Lungren Could Become Target on Gun Issues

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren should be rooting privately for those big gun control bills he’s opposing publicly--those bills banning more assault rifles and junk handguns.

He ought to be hoping that they--and several other gun control measures moving through the Legislature--are passed despite Republican opposition and are signed by Gov. Pete Wilson.

That could remove them from the battle when he runs for governor next year. Lungren doesn’t need Democrats and reporters pestering him about his attitude toward weapons favored by gang thugs and psychotics. He needs a handy reply, i.e.: They’ve already been outlawed. It’s a nonissue.

The Republican candidate will have enough trouble just fending off queries about his anti-abortion views. Opposing both abortion rights and gun controls is a sure-fire formula for widening the gender gap that plagues the GOP.

Actually, Lungren is not a lock-step follower of the gun lobby. Far from it. He embittered pro-gun zealots by initially trying to enforce California’s weak assault weapons ban, the 1989 law that Democrats now are trying to strengthen. Being a conservative, gunners expected him to fight consistently on their side. But he has bounced from one side to the other, depending on the issue, and often stood in the middle.

“Gun groups really hate Lungren,” says one GOP strategist. “It’s bitter. They claim he quit their coalition.”

But neither do gun control advocates trust him.

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Recently--before guns heated up in the Legislature--I queried Lungren about his views. The attorney general then sounded more flexible than he has since.

While opposed to banning Saturday night specials merely because they’re cheap, he said “if someone can prove to me we’ve got absolutely unsafe weapons out there that are likely to explode in your hands, I’d certainly take a look at that.”

All the pending bill does is ban the manufacture and sale of handguns that don’t even meet the safety standards for imports.

“My general philosophy,” Lungren said, “is that the 2nd Amendment’s got to mean something. It certainly means you’ve got a right to have a weapon for self-defense.

“I am not convinced we would be a safer society with all of us packin’. At the same time, I cannot look someone in the face and tell them honestly that they’re going to be safe at all times in their own home in California. So knowing that, I don’t want to put impediments to law-abiding citizens being able to have weapons.”

“But for those who say we ought to have assault weapons--any assault weapon known to man--I don’t agree. I don’t know why you need a 50-round clip.

“So within that broad range, you sort of look at each issue.”

Lungren has said he opposes the new assault weapons proposal because he’s already trying to strengthen the existing law through the courts.

The AG also seems to be trying not to further enrage gunners. But with no conservative primary opponent, it’s not the gunners he needs to worry about--it’s the vast majority of voters who favor increased gun regulation.

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This is a Democratic issue. And it’s particularly an issue for U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who sponsored the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons.

“The more guns you have floating around, the less you can be sure that they’ll fall into the hands of good people,” she says. “I support the right of law-abiding people to have a weapon. What I have a problem with is becoming just a gun-happy society where virtually anybody can obtain weapons, many of them very powerful.”

Feinstein once carried a snub-nosed handgun for protection. That was in 1976, after terrorists tried to bomb her house and did shoot out her windows. “I finally figured,” she recalls, “that it was in a holster in my purse, along with glasses and wallets, and if I ever really needed it fast enough, I couldn’t get to it anyway.”

Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, the only announced Democratic gubernatorial candidate, is more cautious on the issue than Feinstein. But in 1985, as an assemblyman, he did support an unsuccessful bill to ban assault weapons long before such a vote became politically correct. His view: “Guns should be safe. People should be trained to use them properly. But they have a right to self-protection.”

Airline mogul Al Checchi says he’ll be a strong advocate of gun control if he enters the race. “It’s an embarrassment that 80% of these junk guns are manufactured in California,” he asserts. “We have a constitutional right to bear arms. But also we have a constitutional right to walk down the street without fear of getting killed.”

With any luck, Lungren won’t be killed politically by guns. He’ll be saved by the Republican governor and, ironically, the Democratic Legislature.