Rival’s Gun Training Session Will Feature Potshots at Roberti

GUNPLAY: A Canoga Park gun store owner has moved his campaign to unseat state Sen. David Roberti (D-Van Nuys) onto the shooting range by offering free firearm-safety seminars.

Randy Linkmeyer, 37, owner of Art’s Guns, said the seminars are designed as a public service but conceded that he intends to campaign at the April 2 events, saying he would seek “to use them to my advantage politically.”

The recall has been largely organized and influenced by gun-rights activists who have targeted Roberti because of a law he authored in 1989 banning the future sale of military-style semiautomatic weapons and requiring the registration of those already legally owned.

Linkmeyer said the seminars are a public service and that he does not intend to report the costs as in-kind contributions to his campaign. No mention of Linkmeyer’s candidacy is made in the ad, which reads: “Randy Linkmeyer Presents Family Firearm Safety Day.”

The ad also promises that $10,000 in prizes will be awarded to participants who also buy winning $5 lottery tickets. The gun store owner said the prizes may include weapons.

Meanwhile, Linkmeyer this week also challenged Roberti, who is the target of an April 12 recall election, to explain how his views square with those of Handgun Control Inc., an organization that is currently operating a phone bank to urge voters in Roberti’s 20th District to vote against the recall and whose leader, Sarah Brady, recently was the featured speaker at a Roberti fund-raiser.

“I challenge Roberti to be honest with the people,” Linkmeyer said in an interview. “Roberti’s agenda on gun control has to be more far-reaching (than banning assault rifles), otherwise, why would Handgun Control be supporting him?”

Roberti has insisted that he is a moderate on gun-control issues and recognizes the right of citizens to own firearms--but not “weapons of war,” as he has characterized the weapons banned under his 1989 statute.

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FIRING BACK: For his part, Roberti has once again trotted out assault weapons at yet another news conference to highlight either his fight against the recall or his crusade to ban high-powered, military-style guns.

It’s one way to catch the eye of television cameras, at least.

Thursday in Sacramento, Roberti did it again. This time, the Van Nuys Democrat was trying to send a message to Assembly members to pass his bill banning high-capacity ammunition clips.

According to a written statement, the bill, if passed, would make California the first state in the nation to ban “mass-murder ammunition clips” that allow assailants to fire more than 15 times without stopping to reload.

Roberti says he is five or six votes short of the 41 he needs for the bill--which has already passed the Senate--to pass the Assembly.

Reaching that goal might be tough, however, because of the opposition from the state’s No. 1 law-enforcement officer, Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

In a September, 1993, letter distributed by gun-rights supporters, Lungren told Roberti that his bill “holds little promise” of actually banning the ammo clips.

“Our office would be pleased to support tightly crafted legislation that will actually remove these magazines from circulation and use,” Lungren wrote. “Regrettably, your bill in its present form, does not do so.”

Roberti concedes that in order to get the bill out of an Assembly committee, he had to agree to add a so-called “plinker amendment” to the measure. The clause exempts people who shoot guns legally for sport at target ranges.

Unfortunately, Lungren pointed out, Gian Luigi Ferri of Woodland Hills was just such a “plinker” before shooting up law offices in San Francisco last year.

Says Roberti: “I respect the attorney general’s opinion. My only suggestion to him is to get us a couple of Republican votes and we’ll take the amendment out.”

More politics as usual.

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A PRIVILEGED POST: No one would ever accuse Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) of being a legislative powerhouse.

The affable Moorhead is a plodding, behind-the-scenes player who has tended to focus on such arcane issues as protecting patents and copyrights and opening up electric transmission grids to independent and renewable energy producers.

But Moorhead--who was first elected to Congress in 1972 and was among President Richard Nixon’s staunchest Judiciary Committee defenders against impeachment--has moved up the Republican ranks through longevity. Despite the reservations of some colleagues about whether he was a tough enough partisan, last year Moorhead became ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which handles a wide range of legislation, including health-care reform.

Now, Moorhead, 71, finds himself in the enviable position of being in line to become the senior Republican on two House committees. Rep. Hamilton Fish Jr. (R-N.Y.), the leading Republican on Judiciary, has announced he will not seek reelection this year, leaving Moorhead next in ascendancy. But Republican rules limit members to a single ranking post at a time.

Assuming he’s reelected to a 12th term in November, Moorhead insists he’s staying put. Happily.

“The Commerce committee is a much more active committee,” the veteran conservative said this week. “I intend to stay with Commerce.”

At this point, it’s too early to say if Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who is slated to become the new minority leader, will encourage a switch. Gingrich warned ranking members this month that seniority alone won’t be enough to retain their leadership posts in the next Congress.

Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.), a more forceful figure who halfheartedly opposed Moorhead for the coveted Commerce ranking slot last year, declined through a spokesman to comment on prospects for next year.

But Moorhead’s intent is shared by another influential colleague. Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), third in line on Judiciary, said: “I expect to be ranking member of Judiciary.”