When Low Prices Don’t Help

Saturday night specials are cheap, low-quality handguns. They are unreliable and often unsafe. They serve no legitimate sporting purpose. Their low price, as little as $25, combined with their concealability, makes them the weapons of choice for violent criminals around the nation.

It’s bad these pernicious weapons are made at all, but it’s particularly shameful to Southern Californians that our region has become a hub for the export of quick and easy murder--the hub of the small-caliber handgun industry.

Federal records provided to The Times show that in 1992 seven of the region’s small-arms manufacturers churned out more than four-fifths--more than 80%--of all such guns produced in the United States. Think about that. According to a review of records of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, one of every five times that authorities traced a handgun involved in a murder, robbery, assault or drug crime in the United States over the past 3 1/2 years the gun came from Southern California weapons firms.

Four states--Illinois, Minnesota, Hawaii and South Carolina--ban some types of Saturday night specials. Only Maryland outlaws the sale and manufacture of such weapons based on factors such as concealability.

Bargain-basement prices make an easy market for these weapons on the streets, and that allows easy access for children. No wonder then that the rate at which young people are killing each other has gone up significantly in the past decade. In the current issue of Commentary magazine UCLA Prof. James Q. Wilson points out that between 1985 and 1992 the homicide rate for young white males went up by about 50%. For young black males it tripled.

Given that handguns are an integral part of this most disturbing and dangerous trend, inevitably something will have to be done to address the problem. America won’t ever be safe without a blanket system of gun control.