Parks Urges Ban on Assault Rifles, Cheap Handguns

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, stepping squarely into the fierce debate over gun control, said Friday that every assault rifle and Saturday night special handgun in America should be banned, collected and destroyed.

Parks said the shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills is proof that such weapons “have no place in a domestic society.”

The chief, in an interview with The Times, also pressed for tighter licensing and registration of guns and gun owners. He said gun shows, where weapons are easily bought and sold with little regulation--often on publicly owned fairgrounds--also should be outlawed.

Parks’ comments came after LAPD officials disclosed that five assault rifles, two handguns and 7,000 rounds of ammunition were recovered from vehicles allegedly used by accused killer Buford O. Furrow Jr.

Meanwhile, the repercussions from Tuesday’s attack on the Jewish community center and the slaying of a letter carrier continued to be felt Friday. In other developments:

* Washington state corrections officials said they were launching a comprehensive review of their handling of Furrow’s probation on an assault conviction amid indications that the avowed racist was not adequately monitored.

Furrow’s probation officer never made unannounced checks on his house or car for weapons, despite Furrow’s own contentions that he was homicidal, suicidal and always carried guns and knives with him.

* A coalition of 31 politicians and civil rights leaders called on Gov. Gray Davis to form a task force to combat hate groups and violent paramilitary organizations.

* A 6-year-old boy wounded in the attack was released from Los Angeles Childrens Hospital, leaving only one victim--a 5-year-old boy--still hospitalized. Doctors at Childrens Hospital are trying to wean that child from a respirator.

* Religious and ethnic organizations gathered at another news conference to proclaim their solidarity, condemn the assault on the Jewish center and call for the passage of hate crime legislation currently in Congress.

“We rededicate ourselves and the organizations we represent to the important work of bridge-building and community-building,” Rabbi Gary Greenebaum of the American Jewish Committee said.

* Officials at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in an attempt to ward off potential attackers and assuage the public’s concern, said their facility was constructed with terrorism in mind and is as safe as ever. They said security had been increased after police reports that Furrow allegedly planned to attack the Wiesenthal Center and two other prominent Jewish facilities in Los Angeles before he stumbled upon the Granada Hills center and wounded three children, a teenager and a grandmother in a barrage of gunfire.

Furrow, 37, an active member of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations, turned himself in to federal authorities in Las Vegas about 22 hours after the rampage and confessed to the crimes, authorities said. He called the shootings a “wake-up call” to kill American Jews.

He also confessed to killing a mail carrier in Chatsworth that same day, saying he picked his target because the man was nonwhite and a federal employee.

Furrow is facing murder, attempted murder and other charges in state and federal courts. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Parks Advocates Stricter Laws

Parks said he is hoping to use the shooting incident and his standing in the law enforcement community to press for stricter laws that could prevent similar tragedies from occurring again. He signaled the depth of his feeling on the issue in an article published on The Times’ commentary page Friday. “Why is it so difficult to find language that would prohibit the use of these weapons to hunt and butcher our children?” Parks wrote.

“I don’t think there is a chief of police in the United States who can condone assault weapons when they know their officers are out in the field facing them,” Parks elaborated in his interview Friday.

In addition to banning certain weapons and gun shows, Parks said people with histories of violence and mental problems should be prohibited from owning firearms.

He said he did not object to people owning guns for hunting or home protection. The only people who should be allowed to possess other types of firearms are active police and military personnel, he said.

But gun control advocates blamed the horrific incident on weaker gun laws in surrounding states, while an NRA spokesman said the answer was better enforcement.

“The key to reducing violence in America is in arresting and prosecuting criminals when they’re caught with guns, and unfortunately in America today, that’s not happening,” said NRA spokesman Jim Manown. He said that, in cities where laws are strictly enforced, such as Richmond, Va., gun violence has declined, adding that banning gun shows “would only address maybe 2% of criminal sources of guns.”

However, Parks’ comments on the need for more gun control laws were echoed by a number of politicians, law enforcement officials and community activists throughout the region.

“The kind of heavy weaponry that [Furrow] had in his possession must be stopped and prevented,” said Joe Hicks, executive director of the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission.

City Council members Mike Feuer and Cindy Miscikowski called for state and federal legislation to toughen gun registration laws, mandatory licensing directly with law enforcement agencies, gun lock requirements and fingerprint checks, among other proposals.

Luis Tolley, western director of Handgun Control Inc., said that, though Parks’ recommendation was a good one, the most pressing need is for a nationwide licensing and registration law.

Tolley said California’s gun laws, among the nation’s toughest, are working and well-enforced, “but we’re not an island, and as long as criminals and deranged people can buy assault weapons in other states, California won’t be safe.” Under state law signed by Davis last month, the sale, manufacture and import of assault weapons are prohibited and transfers of existing weapons in the state must be registered.

