Sacramento’s Big Guns on Target

Like individuals, few institutions ever get the chance to redeem their mistakes. Fewer still avail themselves of the opportunity in as decisive and admirable a manner as the California state Senate did Thursday, when it reconsidered and passed a critical piece of gun-control legislation it had rejected just a few short months ago.

The bill, AB 497, already has passed the Assembly and now must return there, so that the chamber’s members can concur in a handful of minor technical amendments made on the Senate floor. None of these changes in any way diminish the measure’s central proposals. The current 15-day waiting period between the purchase of a handgun and its delivery will extend to sales of rifles and shotguns. That interval allows the state’s Department of Justice to determine whether the buyer is a person prohibited from owning a firearm. These include individuals found mentally infirm under law, convicted felons, those found guilty of specified violent misdemeanors within the previous 10 years and people forbidden to possess a weapon as a condition of probation.

When they become law, these provisions--along with the legal ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons, which went into effect last month--will put California firmly in the forefront of the national movement toward the rational regulation of firearms. This is because the singular characteristic of both pieces of legislation is a respect for public safety and the interests of law-abiding sportsmen and hobbyists.

Much of the credit for this belongs to Democratic Assemblyman Lloyd G. Connelly of Sacramento, AB 497’s author, and to Los Angeles Democrat David A. Roberti, the Senate President Pro Tempore. Their unswerving pursuit of the public’s interest in this matter should not soon be forgotten. Nor should the courage of four Republican Senators--Ed Davis of Valencia, William A. Craven of Oceanside, Newton R. Russell of Glendale and Becky Morgan of Los Altos Hills--who broke with the gun lobby and supported AB 497 as a question of conscience. No doubt the Assembly will wish to act quickly and send the bill to Gov. George Deukmejian for his signature.