Senate OKs New Bill to Curb Cheap Pistols

Undeterred by Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto last year of a bill to outlaw handguns known as Saturday night specials, the Senate approved new legislation Thursday to ban the sale or manufacture of such guns in California.

The bill’s author, Sen. Richard G. Polanco (D-Los Angeles), said the legislation, which faces an uncertain future in the Assembly, was written to overcome Wilson’s objections.

Part of the governor’s reason for rejecting Polanco’s bill in 1997 was his contention that there was no evidence showing that the cheap and easily concealed guns were inherently dangerous.

Polanco’s new bill, borrowing from federal firearms safety standards, would require that the weapons pass a series of safety tests rather than less stringent guidelines contained in last year’s legislation.

“If a weapon is not reliable for self-defense, it has no business being manufactured or sold in California,” Polanco said.

The tests would include repeatedly dropping pistols, revolvers and other small handguns onto a concrete slab from a height of one meter, or a little more than 39 inches. If the gun fired, it would flunk.

A second test would require a gun to fire 600 rounds. If any of the first 20 rounds misfired, or if it malfunctioned more than six times in 600 rounds, it would fail.

The new bill still will have problems passing the governor’s muster. Wilson spokesman Sean Walsh said Thursday that a preliminary review of the bill was “troubling.”

He said the legislation seemed to contain some of the same ingredients as the bill that the governor vetoed, such as gun size. Like last year’s bill, the new measure contains a minimum gun size requirement.

“It appears the acorn does not fall far from the tree,” Walsh said, while not specifically addressing the testing standards.

Backers of the bill (SB 1500) have said that it is aimed primarily at the few firearms manufacturers in Southern California whose guns, they claim, would be hard-pressed to pass the safety and other tests. The firms produce about 80% of the Saturday night specials in the nation.

The Polanco bill was sent to the Assembly on a 21-16 vote, the bare majority required in the 40-member Senate. However, its future is murky in the lower house, where a more wide-ranging proposal to impose new controls on assault guns has been snagged for weeks.

Together, the two bills represent the Democrats’ biggest election-year attempt to carve out territory on the issue of gun violence and gun control.

For many years, police chiefs and other proponents of outlawing Saturday night specials have argued that the weapons are easy to buy on the street, easy to hide and are preferred by street gangs.

But proponents have broadened their argument, saying that legitimate buyers need to be protected against shoddy workmanship and unreliable performance.

The proposed tests in the Polanco bill were patterned from updated federal standards for guns used by police.

Under the minimum size requirement in the bill, “if you can hide the gun in your hand, the gun should be prohibited,” said Handgun Control’s Luis Tolley.

Wilson’s veto also was based on his contention that low-income citizens would be “deprived” of access to inexpensive guns to protect themselves against criminals, an argument advanced by the National Rifle Assn. and other gun-owner groups.

Under the new bill, the state attorney general would compile and maintain a list of handguns approved for manufacture and sale in California. Manufacturers would be required to submit their products to state-certified laboratories for testing.