Federal assault weapon laws prohibit the possession of any semiautomatic assault weapon made after September 1994. The law bans eight models, such as the AK-47 and the Colt AR-15, copies or duplicates of those specific weapons and any other weapon that accepts a detachable ammunition magazine and has at least two of five listed specific military features, such as a pistol grip beneath the firing mechanism, flash suppressor or bayonet mount.

The law also bans the possession of ammunition magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds.

As for handguns, federal law prohibits licensed gun dealers from selling handguns to certain prohibited people such as ex-convicts, those deemed mentally unfit under law and people under 21 years of age. Purchasers of any kind of weapon must undergo a criminal background check, unless they buy it from a private seller.

There are no laws against Saturday night specials. Those guns are specifically exempted from safety regulations of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Lax enforcement of existing laws may have played a part in Furrow’s ability to amass his personal arsenal in Washington, officials said. It appears the accused killer paid no mind to the conditions of his probation there, which prohibited him from possessing any guns.

David McGee, manager of the Loaner Too pawnshop in Everett, said that when Furrow ran out of money, he would pawn his guns. He said Furrow had been selling--and then buying back--guns at his pawnshop for years.

“We know Buford,” McGee said. “Quiet guy, beady eyes. . . . He’d come in here and pawn guns and pick it up later when he got money. . . . The guy has a cache like you wouldn’t believe.”

McGee said Furrow had pawned an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle, “a bunch” of 9-millimeter handguns and at least one shotgun. One of the guns Furrow pawned and later redeemed from McGee was the 9-millimeter Glock that police say was used Tuesday to kill postal worker Joseph Ileto, 39.

Corrections officials said they are launching a review of the handling of Furrow’s probation.

Furrow’s probation officer never went to his house, or checked his car, for evidence that he was complying with a judge’s order to stay away from such deadly weapons, Washington corrections officials confirmed Friday.

Instead, Furrow met five times with his “community corrections officer,” Patrick Gosney, between the time he was released from a county jail May 21 after serving six months on an assault with a deadly weapons conviction, and his alleged rampage in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Each of those visits occurred at Gosney’s desk at the state Department of Corrections field office in Thurston County, where Furrow said he was living with his parents.

A state corrections spokesman defended Gosney’s actions Friday, saying the officer was not specifically required to make home visits in Furrow’s case. But as a person convicted of a violent crime requiring “medium” supervision, such visits were strongly suggested, according to state Department of Corrections policy outlined in an Aug. 1, 1997 memo.

The “division directive” states that a probation officer should conduct two visits with an offender each month, including one “face-to-face” visit either in the state probation field office or at an outside location. The second visit “may include” collateral supervision, which corrections spokesman Veltry Johnson said Friday “means out in the field, or to follow, watch and observe” a convicted felon.

“It was an option of the department, not a mandate,” Johnson said of such visits outside the office.

But that is clearly what the judge had in mind when she set the conditions for Furrow’s release from prison. She said that he could not carry any weapons, visit the psychiatric hospital where he pulled a knife on nurses, enter a bar or drink alcohol, and that he had to take his psychiatric medication. As part of the agreement, Furrow consented to be searched at any time by his probation officer, and any missteps could have sent him back to jail for violation of his probation requirements.

Johnson said he could not discuss what, if anything, went awry in the supervision of Furrow. But in the wake of the shooting rampage that Furrow has allegedly confessed to, Johnson conceded, “one could certainly draw [the] inference” that more could have been done to monitor Furrow’s activities.

LAPD and federal law enforcement officials, meanwhile, said their investigation into Furrow is continuing. Although there is no evidence he had an accomplice, police have not ruled it out and are looking into his associations with other racists and white supremacists.

*

Times staff writers Shawn Hubler, Monte Morin, Neda Raouf, Patrick McGreevey and Joe Trevino contributed to this story.

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The Path of the Gun

The Glock allegedly used to kill a postal worker in Chatsworth traveled a circuitous cross-country route from its manufacturer before it ended up in the hands of Buford O. Furrow Jr.

1. Glock was made in Smyrna, Ga., by Glock, Inc.

2. In 1996, the Cosmopolis, Wash., Police Dept. bought it from Glock.

3. Cosmopolis police traded it to a gun store in Montesano for a bigger Glock.

4. Montesano dealer sold it to an Aberdeen gun collector. Aberdeen collector kept it for about two years and gave it to another collector to sell for him. It was sold to another area gun dealer.

5. In early August, after Furrow got the Glock, he pawned it at a shop in Everett, Wash., and then got it out of pawn a few days later.

Specifications

Caliber: 9x19mm

Overall length: 6.29 in.

Height: (including magazine): 4.17 in.

Width: 1.18 in.

Barrel length: 3.46 in.

Magazine capacity: 10 rounds.

Weight (without magazines): 19.75 oz.

Source: Police Ordinance Company Inc.