Gun Advocates Square Off Against Roberti Bill : Legislation: Fight is over a proposed expansion of assault-weapon ban, which faces test in Assembly committee hearing today.

In a showdown reminiscent of last spring’s recall election, gun rights advocates were once again squaring off against state Sen. David A. Roberti, whose bill to expand California’s assault-weapon ban is up for a do-or-die committee hearing today.

Buoyed by their apparent success in targeting other gun-control bills in the final weeks of the Legislature, firearms rights groups notified supporters in a letter to pull out all the stops in telling lawmakers that they oppose Roberti’s bill.

“Don’t take lightly his ‘give me a vote for old times sake’ pitch,” wrote former state Sen. H. L. Richardson, founder of Gun Owners of California and an old nemesis of Roberti, who will be ousted by term limits in December.

The face-off calls to mind the political battle played out in the heart of the San Fernando Valley in April as gun owners furious over the Van Nuys Democrat’s assault-weapon ban sought to have him recalled.

Although Roberti emerged victorious from the recall election, he lost a June bid for the Democratic nomination for state treasurer--largely because he had little money remaining to wage his campaign.

Roberti’s bill, unveiled in April at a shooting range, with Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Kathleen Brown at his side, would plug loopholes in his earlier assault-weapon ban.

Gun distributors and manufacturers learned to get around the 1989 law--which listed forbidden military-style weapons by name--by giving guns a different name or slightly changing their features.

In wording similar to a proposed federal assault-weapon ban, the bill scheduled to be heard by the Assembly Ways and Means Committee today would add a generic, blanket description of so-called “copycat” military-style guns to the 5-year-old ban.

The gun owners’ lobbying push, backed by an editorial in Tuesday’s Orange County Register, had Roberti fuming as he tried to round up the 12 committee votes he needed.

“I’m appalled yet fascinated,” Roberti said, responding to the editorial. “It’s a degree of uncompromising fanaticism that is dangerous to the body politic.”

Chastising the senator for his “flimsy logic,” the editorial called Roberti’s bill “the vehement gun controller’s Parthian shot against the Second Amendment” right to bear arms.

Months after his announcement that he will retire from politics, Roberti remains a magnet for attacks stemming from his gun-control legislation.

“You would think they would have tapered off, but they haven’t,” Roberti said. “We only seem to be able to win when we have a massive amount of press--and you usually need a massacre to go along with it.”

A California Rifle and Pistol Assn. flyer alerts supporters that “the dumbest show on Earth is continuing its long run in Sacramento” and that “the main attraction is led by ‘Ringmaster’ David Roberti as the politicians scamper and frolic in the center ring of the circus.”

Richardson’s letter to members said: “We humiliated David Roberti. He rightfully attributes his defeat to us gunners. And he wants revenge.”

In a Gun Owners of America release sent to members of Congress weighing a federal ban, the group boasts of depleting Roberti’s financial resources, and warns: “Before you vote on the crime bill, remember . . . David Roberti of California.”

As the Legislature winds up its final days of the two-year session, California gun rights groups are close to declaring victory in their attempts to squash or stall significant gun-control measures.

“We are cautiously optimistic at this point,” said John Stoos, executive director of Gun Owners of California.