asserted--exclusively composed of gun-rights advocates.

While the movement has been heavily influenced by Second Amendment enthusiasts, the anti-Roberti coalition also includes groups that are critical of the senator’s soft-on-crime stands, according to Washburn.

Newspaper accounts distributed by Washburn on Thursday showed that in the mid-1980s as conservative groups attacked Bird for delaying enforcement of the death penalty, Roberti predicted that the chief justice would win reelection and “end up looking like Joan of Arc.” Roberti also praised the Bird-led Supreme Court as a “strong, meaningful, stand-tall court,” according to newspaper stories.

Roberti campaign press secretary Staci Walters said that while Roberti personally opposes the death penalty, “he has repeatedly voted for laws to expand capital punishment.”

Brady’s appearance Thursday is likely to continue to strengthen Roberti’s efforts to elevate his recall fight into a statewide, if not a national, crusade against gun enthusiasts that can reap political dividends down the road.

Brady’s group has already supplied Roberti with a mailing list of its more than 100,000 California members, which Roberti is using to solicit campaign fieldworkers and money.

In the next several weeks, James Brady will make an appearance of his own in California on behalf of Roberti. It is also expected that the Brady organization will assist Roberti in tapping into the Hollywood community for more star-power, according to Roberti advisers. One possibility being discussed is having Hollywood celebrities walk precincts for Roberti.

Meanwhile, Roberti’s political advisers are privately hoping that turning the recall into a high-profile election will help propel the senator to higher office.

Roberti is expected to announce today that he will enter the Democratic primary for state treasurer. He has also filed to run for a Los Angeles-based Board of Equalization seat.

Roberti said Thursday that he doesn’t care if his own political career is swamped by the recall if it “means we have saved the life of one single child” by helping take assault weapons off the streets.

“This issue is bigger than me,” he said at the Thursday morning news conference outside County-USC Hospital featuring four doctors who decried the many gunshot wounds they treat daily.

Dr. Gail Anderson, head of the hospital’s emergency services department, said the hospital treats 1,500 gunshot patients annually. Anderson and Dr. Glen Rogers argued that stricter gun control laws are needed to reduce the carnage.

Rogers was one of three operating room physicians who were shot during a wild melee at County-USC Hospital on Feb. 9, 1993.

Thursday night, Roberti held a fund-raiser for his “Beat the Recall” campaign at the Biltmore Hotel. About 25 members of the the Coalition to Restore Governmental Integrity, made up of groups supporting the recall, picketed outside to commemorate victims who have suffered because of Roberti and his soft-on-crime philosophy, said Russ Howard, one of the recall’s top strategists.

Washburn told reporters that his background in the victims rights movement nationwide would be used to combat the recall movement’s image as the work solely of firearms enthusiasts. Washburn has taught classes on victims’ rights, for the U.S. Department of Justice, to prosecutors.

“I’m on board to begin talking about victims’ rights and the failed leadership of David Roberti,” Washburn said.

Inside, actor Beau Bridges, who played Jim Brady in a TV movie about Brady’s shooting, told reporters that Sarah Brady’s energy and commitment had drawn him into the gun control movement.