Senate Panel OKs Gun Sales Limit

Legislation intended to dry up a source of illegal handguns by restricting their sale to one per customer a month passed its first test in the state Senate on Tuesday after winning Assembly approval in April.

Under current California law, legal purchasers of firearms can buy unlimited numbers of handguns and other firearms.

Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) and a coalition of law enforcement and gun control interests and others told the Senate Public Safety Committee that restricting multiple sales of handguns would make California safer by reducing illegal street sales.

The committee sent the bill, AB 202, to the Appropriations Committee for another screening--its final stop before expected approval by the full Senate.

The bill would apply to pistols, revolvers and other handguns sold through licensed dealers. Federally licensed gun collectors, police departments and movie and television companies would be exempt.

Knox called his measure “probably the most effective” gun control bill of the legislative session because, he said, it would “dry up the source” of handguns sold illegally on the streets for criminal purposes.

“The bill minimally inconveniences any legitimate weapons purchasers but strikes at the heart of the ability of the straw purchasers to get their hands on bulk weapons in the first place,” Knox said.

Advocates of the bill contend that criminals obtain guns from “straw” purchasers who legally buy them in bulk and then resell them to illegal buyers, such as felons or even children.

Representatives of the National Rifle Assn. and the California Rifle and Pistol Assn. criticized the bill.

“All this bill is going to do is affect collectors. It is not going to affect the street sale of guns,” said Steve Helsley, the NRA’s California lobbyist.

The bill is modeled after a new “one a month” Los Angeles city ordinance and a Virginia statute. Virginia approved its law in the wake of reports that it was the source of bulk sales of firearms being resold illicitly in neighboring states with strong gun controls.

“It goes to the heart of gun trafficking,” testified Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Feuer, who spoke in favor of Knox’s bill.

Knox said a statewide law would assure uniformity throughout California. Otherwise, he noted, purchasers of guns in bulk could circumvent local controls simply by shopping in other cities or towns that don’t have them.

In other action, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill, SB 988, by Sen. Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont) that would enable Californians to block unwanted telephone solicitations by putting their phone numbers on a “don’t call me” list maintained by Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer.

Solicitors who phoned people on the list would be subject to criminal and civil penalties. The bill was supported by privacy activists and opposed by business.

Normally, the bill would have been sent to the full Senate for a vote. But in an unusual twist, the bill was kept in the committee. Sources said Senate leader John Burton (D-San Francisco), who opposed the bill but did not vote on it, intervened to stop it from reaching the floor.

Burton denied that. He said committee Chairman Patrick Johnston (D-Stockton) stopped the bill from advancing after learning that the committee may have broken one of its rules in considering it Tuesday.

Senate Secretary Gregory Schmidt said he was researching parliamentary rules to find out whether the bill can go forward.

In the Assembly, the Appropriations Committee approved a bill by Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) that would make it a crime to fail to report certain violent crimes.

The bill was introduced in memory of 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson, a Los Angeles schoolgirl murdered in a Nevada casino in 1997. A friend of the killer was at the scene but failed to alert police.