Handgun License Plan Clears Senate Panel

In a half-win for advocates of stricter firearms controls, a Senate committee voted Tuesday to license new handgun owners, but refused to require registration of pistols and revolvers.

The bill, AB 273, by Assemblyman Jack Scott (D-Altadena), would require purchasers of new handguns to pass a written safety exam and an actual firing test as a condition of ownership. Licensing would start Jan. 1, 2002.

Last fall, Gov. Gray Davis urged the Legislature to send him no substantial new gun measures this session. Implicit was a warning that he would veto such bills.

Backed by police chiefs and sheriffs, Davis said law enforcement needed at least a year to implement a long list of reforms approved last year, including tougher controls on assault weapons and tighter regulation of cheap handguns known as Saturday night specials.

Scott told the committee that licensing of handgun owners “works in states like Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and many others. It can work in California.”

Opponents, including the National Rifle Assn., warned against creating an expensive new bureaucracy, which they likened to the unpopular state Department of Motor Vehicles.

The committee balked at parts of the bill that would have created a companion program to annually register every handgun in California and run background checks on owners.

Sources indicated that registration is considered too unwieldy and politically risky in this election year.

“This is a very strong handgun safety licensing bill, but we still believe in the importance of registration. We’ll pursue that next year,” said Luis Tolley, Western director of Handgun Control, sponsor of the bill.

The committee approved the Scott plan on a bipartisan 5-0 vote over the opposition of the NRA, firearms retailers and gun owners. The measure went to the Appropriations Committee, where another fight is expected.

Assemblyman Kevin Shelley (D-San Francisco) told the Senate committee Tuesday that Californians want even more restrictions on firearms.

“Everybody hates the DMV, but there is no one who says let’s get rid of the driver’s license exam and we’ll be safer as a result,” Shelley said.

The licensing bill would apply to sales of new handguns only. Hundreds of thousands of existing guns in home safes and closets and forgotten in attics would not be affected.

It is unknown how many new guns are sold each year in California, said Michael Van Winkle, a spokesman for the state Department of Justice. But he said that last year 224,036 new and used handguns changed hands in retail and private sales. In 1998, Van Winkle said, there were 181,421 such transactions.

Currently, new handgun buyers must watch a video or pass a simple 30-question test before they can get guns. The test is widely considered of little value.

The test is in addition to a long-standing requirement that all gun purchasers must undergo background checks to determine if they are prohibited from owning guns because of criminal or mental health histories.

Under Scott’s bill, a prospective purchaser still would get the background check but would also have to obtain an application for a license at a police or sheriff’s department.

The applicant then would be required to pass a written safety examination and pass a hands-on firing test at a gun range as a condition of purchasing the handgun. The license would be good for five years.

But gun-owner organizations and other opponents warned that the bill would establish a mammoth bureaucracy with no clear promise that gun violence and deaths would be reduced.

Opponents noted, for example, that the bill would require the state to approve a gun range for applicant testing in every county. But some counties, such as San Francisco, have no public shooting range.

Ed Worley of the NRA said there is only one public range in the San Fernando Valley, one of the most populous regions in the country. Yet, he said, one gun shop in the Valley last year sold more than 2,000 handguns.

Where, he asked, would these customers take their firing tests? He said the police departments and the firing range would be hopelessly overwhelmed by applicants.

Under questioning, Randy Rossi, a Department of Justice gun expert, acknowledged that approving a firing range in every county “is a concern of ours.”

Another opponent, Jerry Upholt of the California Rifle and Pistol Assn., testified that the proposed $32 cost of a license was unrealistically low and would never pay for all the operational costs of the program.

Upholt also challenged the idea that licensing would make society safer. “Criminals don’t get licenses. People who are inclined to be unsafe are not all of a sudden going to be safe because they went through a course and got a license,” he said.