
DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270485

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Focus 

SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES 

                                            LENGTH:  179 lines

FOCUS: ASSAULT WEAPONS

Lawmakers cracked down on assault weapons to put a stop to the tragedies that had involved them. But the laws aren't stopping much.

They streak through the air at twice the speed of sound, a stream of menacing metal. Tearing through timber fences, stucco walls and steel-girded car doors, they tumble through body tissue and ricochet off bones like searing-hot pinballs, carving the kidneys, the heart, the lungs.

And when their destruction is complete, families must learn to go on without a child's grin. Or a brother's wit. Or a mother's love.

So fearsome is the size, speed and sheer number of slugs let loose from assault weapons that lawmakers cracked down on them.

Or so most people thought.

In fact, the popular laws - adopted in 1989 by California and five years later by the federal government - are in tatters. Today, thousands of assault weapons are changing hands because of gaping holes in the laws - the result of industry guile, spotty oversight and political neglect.

Born in controversy and compromise, the state and federal statutes did not actually ban assault rifles and pistols, despite the fanfare surrounding passage of the measures. Instead, they restricted specific models and allowed countless others to legally remain in circulation.

The fallout:

Gun manufacturers have flooded the country with so-called copycats - legal assault weapons that are cosmetically different from restricted firearms but that function with lethal similarity.

Previously undisclosed documents reveal that lawmakers, in a political compromise, exempted some assault weapons because they were considered too popular among gun owners to ban, even though they often had been traced to criminal activity.

Federal lawmakers allowed the gun industry to continue selling assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips that were manufactured before the law's implementation. Given that opening, major gun makers doubled and even tripled production in the year before the restrictions took effect so they would have a stockpile of weapons and clips to sell, according to newly obtained production figures. That pool of weapons is deeper than gun opponents and lawmakers ever anticipated.

Assault weapon laws are so filled with vagaries and political undercurrents that police say they are often stymied in trying to crack down on the illegal gun trade. Among other things, they say, it often is impossible to distinguish between weapons that are lawful and those that are not. Moreover, some lawmakers and gun opponents accuse the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of being soft on the arms industry.

Virtually anyone can walk into a gun store or show, log onto the Internet or open up the classified section of Shotgun News and select one of dozens of copycat assault weapons or pick from among thousands of guns manufactured before the laws took effect.

Clearly, most assault weapon owners are law-abiding gun collectors or target-shooting enthusiasts who handle their firearms with caution and believe that the Second Amendment guarantees them the right to bear assault weapons. What's more, such high-powered weapons represent just a fragment of overall gun ownership in the United States - a fact that gun advocates say belies what they consider to be the overblown nature of the controversy.

``The whole assault thing is 99 percent hysterical,'' says Andrew Molchan, president of a national gun dealers association.

Not entirely.

Although handguns are far more prevalent in society, authorities say that assault weapons are proportionately more likely to be involved in crimes - and to injure more people in a single incident because of the velocity and number of bullets rocketing from the barrel.

According to a study released in February by the nonprofit Urban Institute, assault weapons constitute a mere 1 percent of the gun market. But they accounted for 8 percent of all requests made to the federal authorities for traces of guns found at crime scenes during a seven-year span. The report, prepared at Congress' request, found that assault weapons are ``disproportionately involved in murders with multiple victims, multiple wounds per victim and police officers as victims.''

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who championed the federal assault weapon law, says that when lawmakers passed the measure with some substantial compromises, they underestimated the industry's ingenuity. ``They'll get around any piece of legislation to ply their wares,'' she says of the makers of semiautomatic assault weapons, which can hold large-capacity ammunition clips and have folding stocks making them easily concealable and flash suppressors to hide barrel flame.

``Here we have the perfect weapon for someone who wants to go against the police, for the grievance killer, for the drug traffickers and for the drive-by shooters. That's what these weapons are designed for,'' she says. ``To me, their indiscriminate sale makes no sense at all in a civilized society.''

If you've got the inclination and cash, an assault weapon can be had with stunning ease. Prices range from $150 for a no-frills model to thousands of dollars for a well-crafted number with laser sight and night scope.

At the manufacturing level, top gun executives don't hide their disdain for the law. Some seem to take pride in their use of loopholes.

During a recent tour of Olympic Arms Inc. in Washington state, company controller Bruce Bell volunteered that his company sells a copycat of the California-banned Colt AR-15 called a ``PCR.'' The initials, he said with a grin, stand for ``Politically Correct Rifle.''

Many in the industry scoff at the notion that assault weapons have a greater capacity for harm because of their firing characteristics and ammunition capacity.

Dick Dyke is president of Bushmaster Firearms, a Windham, Maine, company that makes several copycat versions of the Colt AR-15. He also owns 10 other companies that manufacture, among other things, poker chips and perfume. To him, assault weapons are just another ``commodity.''

Asked about the tragic incidents involving assault weapons, Dyke says: ``I guess I don't see that happening enough to feel that it's a legitimate social issue.''

Dyke and other purveyors of assault weapons say they should not be called to task when their guns are used in crimes. Such tragedies are the reflection of a violent society, they say, not of something intrinsically bad about any class of firearm.

``If it was not my weapon, it could be another weapon,'' says Carlos Garcia, president of gun manufacturer Navegar Inc. of Miami. ``It could have been a knife. It could have been anything. It could have been a fire. A man snaps, he snaps. There is nothing you can do about it.''

The federal statute has made it easy for gun makers to comply with the letter of the law, if not the spirit, by making almost imperceptible changes to their weapons.

The federal legislation does describe an assault weapon's characteristics but narrowly defines them. Semiautomatic weapons with a bayonet lug and flash suppressor on the barrel, for example, are banned. Manufacturers responded by simply removing those accessories, and continued selling.

In some cases, there was no attempt made by state or federal legislators to restrict certain firearms that are as deadly as any others. The reason: They were deemed too popular.

Looking back, authors of the federal measures insist that there was little they could do to stitch the loopholes because of the fierce and organized opposition they faced.

``The bottom line is, I've learned a lot,'' Feinstein said. ``The biggest and most arrogant lobby back there (in Washington) is `Big Gun.' They pack a clout, particularly in the House, that I have never seen in my entire life.''

With a membership estimated at 3.5 million and a staff of more than 500, the National Rifle Association spent about $3 million in contributions to politicians throughout the country during the 1995-96 election cycle.

Still, Feinstein says her weapons ban represents progress, if mostly symbolic, because it has prompted assault weapon legislation in several cities and states - and because many on Capitol Hill predicted it would never pass. ILLUSTRATION: Associated Press photo

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., shows some assault weapons to

reporters on Capitol Hill in March 1996.

Graphic

BANNED WEAPONS

The federal assault weapons ban defines illegal assault weapons

both by name and by description. A weapon that is not named in the

ban but that fits the description is still banned. The definitions

of an assault weapon are:

A semiautomatic rifle that can take a detachable magazine and

that has at least two of these features:

A folding or telescoping stock.

A pistol grip that extends conspicuously below the weapon's