Assault Weapons

SAN FRANCISCO -- Six years ago this month, a disgruntled businessman named Gian Luigi Ferri took two TEC-9 semiautomatic pistols into the office tower at 101 California St. and, in less than 15 minutes, killed eight people and wounded six others, before fatally shooting himself.The sound of those shots has rung through California politics ever since, helping to inspire a long-running debate over gun control that reached a milestone yesterday when Gov. Gray Davis signed into law the nation's toughest and most comprehensive ban on assault-style weapons.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- One day after ordering a four-month halt to imports of modified assault weapons, President Clinton ridiculed yesterday the notion that such firearms could be used for anything but making mayhem."

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has for years been allowing arms dealers to import tens of thousands of assault weapons that apparently fail to meet standards written by top officials of the agency.Those standards -- contained in a 1989 report obtained by the Los Angeles Times through the Freedom of Information Act -- likely will play a key role in the Clinton administration's current review of whether the ATF has been lax in blocking shipments of high-powered weapons.

Richard M. Loewinger was the subject of articles last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in various editions of The Sun following his arrest on drug charges in Columbia. Among these charges are one count under a statute that covers both manufacturing of and intent to distribute drugs, but Howard County police say that Loewinger was not distributing drugs and that they are focusing only on the alleged manufacturing of drugs. Regarding a firearm case in 1991 in Frederick County, that county's court records indicate that Loewinger was ordered, among other penalties, to surrender a semiautomatic weapon, but he was not ordered to surrender any other weapons.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole is mounting a surprise effort to repeal last year's ban on the possession and sale of semi-automatic assault weapons, indicating he now believes he has the votes to overturn the most sweeping gun control legislation ever passed by Congress.In a recent letter to the National Rifle Association, the Kansas Republican vowed to make repeal of "the ill-conceived gun ban" a priority -- a turnaround from Mr. Dole's unequivocal statement of two months ago that a repeal "would not pass in the Senate."

SAN FRANCISCO -- A San Francisco judge's decision to allow wrongful-death suits against manufacturers of assault weapons could turn into a legal nightmare, gun manufacturers warned yesterday.Lawyers for victims and firearms groups agreed that the unprecedented ruling on Monday is likely to lead to a surge of lawsuits against gun producers.Ernest Getto, the Los Angeles attorney for the gun maker who was sued, said the judge's decision could be used against the manufacturer of "any product that could be used lethally."

WASHINGTON -- In chilling detail, Bryan Rigsby, a soft-spoken computer programmer from New- nan, Ga., told lawmakers yesterday how he owed his life to a semiautomatic rifle with a 30-round ammunition clip.The hearing began a review -- and possible rollback -- of gun-control laws by the Republican majority in Congress.Republicans have made repeal of the ban on assault-style firearms, which was part of last year's $30 billion anti-crime law, a top priority. Democrats have pledged to fight that move, and President Clinton has indicated he would veto any such repeal.

Fact and FictionRoger Simon's commentary, "Dole is angry over fiction, not the reality of violence" (June 4), represents another example of how the anti-self-defense lobby will use hypocrisy and muddled thinking to endorse hypocritical and muddled policies.Mr. Simon says "assault weapons are used to kill cops" and their ban must not be repealed. A little research (i.e. FBI Uniform Crime Reports) indicates that the facts do not support his wild assertion.Assault weapons are used less than 1 percent of the time in all homicides.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole's promise to the National Rifle Association that he will work to repeal the law banning assault weapons has created a rift among his supporters, and some associates say the senator realizes he made a major political mistake that could damage his presidential campaign.The Kansas Republican apparently did not consult many members of his expansive circle of advisers before he made the vow in a letter to the NRA a month ago in which he referred to "the ill-conceived gun ban."

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton is following former President Bush's lead in blasting the National Rifle Association's recent rhetoric, and Mr. Clinton is vowing to stop the gun lobby from repealing a law banning assault weapons.At a Capitol memorial service yesterday for slain police officers, Mr. Clinton endorsed the "fine letter" Mr. Bush wrote the NRA May 3, resigning his lifetime membership to protest a fund-raising letter calling federal gun-control agents "jackbooted government thugs."

