Gun Control Battle Looms in West Hollywood : Weapons: Legal challenges are expected after the City Council vote to ban sales of Saturday night specials. But other cities and activist groups vow to fight for the local law.

West Hollywood’s vote to ban the sale of Saturday night specials puts the small Westside city at the center of a struggle by local authorities to control gun violence in the face of a state government that has been loath to pass gun control laws.

The Monday night vote to stop the sale of the cheap, poor-quality weapons is expected to provoke a legal challenge from gun makers and owners. But it has also rallied a host of cities and gun control groups that say they are prepared to support West Hollywood morally and financially in its effort to enforce the law.

The ordinance would make it a misdemeanor, punishable by six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, to sell pistols of poor-quality metal or that lack security devices. The measure must return for final approval by the City Council next month. After that, a comprehensive list of the illegal weapons must be compiled by the city before the ban can take effect.

An audience of more than 100 burst into applause when the council unanimously approved the measure late Monday. But one gun supporter responded by shouting: “A suit will be brought!”

Representatives of gun manufacturers and the National Rifle Assn. said a lawsuit would challenge the right of cities to pass legislation regulating guns, an area they believe is the exclusive domain of state government.

“The law is so comprehensive that you would have a lot of trouble passing an ordinance in one area like this and not affecting all the other areas of state control,” said Robert Ricker of the American Shooting Sports Council.

If the state’s preeminence in the field is not clear enough, the sports council is seeking legislation to prevent cities from passing their own gun control laws, said Ricker, whose group represents about 300 gun makers.

“I cannot think of any reason that we would not sue,” said Steven Helsley, state liaison for the National Rifle Assn.

Critics of the measure said the small city will accrue a huge legal bill for a fight that it cannot win. But, on the other side, organizations are lining up with plans to help West Hollywood defend the measure with either free legal assistance or cash donations.

“This is the battleground on the local level for municipalities to control their local destiny, because the Legislature has time and again turned its back on people who elected them by failing to pass this reasonable law,” said Sandy Cooney, Western regional director of Handgun Control. Cooney said the organization will “make sure” that West Hollywood does not face financial hardship in defending its law in court.

A Bay Area lawyers organization, Legal Community Against Violence, has already spent considerable time researching the legality of local gun control measures and plans to assist West Hollywood.

Eric Gorovitz of the lawyer’s group said the courts have not ruled definitively on the power of cities and counties to ban the sale of certain guns. He argued that only the areas of licensing and registration of firearms are exclusively within the state’s domain and said the Legislature has previously passed up opportunities to prohibit local laws limiting gun sales.

The state attorney general’s office is yet to weigh in on the issue. Spokesman Steve Telliano previously said that the office has some concern about cities creating a confusing patchwork of local laws governing gun sales. Telliano also said that an ordinance that appears to target guns by price might be unfair since those guns are bought by poorer citizens.

West Hollywood’s two gun stores and about four pawnshops sell more than 1,000 pistols a year, an unknown number of which would fall into the Saturday night special category. The owner of the city’s largest gun dealer, the Brass Rail, argues that the new measure serves to “deny the right of self-defense to the poor and indigent.”

But West Hollywood City Atty. Michael Jenkins said the law specifically targets weapons with known safety deficiencies and is not meant to deny weapons to any group.

The city staff reported that 80% of the nation’s Saturday night specials are made by half a dozen companies in Southern California and that these guns disproportionately are the ones found at crime scenes by police.

But Helsley of the National Rifle Assn. said there has never been a comprehensive study of the guns used in crimes.