Why State Politicians Remain Timid About Gun Control

Are California lawmakers trailing their constituents when it comes to gun control?

It takes some doing to quiet the Assembly during floor debate, but Assemblywoman Audie Bock, the Legislature’s sole Green Party member, managed to do it. Her secret weapon: The Legislature’s most liberal member was about to vote against a gun-control bill.

“These well-intentioned fragments of what we charitably call gun control do not get rid of guns: The emperor has no clothes,” declared Bock, stunning her audience into silence. “I want real legislation, not phony ‘write a gun law, get reelected business.’ ”

The object of Bock’s disdain was a bill, authored by Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), that imposed consumer safety-testing requirements on all handguns. Bock’s apostasy didn’t derail the measure. Gov. Gray Davis signed it last August, along with several other high-profile gun-control measures.

But Davis subsequently vetoed three relatively benign control measures, proclaiming that the time has come to put a temporary freeze on new gun bills. California already has the toughest gun laws in the nation, said Davis, and local law enforcement needs time to implement current laws.

Notwithstanding Time magazine’s anointment of him as the nation’s most “fearless” governor, Davis is inclined to drive in the slow lane on any number of policy issues. But given his equally strong impulse to keep pace with public opinion, the governor’s stand is perplexing. According to a recent statewide Field poll, support for tougher gun laws is running at about 61%; two of five self-described gun owners say some kind of clampdown is in order.

Yet, even as Davis congratulates himself and some lawmakers vow to ignore his call for a moratorium, Bock’s words hang over the gun-control debate in Sacramento. For while memories of Columbine High, North Valley Jewish Community Center and Wedgewood Baptist Church remain fresh, much of what passed for gun control this year was bafflingly off-point, at least if the objective is to curb gun violence.

Consider the five most-heralded bills: Polanco’s “junk-gun” law; the retooling of the state’s assault-weapon ban; mandatory trigger locks for all new weapons; tighter restrictions on gun shows; and the one-a-month limitation on gun purchases. Both sides of the gun debate agree that none of these measures would have prevented a Columbine or a North Valley Jewish Community Center. Most of the weapons used in the most recent highly publicized rampages were bought illegally under existing laws.

Would these laws have made a difference for less-publicized victims of gun violence? Last year, more than 1,500 Californians were murdered with firearms, nearly 90% of them by handguns. The week Buford O. Furrow Jr. opened fire on the Valley day-care center and killed a postal worker, 14 other people lost their lives to guns in Los Angeles, including an 8-year-old boy. Again, it’s hard to pin down how the new laws would affect such cases.

The junk-gun and trigger-lock bills seek to make the weapons themselves safer. Trigger locks may protect children of gun owners, and the number of guns with a tendency to misfire will drop. But only the cheapest of thugs would be deterred by a $10 or $15 bump in the price of a handgun, and, for them, there is always the option of buying one of the millions produced before the law was passed.

The new assault-weapon ban makes more weapons illegal and thus could make it tougher to acquire high-powered weapons with large-capacity magazines. But most handguns are not covered by its generic definition of “assault weapons.” The gun-show bill is borderline laughable, so toothless that the pro-gun California Rifle and Pistol Assn. is listed on the bill’s analysis as a supporter. It doesn’t come close to actions taken by supervisors in Los Angeles, Alameda and Solano counties, who effectively banned large-scale gun shows on county fairgrounds.

This leaves the one-gun-a-month restriction. If fully implemented, this new law may materially affect the number of illegal gun sales in California (similar laws did cut trafficking in Virginia and Maryland). Yet, separating out the law’s effect from other factors that have contributed to an overall decline in gun-related crime over the past decade will be difficult. Furthermore, either Nevada, Arizona or Oregon could could feed Californians’ appetite for illegal guns with the same effectiveness that Nevada feeds our appetite for gambling.

Truth be told, neither the Democrat-controlled Legislature nor Davis have mustered the willpower to “go for the kill” in the gun-control debate, even though the political stars are in perfect alignment. Why?

In the Legislature, it’s a matter of arithmetic. Assembly Democrats representing “swing” districts, in which residents are more inclined to be suspicious of stricter gun laws, vote self-preservation. Pro-gun forces have a couple of powerful allies among urban Democrats. Assemblyman Roderick Wright (D-Los Angeles) has become a powerful inside player for gun-control opponents and was instrumental in declawing the gun-show legislation. Joe Baca (D-Rialto) has played a similar though less effective role on the Senate side.

Then there is the impact of the “new” gun lobby: the pro-gun grass roots. The standard cliche about gun-control foes--that they exert their influence through the National Rifle Assn.’s campaign purse--is hollow. In California’s political races, NRA contributions have the same toxic qualities as those from the tobacco industry.

At the grass-roots level, it’s a different story. California lawmakers generally don’t hear much from constituents on specific bills. Ten letters on a piece of legislation is an avalanche. Lawmakers, furthermore, are especially skittish about resistance from back home in the era of term limits. Less-experienced lawmakers are not as adept at distinguishing between organic and organized opposition.

It’s an environment tailor-made for grass-roots gun advocates. California NRA’s and the California Rifle and Pistol Assn.’s Web sites are virtual pep rallies, filled with “action alerts” and interconnecting links. Their outreach and membership drives are fervent and relentless. Most important, the sites bring lawmakers face to face with voters who are passionate about the issue and not afraid to cast their votes accordingly. If you’re a lawmaker looking to keep your job, who’s going to hold more sway: some jargon-spouting swell from Handgun Control, Inc. or a real live voter from back home? It is this retail politicking as much as anything else that kept the political momentum initiated by the string of mass shootings from rolling into a tidal wave.

Whether Democrats in the Legislature are willing to further engage the gun debate and force Davis’ hand on tougher laws will largely depend on the staying power of the gun issue going into the 2000 elections. If the economy stays strong and voters still feel unsafe, more stringent gun-control measures may pop into view. But if other issues push it aside, Davis’ caution will look like political genius, and gun-control advocates in Sacramento may look back on 1999 as the year of the missed opportunity. *