THE STATE : Another California Trend: Gun Ownership Isn’t Chic

It’s scarcely a decade since some Angelenos met for dates on pistol ranges. But today, even some conservative Republicans are coming around to the idea that firearms are not fashionable. For example, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a presidential contender, has said that he would consider a ban on assault guns. Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the GOP presidential front-runner, has not ruled out some form of gun control. It’s possible that Bush and McCain, who both represent gun-friendly states, are gradually recognizing that more and more Americans don’t regard ownership of battlefield weapons as a constitutional right.

Local communities across the country have concluded as much and have passed firearm-control measures, even as Congress balks on tougher gun laws. Garen J. Wintemute of UC Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Program says this development may be because “more and more people in their daily lives are being harder hit by the consequences of firearms.”

Whatever the reasons, an avalanche of gun regulations and litigation has swept through local and state venues in California. Someday we may better understand why the past year’s gun violence in Littleton, Colo., Atlanta and Granada Hills crossed the public’s threshold for firearms abuse. What’s certain is that once-timorous local officials and legislators now feel empowered to take strong measures, principally against handguns and assault-type weapons and their providers, that they would never have dared a decade ago.

This is why last month’s Board of Supervisors vote to ban the sale of firearms at gun shows on Los Angeles County property was a national story. A 3-2 majority of the leaders of the nation’s largest municipality voted, in effect, to evict the nation’s largest gun show from its fairgrounds. The county, said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, had no business being in the arms business. Sheriff Lee Baca spoke literally when he said “Los Angeles is no longer a frontier county.” Inner-city gangers have long outnumbered local cowboys and ranchers. Three tough gun-control laws--one a “quality control” measure that would outlaw the cheapest, worst-made handguns--have rolled through the Legislature and been signed by Gov. Gray Davis. Another pair are nearing passage.

Some explain the upsurge in local gun-control laws in terms of the suburbanization of the U.S. population, which has carried urban-style violence into formerly rural areas. Many ex-urbanites identified with the tragedy at Columbine High School, where two students killed 13 before taking their own lives. Luis Tolley of Handgun Control, which is chaired by Sarah Brady, says that he believes the massacre affected Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, who, elected with gun-lobby support, has since become a significant backer of tougher gun controls in his state.

Actually the sea change may have been more gradual. Locally, the infatuation with personal firearms took off in the mid-1970s, along with stagflation, a rise in international terrorism, a somnolent stock market and a vague, yet pervasive sense of impending global cataclysm. Remember Howard Ruff and his “Ruff Times” newsletter, advising readers to hoard gold at twice its current price? Along with their bullion and freeze-dried food, people stockpiled guns. I recall one survivalist-magazine writer urging the typical household head to consider a $500 assault rifle an “investment” in family safety. A San Gabriel Valley city bought handguns for its elected officials. By the 1992 L.A. riots, at least two local columnists were proudly telling their readers that, to discourage intruders, they kept shotguns in their hall closets. Pistol practice at a Beverly Hills revolver range was an evening pastime for celebs. The ’92 riots, unsurprisingly, fueled a spike in gun purchases statewide.

Then, surprisingly, Californians abated their acquisition of personal howitzers. Gun ownership ceased to be chic. A Harris poll last year found that only 32% of California homes had guns in them, compared to 48% in 1973 and 40% in 1996. By last October, annual handgun sales statewide had fallen to their lowest level since 1973: about 200,000 pistols sold in a state whose population has grown by 60%. Robert A. Ricker of the American Shooting Sports Council, the arms industry’s lobby, detected a key cultural swerve on this long-fought issue: “You’re seeing gun ownership being politically incorrect.”

Ricker may be on to something. Conventional political wisdom, along with a myriad of Hollywood films, has it that the handgun has become an iconic feature of the American scene. It also believes that the National Rifle Assn.’s vast fiscal and membership resources will keep it that way because federal gun legislation will continue to be weak.

Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean that America isn’t becoming increasingly tired of gun violence and guns themselves. As is so often the case, California appears to be leading this trend, not just with the surge in local gun regulations and drop in gun ownership. Of the 20-odd U.S. municipalities that have brought suit or are in the process of bringing legal action against the gun industry on grounds involving local handgun violence, at least nine--San Francisco, Los Angeles County, the city of Los Angeles, Alameda County, San Mateo, Compton, West Hollywood, Sacramento and Berkeley--are in this state.

The most ordinary trend-spotter ought to be able to sense which way the gun-control wind is blowing. Even, one would hope, within the Beltway.