LUNGREN FAILS TO SEE LINK BETWEEN CRIME DIP, GUN SALES.

Byline: Barrie Becker

FINALLY, some good news about guns and crime.

State Attorney General Dan Lungren reports that gun sales in California for 1996 dropped for the third consecutive year (by 14 percent) and the state has also experienced a decline in crime during the same period (by 12 percent). Among other factors, Lungren credited criminal background checks and waiting periods (required by federal and state law), for gun purchasers as a contributing factor to the decrease in gun sales.

We already knew some things about the the correlation between the easy availability of guns and the rate of gun crime: Following the enactment of the 1994 federal assault weapon ban, there was an 18 percent drop in the number of assault weapons traced to crime by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Another relevant fact is the conclusion of a 1993 New England Journal of Medicine study showing a tripling of the risk of homicide and a 500 percent increased risk of suicide, in homes where guns are kept.

Unfortunately, Lungren went on to complain about the recent, unique-to-California trend, whereby cities and counties from Alameda to West Hollywood, impatient with the lack of effective gun control at the state and federal levels, have enacted their own tough gun laws prohibiting, for example, the sale of junk guns or Saturday night specials.

Contrary to Lungren's assertion, these local laws are neither ``illegal'' nor ``elitist.'' West Hollywood's junk-gun ban was recently upheld in Los Angeles County Superior Court as a legitimate local regulation.

Moreover, the statistics supporting the junk-gun ban constitute solid evidence that (1) these concealable handguns are disproportionately used in crime; (2) junk guns are easily defined by their lack of safety features and the poor quality of materials used in their manufacture; and (3) junk guns are not appropriate for lawful uses such as hunting, target shooting or legitimate self-defense situations.

Ironically, in 1968 The American Rifleman, an official National Rifle Association publication, printed an editorial calling for an end to the importation of concealable junk guns due to their inferior quality and use in crime.

More recently, the gun industry magazine Guns and Ammo (like a Consumer Reports for the firearms industry), has contained numerous reviews of junk guns produced by Southern California manufacturers such as Bryco, Lorein and Davis, concluding that most of their guns were so poorly made that gun buyers could not depend on them to be safe or reliable for self-defense or sport shooting purposes.

Newly released data from the ATF shows that in 1996, the three firearms most frequently traced at crime scenes were junk guns made in the United States (foreign-made junk guns were banned from importation in 1968).

The logic behind the local junk gun bans rest on the notion that the usefulness of these weapons is outweighed by their dangers to consumers and to society.

The same public safety goals support our long-standing support of safety regulations for teddy bears, toasters, automobiles, children's clothing and thousand of other products.

It defies logic to argue that handguns, which are more lethal than those products, need not be regulated according to consumer safety standards.

If, as Lungren argues, such safety standards are ``elitist,'' because they deny cheap guns to poor people for home use, then so are federal regulations that currently prevent toy manufacturers from selling cheap teddy bears whose eyes can easily pop off and choke a toddler.

Who should regulate in this area - federal, state or local officials? In an ideal world, we would have an effective, comprehensive regulatory system at the federal level.

The political world of gun violence prevention advocates, however, has not been ideal; attempts to regulate guns at the state and federal levels have been undermined by partisanship and many politicians' allegiance to the gun lobby.

If you were a mayor of a city plagued by gun crime and neither federal nor state officials were able to enact meaningful reforms, such as requiring guns to have child-proofing safety features or mandating safe gun storage and liability insurance for firearms dealers and owners in your town, what would you do?

Would you wait patiently for those leaders to recognize that firearms are the leading killer of our young people and hope for better leadership after the next election cycle?

Or would you take action passing effective reforms to the extent that you can, within the context of federal and state law, knowing that you aggressive action may save lives and convince state and federal officials to follow your lead?

Local officials know that many of the best policy ideas originate at the grass roots, where creativity often trumps bureaucracy.

I hope that California's state and federal officials will meet the challenge posed by courageous local lawmakers: Ignore the gun lobby and save our kids.

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