Americans have been killing each other for a long time - thousands upon thousands of men, women and children lying in the cold, cold ground from decades of homicidal violence, the bulk of it inflicted with guns. There are street killings here, bedroom killings there - single victims scattered across the daily news. (I saw my first victim 33 years ago this month, a woman shot to death by her estranged husband as she walked across a parking lot.) And then there are the mass killings, a squall of them this spring, with 57 dead within the last month or so, in a handful of incidents from California to New York.

Mayor Martin O'Malley urged state legislators yesterday to ban assault weapons, something the General Assembly has shied away from for three years running. O'Malley and the bill's sponsor, Del. Neil F. Quinter, a Howard County Democrat, said at an Annapolis news conference that banning the high-powered guns would make Maryland safer. "This isn't about hunting," said O'Malley, a Democratic candidate for governor. "This is about removing high-powered assault weapons from the hands of those who would use them."

Amendment seeks to limit governor on sale of land Thirty Maryland senators are backing a proposed constitutional amendment to limit the governor's ability to sell parkland, forests or open space, the measure's primary sponsor said yesterday. One of several bills likely to be filed during this session as a reaction to news of efforts by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s administration to sell public land, the amendment is being co-sponsored by 30 senators, one more than would be needed for it to pass that body, said Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat.

WASHINGTON - Just weeks after allowing the decade-old federal ban on assault weapons to expire, the House voted yesterday to repeal the District of Columbia's tough 28-year-old gun control law in a move that thrust the emotional issue into the election year spotlight. The bill is not expected to reach the president's desk his year. The vote was intended by the House Republican leadership to force Democrats to make an uncomfortable choice shortly before Election Day. "It's important to put people on the record," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.

WASHINGTON - Let's be perfectly candid about the demise - after 10 years - of the dearly departed federal "ban" on "assault weapons." It didn't really ban anything. Ask any kid on any high-crime street in America. He or she can tell you. Yes, crime rates overall took a welcome dip while the law was in effect in the 1990s, but that dip can be attributed to many factors, including aggressive arrests and prosecutions. Meanwhile, the supply of heavy-duty weapons hardly was affected, thanks to the law's limits and loopholes.

THE MOST important part of the semiautomatic assault weapons ban that expires today is probably the restriction on large ammunition magazines, not the ban on military-style firearms. New research findings could provide the basis for a compromise between pro- and anti-ban legislators. The ban attempts to reduce crimes committed with semiautomatics having large ammunition capacities - which enable shooters to fire many shots rapidly - and other outward, military-style features such as flash hiders, threaded barrels for silencers and bayonet mounts.

Gun dealer Sanford Abrams says the expiration of a nationwide ban on assault weapons only means that a right that should have never been denied, to buy and collect those firearms, will be returned. Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, whose county saw the deadly effects of a military-style weapon in the hands of a sniper, is concerned. That the gun used to kill 10 Washington-area residents two years ago is not covered by the federal ban only shows that the law should be strengthened, not weakened, he says.

WASHINGTON - Byrl Phillips-Taylor sat in the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California 10 years ago, clutching a photo of her dead son, as Feinstein worked the phones to try to keep a nationwide ban on assault weapons in a crime bill. At the last minute, two senators changed sides and prevented a National Rifle Association-led effort from killing the ban. "What I don't understand is why I am here again, now, after everything," Phillips-Taylor said yesterday in a Senate office building, holding the same photo.

CHICAGO - An organization called the Million Mom March held a rally in Washington on Mother's Day to urge a renewal of the 1994 federal assault weapons ban. If you must know, the turnout was about 997,500 short. But the advocates are not easily discouraged. Afterward, they launched a vehicle called the Big Pink Rig on a "Halt the Assault Tour." The bus will crisscross the nation until September, when the ban is scheduled to expire. The 1994 law was a monument to President Bill Clinton's distinctive political genius - which generally involved tiny symbolic changes that pleased particular constituencies without actually having much effect.

A Senate committee killed a proposal to ban assault weapons yesterday, ending all possibility that the General Assembly will put a gun control bill into effect in Maryland before the federal ban expires in September. The 6-5 vote against the bill in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee came as no surprise because Sen. John A. Giannetti Jr., who represented the swing vote on the panel, announced his intent to vote against the proposal weeks ago. The Prince George's Democrat delivered on his promise yesterday, joining the committee's three Republicans and two conservative Democrats in opposing the bill sponsored by Sen. Robert J. Garagiola.