Debating Gun Control: Just Tighten Restrictions or Melt Them All Down?
The handgun case at Turner’s Outdoorsman on Brookhurst Street in Fountain Valley runs almost the width of the spacious store. The “nice little home beauties,” as one sales clerk described a couple of the weapons, range in price from $89 to $689.
I was standing next to a customer, a nice man in his 60s, who told another clerk he wanted a gun for home protection. They talked a language that gave me chills.
“How effective is this gun?”
“It’s good for the soft tissue. But it’s no guarantee for a head shot. You’re taking a chance its bullet will glance off the skull. You really need something that can fire a better [bullet].”
“So with this gun I should just aim for the chest?”
“Or the neck. But for the best effect, you need a weapon that will take out the head too.”
Spare me, this is the Orange County where I live and work? And nearly 250 outlets here are licensed to sell these things. Which brings me to Charlie and Mary Leigh Blek of Mission Viejo.
The Bleks and I are just never going to agree on gun control.
The Bleks want higher state standards, which would restrict handgun sales. They want licensing and registration. A one-gun-purchase-per-month rule. They emphasize public education. They won’t even say gun “control.” It’s too confrontational for them. The nonprofit group they have founded is called Orange County Citizens for Prevention of Gun Violence.
That’s the friendly, let’s-be-reasonable approach. Me, I say melt ‘em all down. Collect all the handguns in the county and turn them into a huge metal bonfire in the middle of Edison Field.
It’s not an idea without precedent. When I lived near Baltimore in the 1970s, the police there paid $20 for every handgun turned in. Thousands of guns were taken off the streets--and melted down to goo.
Today I begin a different type of column in this space. Among other things, I will from time to time take a serious look at issues that affect us in this county. I figured I’d start with one that drives me crazy. Gun control is one of those controversies that seems to turn the world upside-down. Now we’ve even got Charlton Heston a vice president of the National Rifle Assn. Say it ain’t so, Moses.
Gun control is the anomaly issue for conservatives, those like Gov. Pete Wilson. Wilson is law-and-order when he hits the stump. But sitting in his office a few months back, he vetoed a bill that would have banned the sale of most cheap handguns (Saturday night specials) in California. The same Senate and Assembly-approved bill was overwhelmingly supported by the California Police Chiefs Assn. The governor is usually with the men and women in blue, but not this time.
Wilson’s argument was a common one--that the bill would have made it difficult for poor people to purchase weapons to protect their homes. I’m guessing the poor folks would like to see the governor less interested in being helpful. Most of those handguns are widely circulated in the communities where they live.
I know my views on guns will never win a majority. Smith & Wesson would find more profit in bicycle parts if I had my way. I’d make Civil War gun collectors pass an annual exam to prove their weapons won’t fire. But short of that, I’ll settle for the more realistic approach of the Orange County Citizens for Prevention of Gun Violence.
The Bleks are hardly political radicals. Mary Leigh Blek’s career has been in volunteer work. Charlie Blek is a civil attorney. They’re both Republicans--Charlie’s a member of the Lincoln Club.
Their interest in gun control is personal. Their son Matthew, just 21, was murdered in 1994 during a robbery in New York. He was on a summer vacation trip. Killed by three 15-year-olds packing a Saturday night special.
The Bleks quickly got together with others who care about gun violence. They became a nonprofit group last year, won a $50,000 private grant and used part of it to open up an office in January. The Bleks are in it for the long haul.
“We aren’t going to win over legislators until we educate the public,” Mary Leigh Blek said. “That’s going to take time.”
The Bleks’ citizens group has become a resource center for statistics on gun deaths--and who’s selling guns. A volunteer assistant, Tracy Weintraub of San Juan Capistrano, oversees a list of speakers on the subject. Charlie Blek left our interview Monday morning to speak about it at the UCLA School of Law.
The Bleks are making some inroads. At least they’ve got the National Rifle Assn. talking about them. In his most recent newsletter, Orange County NRA chapter president Wayne Morse writes: “Last year the political scene was tough, but we held off people like the Bleks from getting their anti-gun agenda through.”
The NRA newsletter touches on another subject that led me to write about this issue today. Gun control supporters had been gearing up for a vote in the California Assembly of AB23, a bill that would close many of the loopholes in the state’s existing assault weapons ban.
“AB23 is already rearing its ugly head,” the NRA’s Morse writes.
On Monday, AB23 failed to pass by a single vote. (It got a 40-30 favorable vote, but needed 41, an Assembly majority, to pass. Gun control legislators will try again Thursday.)
All seven Orange County Assembly members voted against the bill. That anyone could oppose taking more assault weapons off the market is scary to me--just as much as listening to a nice, gray-haired homeowner ask which handgun can fire a bullet strong enough to penetrate the human skull.
There was some good news for the Bleks and their supporters in the NRA newsletter. Its chapter president Morse writes: “We still need to get our membership up and for everyone to show up at the meetings.”
If the NRA is having membership problems, maybe there is hope for the rest of us.
Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail tojerry.hicks@latimes.com