SEAL BEACH : Gun Registration Plan Draws Mayor’s Fire

Mayor Marilyn Bruce Hastings has refused to support a gun-control resolution, sparking a heated debate in which the law-and-order mayor finds herself at odds with the city’s police chief.

Hastings, who has fought for increased police patrols in the city’s beach areas, said at Monday’s City Council meeting that she could not support a position paper issued by the California Police Chiefs Assn. The document calls for mandatory gun registration.

“I feel like this position paper is asking us to give up certain rights that have been guaranteed us in our Constitution,” Hastings said. “The bad guy is always going to be able to get his firearms.”

Seal Beach Police Chief Bill Stearns supports the position paper, which also proposes a ban on assault weapons, mandatory safety classes and limiting ownership of firearms and ammunition to people 18 or older.

“I think a majority of people would say this makes sense,” Stearns said. “This would help us track firearms, whether they’re stolen or lost or whatever. It would also help us identify how many firearms are out there.”

Council members voted to continue discussion on the proposed resolution at a future meeting, but not before Councilman Frank Laszlo described Hastings’ comments as “straight out of the NRA handbook.”

“This does not ban the right to bear arms,” Laszlo said. “But they do want to ban certain high-powered automatic weapons that are not really useful to the local population . . . unless they want to start a war.”

Hastings defended the National Rifle Assn.

“I don’t have a negative view of the National Rifle Assn.,” she said. “This is a constitutional issue that has no place in local government.”