GUN FIRM SEEKS BANKRUPTCY; VALENCIA-BASED SUNDANCE FILES FOR CHAPTER 7, CITING LAWSUITS, NEW LAWS.

Byline: Orith Goldberg Staff Writer

A Valencia handgun manufacturer - one of six Southland firms that have produced 80 percent of the nation's small-caliber Saturday night specials - has filed for bankruptcy.

Sundance Industries is a victim of lawsuits filed by cities around the country seeking to place blame for gun violence, owner Steven Jennings said Tuesday, adding that new gun control legislation is also hurting the industry.

Jennings, who would not elaborate on lawsuits he faces, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which usually leads to liquidation of a company. Sundance's petition declared $10,321 in assets, and $77,644 in debts.

Jennings has owned the company for 10 years and was running Sundance with two employees.

Jennings' company and five other handgun manufacturers make up what author and researcher Garen Wintemute dubbed the ``ring of fire'' because of their circular proximity to Los Angeles and the potentially lethal goods they produce.

The other companies are Arcadia Machine and Tool of Irwindale; Bryco Arms of Costa Mesa; Davis Industries of Mira Loma; now-defunct Lorcin Engineering, also of Mira Loma, and Phoenix Arms of Ontario.

Wintemute, of the University of California, Davis, said Tuesday that Sundance was not a big player in the business, but that Jennings is.

Jennings has another company called Jennings' Fine Turning, which makes smaller parts for pistols made by other gun manufacturing companies, Wintemute said. Jennings also acted as a creditor for the Davis Industries and Lorcin Engineering, he said.

Since 1993, Wintemute said, sales have declined for the ``ring of fire'' companies, and he believes gun-control legislation is responsible.

``The state Legislature created a climate in which these companies can probably not survive,'' he said.

Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill Aug. 27 which mandates that handguns manufactured or sold in California pass two safety tests beginning Jan. 1, 2001. The tests, a drop test and a firing test, were established to ensure that the guns do not go off when dropped.

Bill Mabie, spokesman for the bill's author, Sen. Richard G. Polanco, D-Los Angeles, said the senator will not mourn the loss of companies such as Sundance, which Mabie described as ``the bottom feeders of the gun industry.''

``It's kind of like good riddance,'' Mabie said. ``Our economy will be just fine without them.''

Polanco's bill filled a gap created after the passage of a 1968 gun control law that banned the importation of poorly made handguns, but did not prohibit the domestic manufacture and sale of such weapons.

Democratic Assemblyman Roderick Wright, D-Los Angeles, opposed the new gun testing law, saying it is wrong for the government to destroy business.

Wright added that the bill could protect gun manufacturers by providing limited immunity from liability by declaring their guns are safe. And because the legislation is retroactive, gun owners will be prohibited from selling their weapons through dealers, and could opt for the black market, he said.