Another Way to Take Aim at Cheap Handguns

Yes, I probably would, if they were demonstrably unsafe. If they actually blew up, you know . . . I don’t think they made the case, very frankly.

--Gov. Pete Wilson answering whether he would sign a bill banning junk handguns if they were proved to be unsafe.

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If Gov. Pete Wilson really needs proof that some Saturday night specials are unsafe, he could talk to Curtis Benton. Or Burt Chamberlain. Or even Timmy Jones, if Jones weren’t dead from a 9-millimeter bullet.

More to the point, gun control advocates, when they take aim again next year at these small, cheap weapons, could drag in the likes of Benton and Chamberlain and present their firsthand testimony to the Legislature and governor. They could provide personal stories of victims injured by malfunctioning pistols, rather than just cold studies and hot rhetoric.

To recap, Wilson last month vetoed a bill that would have banned the manufacture and sale of American-made handguns that failed to meet the same safety and size standards imposed on foreign imports. He contended this would have deprived law-abiding citizens of affordable weapons. But the governor also told me that he probably would sign a ban if somebody could show him the guns really were unsafe.

After I quoted Wilson, a Los Angeles attorney called to say he had a filing cabinet full of proof. I flew down and he wheeled out a cart loaded with documents--claims, settlements, names, stories.

“These are actual cases,” he noted. “This is not some fluff ‘study.’ ”

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Attorney Alan Stomel is no anti-gun crusader. He is a bankruptcy lawyer, representing creditors--gunshot victims--in a Chapter 11 reorganization petition filed by Lorcin Engineering of Mira Loma, one of the largest manufacturers of cheap handguns. More than 30 product liability claims involving many millions of dollars have been filed against Lorcin in recent years. Stomel’s job is to assure that the gun maker pays all pending court awards and settlements.

Curtis Benton, 44, a Boise, Idaho, mechanic, is one victim. “I don’t agree with anyone trying to take guns away from private citizens,” he said in a telephone interview, “but the guns should be made safe, even if they are cheap.”

Benton said he bought a .380-caliber semiautomatic with a six-round magazine for $100 and drove into the desert to shoot. He shoved in the magazine, pulled back the slide, fired the first bullet and the gun jammed. He ejected the empty casing manually, fired the other five rounds, reloaded and pulled the slide again.

“ ‘Something hit me in the face,’ ” he recalled shouting. “My friend said, ‘You’re bleeding like crazy.’ . . . The gun went off with the slide only partway closed, and the bullet only halfway into the chamber. Gas and fragments went out the ejection port and hit me just below the nostril.

“I’ve still got a piece of metal in my face and a scar I have to live with.”

Benton, a lifelong hunter, said he settled with Lorcin and “went out and paid $366 for a good revolver.”

Burt Chamberlain, 34, a Georgia woodworker, said he bought a 9-millimeter semiautomatic for $150. He went to a friend’s farm and began shooting at cans. “After the third or fourth shot, it blew up--scared the hell out of me,” he said. “I never had a gun blow up on me and I’ve handled them all my life.”

Blow up? “The slide jammed. Then the gun popped and broke. It came apart, you could say, not in pieces. It expanded. . . . Physically, it didn’t hurt me. Mentally, it’s a different story. I just instinctively hit the cow pasture.”

The accident happened last weekend and Chamberlain hasn’t filed a claim. He called Stomel because a friend had seen his name on the Internet connected with the Lorcin case.

More commonly, victims claim that the safety switch breaks and the gun fires accidentally.

Timmy Jones, 35, a Kentucky truck driver, had been out plinking with a Lorcin 9-millimeter when he leaned over a water spigot to clean his boots. The loaded pistol spilled out of his holster, hit concrete and fired a bullet into Jones’ abdomen, destroying several vital organs. He died within a few hours.

The safety had been on but was made of soft die-cast zinc and broke, according to Harry Gregory, attorney for the Jones estate. “For $2, they could make a safety out of hard steel.”

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Lorcin’s response was brief. “The company refutes the allegations that the products are unsafe, and in light of pending litigation we have no further comment,” said attorney Robert Pitts of Newport Beach.

State Sen. Richard G. Polanco (D-Los Angeles), author of the vetoed bill, told me he’ll take another shot at Wilson next year. “He wants proof in the pudding? It’s there and we’ll get it,” the senator vowed. “But I don’t think anything’s going to get his signature.”

Let’s test him anyway.