Gun Vote Ricochet Unlikely in California

Lawmakers from other states may be bracing for reprisals after their votes in the House this week on new gun laws.

But few, if any, of the 52 representatives from California look vulnerable after a two-day sequence of roll calls on the issue. Thus, California finds itself almost in the eye of the national hurricane on the gun control issue--either an anomaly or ahead of its time.

In large part, that is because the state largely resolved many aspects of gun control years ago. The congressional proposals to regulate gun show sales nationwide would have less effect in California because all gun sales in the state already require criminal background checks.

In the key tally, 35 of the state’s 50 House members who voted--including one-third of the Republicans--voted against the least restrictive, National Rifle Assn.-backed proposal.

While Democrats from such states as Texas and Michigan split decisively over the question of gun show regulation, Rep. Matthew G. Martinez of Monterey Park was the only one of the state’s 27 voting Democrats to support the NRA-backed proposal.

No surprise there. Martinez, after all, is a lifetime NRA member. He talks proudly about his collection of 24 rifles and 11 handguns and shows snapshots of his recent exploits hunting wild boar. Moreover, Martinez said that his working-class constituents in eastern Los Angeles County care far more about jobs and education than the length of time the government should set for background checks at gun shows (an obscure but critical point in this week’s debate).

Martinez aside, California Democrats were notably unified on the issue when compared to Democrats from other states not on the East or West coasts. Nationally, one in five House Democrats sided with the NRA-backed amendment sponsored by Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.). That measure, while approved on a 218-211 vote around midnight Thursday, died when the House on Friday voted down the overall gun bill to which it was attached.

At first glance, moderate California Democrats who represent semirural areas, like Reps. Gary A. Condit of Ceres and Calvin Dooley of Visalia, might have been expected to follow the gun rights approach of many of their peers in the South or Midwest. But Condit and Dooley have voted against the NRA’s line frequently and did so again this week.

For some urban Democrats in their first or second terms, such as Reps. Loretta Sanchez of Garden Grove and Grace F. Napolitano of Norwalk, this week’s debate marked their first opportunity to cast significant votes on guns.

Napolitano said in an interview that the modest gun control package the Senate approved last month did not go far enough. “I would have preferred banning a lot of the guns that are on the street right now, Saturday night specials and that kind of gun,” she said.

Of the state’s 23 GOP representatives who voted, eight strayed from their party’s leadership to oppose the Dingell measure. By contrast, more than three-quarters of House Republicans supported it.

Among the California GOP “no” votes on Dingell’s measure were consistent gun control proponents like Reps. Tom Campbell of San Jose, Stephen Horn of Long Beach and Brian P. Bilbray of San Diego, and a few relative newcomers--also from urban or suburban areas--such as James E. Rogan of Glendale, Doug Ose of Sacramento and Steven T. Kuykendall of Rancho Palos Verdes.

Rogan, in an interview outside the House chamber, said that he was not pressured on the vote by the NRA, gun control advocates or anyone else. And while Rogan may face a tough fight for reelection in 2000, he said that the vote was not tough. He simply drew up a matrix to compare the details of competing proposals and settled on the measure favored by gun control proponents as the best way to close what has become known as “the gun show loophole.”

Campbell, co-sponsor of a gun control package opposed by the NRA, said that the issue was “not even close” in his mind. Horn said the gun lobby’s expansive interpretation of the right-to-bear-arms clause of the 2nd Amendment gets little traction in large cities.

“People in urban America don’t follow that line,” Horn said. “They’re worried, and with good reason, when kids are shot every day by gangs.”

Indeed, a new Times Poll has found that 78% of Californians support an assault weapon ban, up 7 percentage points from a 1995 poll.

To be sure, gun rights advocates remain a powerful force within the state’s Republican delegation. They include senior members Jerry Lewis of Redlands, Christopher Cox of Newport Beach and David Dreier of San Dimas. All backed the Dingell measure. All occupy safe seats.

Dreier played a critical role in this week’s debate. As chairman of the House Rules Committee, he helped determine which measures would be considered and in what order. The lengthy, at times tumultuous, debate on youth violence that began Wednesday veered from proposals dealing with the entertainment industry’s role in promoting violence to the relationship between church and state to sentencing requirements for juvenile offenders.

All those issues were considered before the critical votes on gun control, ensuring that, whatever the outcome of the gun debate, the Republican-led Congress would be able to say it had looked into the cultural roots of violence.

Some Republicans rejected the Dingell measure as going too far in restricting gun sales. Rep. John T. Doolittle of Rocklin voted against both Dingell’s measure and a White House-backed alternative sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.).

Doolittle teamed up with Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) in a surprise attack Friday on gun control laws in the District of Columbia. A Hunter measure to allow Washington residents to keep a loaded handgun in their homes narrowly passed the House in a preliminary vote.

In a fiery speech on the House floor, Doolittle said: “No government has the right, for heaven’s sakes, to take away [the people’s] God-given right to defend themselves and their families.”