COUNTY OKS BAN ON GUN SALES; GREAT WESTERN SHOWS READY FOR LEGAL PROTEST.

Byline: Douglas Haberman Staff Writer

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in a 3-2 vote Tuesday took the first step toward banning sales of guns and ammunition at the county Fairplex in Pomona and at other county venues.

The vote came over the protests of a company that operates a gun show at the Fairplex, vendors at the show and gun owners.

``We will now get into the litigation aspect of this,'' said Karl Amelang, president of Great Western Shows, Inc., which has put on the gun show for 31 years, the past 22 at the Fairplex.

``We have no alternative,'' Amelang said. The ban will ``seriously destroy the Great Western show as it exists.''

The four-times-a-year show is the largest of its kind in the world, he said.

Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Gloria Molina carried the ban against the opposition of Supervisors Michael D. Antonovich and Don Knabe. A second vote, expected next week, is needed to fully enact the ban, which will go into effect 30 days later.

Jeff Rouss, executive director of Jewish Community Centers of Los Angeles, recalled the Aug. 10 attack on the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills in urging the board to pass the law. Admitted attacker and white supremacist Buford O'Neal Furrow Jr. reportedly bought one or more firearms at gun shows.

``The walls had been peppered with bullets,'' Rouss said. ``It's only by the grace of God no one was killed at the Jewish Community Center.''

Children at the center are still afraid of the ``monster,'' and they still cringe when helicopters fly over, fearing the ``monster'' is back, Rouss said. ``You have to protect them.''

A succession of gun owners and vendors criticized the law before the board vote, saying it would only punish many law-abiding gun show patrons to thwart a tiny percentage of lawbreaking vendors and patrons.

But the board majority wasn't swayed by ban opponents.

``Gun violence has ravaged this country,'' said Yaroslavsky. ``To sit back and do nothing . . . is to be complicit with what is going on.''

Stepped-up security at the events put on by Great Western Shows at the Fairplex in May and July failed to stop illegal activity, he said.

In May, undercover state agents ran out of money buying illegal weapons at the show and in July federal agents set up a later off-site purchase of 10 Sten guns and two Browning automatic rifles, all illegal, from a show vendor, Yaroslavsky said.

``The conclusion: We cannot adequately police these shows,'' he said. In expressing support for the ban, Sheriff Lee Baca made a similar comment, saying ``we have a problem we can't control.''