Panel Kills Measure on Handguns

A new legislative drive to license handgun owners and register their weapons with the state Department of Justice was defeated in the state Assembly on Wednesday.

Gun control advocates dismissed rejection of the bill by the Assembly Appropriations Committee as a minor setback, and promised to pursue the issue in what they believe is a friendlier state Senate.

“This buys me time. It allows the issue to continue to develop,” said Assemblyman Kevin Shelley (D-San Francisco), author of the controversial bill, AB 1607.

The measure, which Assembly staff analysts estimated could have cost handgun buyers and owners of existing weapons about $25 million a year, first was sidetracked by the committee and then defeated outright.

The bill, introduced last year, would have required consumers to be tested and licensed before buying a handgun. And it would have required those already owning handguns to register them in much the same way that automobiles are registered.

License applicants would have been charged $20; registrants $25. The proposed fees have been inadequate to pay for the programs, staff analysts said.

Shelley disputed the potential costs as exaggerated. But he conceded that he was unable to calculate how much such a program would cost or identify who would administer the licensing test or where it would be given.

“Those details are not resolved yet. We couldn’t get them resolved in time for presentation on the Assembly floor [so] that members could feel comfortable in voting for it,” he said.

The Assembly and Senate face a Jan. 31 deadline for passing bills that were introduced last year, but failed to clear the house in which they originated.

Shelley said he will fold the contents of his defeated bill into a separate bill that is pending in the Senate and fight the issue in the upper chamber, which gun control activists consider less hostile than the Assembly.

The Senate is expected to start debating gun control issues late in the spring. Shelley said backers will have time to coalesce public support for his plan and try to resolve questions of cost and other issues.

“The public support is there,” he said.

However, Ed Worley, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Assn., which opposed the bill, blamed its defeat on a lack of political support from moderate Democrats who are running for reelection.

“Somebody is reading some polls and the polling numbers don’t support this bill,” Worley said. “Moderate Democrats are terrified of this bill. If you want to tee people off before an election, this is a great bill.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Don Perata (D-Alameda), a champion of gun control, disclosed that he has abandoned plans to introduce his own handgun licensing and registration bill and intends to pursue a ballot initiative instead, probably in 2002.

In an interview, Perata, author of the state’s newly toughened assault weapons control law, said Wednesday that issues of licensing and registration are new to most Californians and that a major public education campaign must be waged before such action will be supported by the public.

He said he feared that even if a licensing and registration bill was passed, it would be subject to a ballot referendum by the NRA, which won a similar fight in Washington state. “Where we are right now, we have more to lose than to gain,” said Perata.

He said he wants to offer a carefully written initiative that could withstand a campaign attack by the NRA and start circulating signature petitions during next fall’s presidential election campaign.