O.C. Couple Who Lost Son Wage Anti-Gun Crusade

These were the words they never figured to hear, a monotone nightmare, delivered by a New York City police detective: Your son was the victim of a robbery. He did not offer resistance. He was shot. He is deceased.

So were Charlie and Mary Leigh Blek of Mission Viejo sent on a new journey by the slaying of their 21-year-old son, Matthew, at the hands of a trio of teenagers packing a street-sale handgun.

Since that 1994 killing, the couple have made it their mission to push for prevention of firearm violence, and on Tuesday it brought them to the California Legislature to share their story with lawmakers considering a broad slate of anti-gun measures.

Democrats have introduced legislation to impose new restrictions on semiautomatic weapons, make it a crime to pack a gun while drunk and increase penalties for failing to keep guns from kids. Among the bills that won committee approval was a ban on sales of the so-called “Saturday Night Special,” the kind of small and inexpensive gun that killed the Bleks’ son.

In giving voice to their story, the Bleks got sympathetic nods from many corners. But they couldn’t pry a vote out of their hometown representatives.

Orange County’s lawmakers in Sacramento and Washington routinely oppose efforts to rein in the nation’s gun laws. The Bleks bluntly say the county’s legislators appear unconditionally wedded to the gun lobby.

“It makes it a little difficult for them to listen to responsible, sane gun laws when they are the cover-boys for the National Rifle Assn.,” Mary Leigh Blek said. “They argue the 2nd Amendment. It’s primarily stonewalling.”

On Tuesday, the delegation’s pro-gun predilection was best displayed by Assemblyman Scott Baugh, a Huntington Beach conservative who cast votes against many of the anti-gun bills that appeared before the Assembly Public Safety Committee.

“This is a tough issue and I’m not unsympathetic to the plight of individuals like the Bleks,” Baugh said. “I’m just concerned that we don’t overreact and take out the rights of law-abiding citizens in order to address the abuses of a select few.”

Despite the no votes of Baugh and other Republicans, more than a half dozen anti-gun bills won approval on party-line votes, including a ban on the “Saturday Night Special.”

That crude, easily concealed gun--a Davis .380 to be exact--ended the life of Matthew Blek. Cost: $99. But you probably can pick up a used one cheaper on the street.

Just ask Mary Leigh Blek. She recently went to a gun show at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa to “learn about the enemy” and found herself staring into the muzzle of the sort of handgun that killed her son.

“A whopping $99? Give me a break,” she said ruefully. “You can’t buy tennis shoes in Orange County for that.”

Matthew was a wrestler and honors student at Fresno State heading into his senior year when he decided to spend a summer in New York City. It was a chance to get away from the suburbs, to spread his wings a bit.

He was walking down a street one June evening with a young woman he had grown fond of when three 15-year-old boys approached. The trio had just shot to death a Brooklyn man and weren’t finished for the night.

Matt reached for his wallet, but one of the boys fired anyway. His parents can trace the path of that bullet in horrible detail. It was all spelled out for them in the autopsy report: Through Matt’s eye, into his throat. It lodged in his chest. The officer who rode in the ambulance with Matt said he made only an awful guttural sound as he died.

The boy who pulled the trigger is serving a sentence of nine years to life. His two accomplices plea-bargained to get manslaughter sentences of 3 1/2 years in prison.

Of this tragedy were missionaries made. The Bleks first set about the job of mourning and of healing their family, which includes another son and daughter. But then they launched into reformer mode.

The couple set up Orange County Citizens for the Prevention of Gun Violence and have traveled to Sacramento and Washington to lobby for anti-gun legislation.

Mary Leigh, a homemaker, treats it like a full-time job, spending “27 hours a day” on the group’s efforts, which include arranging speaking engagements and endless letter writing. Charlie, an attorney, squeezes his duties in at night or during breaks in the day.

Their cause is deeply rooted in Orange County. The couple say that 70% of the cheap, short-barreled handguns they want outlawed are manufactured within a 50-mile radius of their home.

During a morning rally Tuesday on the south steps of the Capitol, Charlie told a small crowd “it is particularly upsetting that the gun that was used to kill Matt was made right here in his own backyard.”

That same rally featured a sprawling quilt of individual tapestries symbolizing each of the 75 people murdered in Santa Ana in 1995.

Such deaths have not gone unnoticed. In Orange County, known nationwide as a bastion of conservatism, polls have found that at least two-thirds of all residents support tougher gun laws.

But the message is just beginning to spur elected officials. The Lake Forest City Council is expected in early June to consider adopting a ban on Saturday Night Specials, following the lead of more than two dozen other cities up and down the state. Several other municipalities in Orange County, the Bleks say, are talking about following suit.

Not so the county’s lawmakers in Sacramento or Washington. Most of the current crop are firmly set against weakening the rights of gun owners.

“Our concern is the continued erosion of 2nd Amendment rights with legislation that doesn’t solve the problems people really face,” Baugh said. “Some of this legislation only serves the purpose of keeping law-abiding people from having access to weapons to protect themselves at home.”

Baugh, in fact, cast the deciding vote to approve a bill that would make it a crime to carry a gun while drunk. He also said it is a stretch to argue that he or most other Republican lawmakers are swayed by the gun lobby’s campaign contributions and political pressure.

“If you look at my campaign records,” Baugh said, “you’ll see I’m certainly not being influenced by contributions from the NRA or any other gun group.”

While the Bleks haven’t given up on their representatives, they don’t hide their hope that the county lineup can eventually be reshaped to look more favorably at efforts to curtail gun violence.

Both are longtime Republicans. Both insist they don’t want to ban all guns.

“We are Republicans and 86% of the Republicans in Orange County think like we do on the gun issue,” Mary Leigh Blek said. “Unfortunately it’s that 14% of the ruling Republicans that are calling the shots. That’s not always going to be the case. I think we have some people who are listening to us and perhaps will have the political courage to step away from the gun lobby and do the right thing.”

* BILLS CLEAR HURDLE: Assembly committee OKs 7 gun-control measures. A3

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Declining Deaths

The number of Orange County youths 18 and younger killed by guns decreased 27% last year:

1992: 25

1993: 39

1994: 28

1995: 33

1996: 24

Source: Orange County coroner’s office

Researched by APRIL JACKSON / Los Angeles Times