Brady Backs Roberti as ‘Referendum on Gun Violence’ Nears : Politics: Ex-Reagan aide says a vote for the senator will ‘save lives.’ Recall election is being watched nationwide.

State Sen. David Roberti, heading into the final week of his battle against a recall election heavily influenced by gun enthusiasts, received a testimonial from ex-presidential press secretary James Brady, who was crippled in an assassination attempt against President Reagan in 1981.

In the meantime, Roberti’s foes at a competing press conference charged that Roberti’s liberalism, not guns, is to blame for violent crime.

“Beating this recall should be the most effective way to send a message to the evil empire” of the public’s desire for stronger gun control measures, Brady said later as he sat in his wheelchair.

Meanwhile, scriptwriter Allan Pell, who lives near the Van Nuys residence that Roberti calls home for legal reasons, urged the senator to come live in Van Nuys.

“I hear shots at night, and see drugs deals go down in the parking lot over there,” Pell said, pointing out the sights along tawdry Victory Boulevard. “It’s a war zone and Roberti has done nothing about crime, except talk about gun control.”

Next Tuesday, voters will go to the polls to decide Roberti’s fate in a recall election that’s being closely watched nationwide as a referendum on gun control.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder reported Tuesday that Roberti has received a total of $34,750 in contributions from 26 donors who each gave $1,000 or more since March 27. All contributions of $1,000 or more received after March 27 must be reported within 24 hours. No large contributions were reported received by the anti-Roberti forces.

At Tuesday’s news conference at Reseda High School, Roberti was flanked by Brady and by nearly a dozen victims rights advocates and relatives of shooting victims who urged voters to defeat the recall.

Among those present was Margaret Ensley, the mother of Michael Ensley, who was shot and killed at Reseda High in February, 1993, with a .22-caliber derringer; and Ken Brondell Jr., the brother of LAPD Officer Christy Hamilton, who was killed last month in a shootout in Northridge by a teen-ager wielding an AR-15 military-style semiautomatic weapon.

The AR-15 is one of the guns covered by Roberti’s 1989 weapons ban. The state senator has claimed the recall is the work of “assault weapons extremists” seeking revenge because of his authorship of the 1989 ban.

Brady, who is confined to a wheelchair and speaks slowly because of the massive head injuries he suffered in the 1981 attack on Reagan, said he is particularly concerned about assault weapons. “If John Hinckley (the man who shot Brady and Reagan) had had an Uzi or a Tech-9 (two assault weapons) I know I wouldn’t be here today,” Brady said. Hinckley used a .22-caliber pistol.

“Your vote Tuesday for the senator will reduce the senseless gun violence and save lives,” Brady said.

During questioning, Roberti said he voted Monday evening, as chairman of the state Senate Judiciary Committee, for a measure to require people to be licensed before they could own a handgun or buy ammunition. “We license people to drive and for almost everything else,” Roberti said. “One should know how to use these things (guns) before they buy them.”

The measure, authored by state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), would require people to complete a firearms safety program before they could own a handgun. The license would be valid for only four years.

Roberti predicted tough sailing on the Senate floor for the Hart measure. Legislators are intimidated by the gun lobby, and that intimidation includes the threat of having to face a recall, Roberti said.

“Everybody’s scared to death of the gun lobby,” Roberti said. “But if we beat the recall and beat it bad, then maybe (lawmakers who support the gun lobby) will have the fear in their hearts that maybe they could lose an election if they keep voting for the gun lobby.”

Brady’s wife, Sarah, the head of Handgun Control Inc., was in California last month to do a fund-raiser for Roberti.

Tuesday, James Brady was the guest speaker at a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for the embattled senator that was hosted by former Sen. Mike Roos. About two dozen people attended the event. Roos co-authored the 1989 assault weapons ban.

Later in the day, the anti-Roberti forces tried to steer the debate away from guns and back to crime, their favorite issue, at a news conference of their own.

Featured there were Pell and Mary Lou Holte, a Van Nuys community activist. The pair blasted Roberti as a remote and ineffectual legislator who has preferred to attack guns, rather than criminals.

“We want to get the debate back onto crime control and what Roberti hasn’t done in this area,” said Holte, who says the only weapon she owns is a green spray paint can which she says she will spray on criminals to help identify them for police. “Like me, not everybody who wants to get rid of Roberti is a gun-toter.”

Pell speculated that Roberti might take a tougher stand on crime if he had to live in his own district. In fact, Roberti lives outside the district, in the Los Feliz area, although he rents a home in the district to maintain his residency there for voting purposes.

“When Roberti comes out here, he comes in a bullet-proof limousine with bodyguards,” Pell complained.

Russ Howard, a spokesman for the recall, also charged that Roberti was out of touch, both with his district and with the roots of criminal violence. “The No. 1 problem in Roberti’s district is not assault weapons,” Howard said. “His assault weapons ban was a fraud. It has done nothing to stop violent crime. The problem is not guns, but criminals who get out of prison (before serving their full sentences).”

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In fact, Howard continued, a frustrated electorate had to “go around Roberti” and resort to an initiative drive to get some action on the “three strikes and you’re out” issue. Roberti now backs the “three strikes” measure, but critics say he arrived at that position only after hundreds of thousands of voters signed petitions supporting the tough-minded sentencing plan.

Kevin Washburn, another recall leader, said numerous studies confirm the weakness of gun control as a way to curb crime. For example, Washburn cited a 1991 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms survey of imprisoned armed career criminals that found that 37% got their guns from off-the-street sales and 34% got them through theft or from criminal associates--none of which was regulated by gun control measures.

Washburn also pointed to California crime statistics that show violent crime has steadily increased over the years, including the period 1987 to 1992 which straddled the advent of Roberti’s gun ban.