Taking Aim at Gun Maker : Protest: Demonstrators seek to draw attention to Irvine firm.

Holding brown teddy bears and signs that said “Cease Fire” and “The Killing Starts Here,” 20 medical students from UC Irvine and other protesters held a vigil Monday outside Bryco Arms, the Irvine manufacturer of inexpensive “Saturday night special” handguns used in many street crimes.

Jonathan Parfrey, director of Physicians for Social Responsibility in Los Angeles, said the purpose of the early morning gathering was to draw the attention of Irvine residents to the fact that the guns are made here.

“The teddy bears we’re all holding today have to pass through more regulations and more tests than these guns,” Parfrey said, noting that “you can’t take out (the teddy bears’ eyes), or children might swallow them. Prescription dispensers, the plastic things you get at the pharmacy, are more childproof than a gun.

“The point is, these guns aren’t sufficiently regulated, and there’s no standard for determining their . . . safety.”

A plant manager, who refused to give his name, said the students and doctors “were lost” and protesting outside the wrong building--although the Violence Policy Center in Washington and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms both list 17692 Cowan Ave., where the protesters gathered, as the address of Bryco Arms.

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“We don’t manufacture guns,” the plant manager said. “We’re a hobby shop. We restore hot rods. And I’ve got a good mind to call police because these people are holding an illegal assembly.”

It was unknown whether he made good on his threat to call police, but he did turn on the front lawn sprinkler system, which doused some of the protesters and prompted them to move farther away from the property.

According to a 1992 report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Bryco Arms manufactured 204,883 pistols. In 1991, it led all other U. S. manufacturers in pistol production, turning out 202,510 handguns, according to the February, 1994, edition of “Cease Fire,” a publication of the Violence Policy Center.

There were no signs identifying the business outside the brown two-story building in Irvine, and neither George nor Bruce Jennings, identified as Bryco’s owners, could be reached for comment, although messages were left.

“If they were doing a socially worthy endeavor, they’d announce their presence,” said Robert Wesley, co-president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “But they know what they do is inherently dangerous and causes death and destruction, and that’s why they try to make their location secret.”

Four members of the Orange County Catholic Workers also took part in the protest of the pistol manufacturing company.

“A lot of the guns that come from here wind up in the streets of Santa Ana, where I live,” said Tabeo Saenz. “We hear gunshots in my neighborhood on a nightly basis.” Joe Basile, another Santa Ana resident, said there are some parts of the city where he refuses to venture, especially at night, when he can hear the distinct “boom, boom” of guns.

“Sometimes you think, ‘Is that a car backfiring?’ But you know it isn’t; you know there are guns going off,” said Basile, a member of the Catholic Workers.

Stanley Patterson, another protester who works in the trauma center at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Long Beach, explained his presence by saying that he has seen “quite a few victims” of small handguns, judging by the size of the bullet wounds.

But to Felix Aguilar, a medical student at UC Irvine, the protest wasn’t so much directed at Saturday night specials and Bryco Arms as it was in favor of gun control.

“A lot of people say we have the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, and that’s why we’re here--we’ve got bears who have arms,” he said, pointing to the protesters’ teddy bears, whose fur was made from flame-retardant and hypoallergenic materials.

“If the bears have any problems, they’re taken off the shelves in a second,” said Anna Jimenez, adding, “Why can’t we do that with firearms?”