Calif. Shifts on Assault Weapons
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- The state attorney general
agreed Tuesday to drop his predecessor's appeal of a lawsuit
over gun registration, clearing the way for the state to order
owners of about 1,600 assault weapons to surrender them to
law enforcement.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer will ask the Legislature to
provide funding to compensate owners who turn in the
weapons, valued at $750 to $1,500 each, spokesman Nathan
Barankin said.
A June 1989 state law prohibited the sale and possession of 62
models of military-style assault weapons. But it let residents
who owned the weapons at that time keep them if they
registered them with the state by March 30, 1992.
Lockyer's predecessor, Dan Lungren, let people who owned
the guns before June 1989 register them without prosecution or
confiscation after the 1992 deadline.
Handgun Control and the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence
sued Lungren and won a ruling from a San Francisco judge in
1997 that any registration of the banned weapons after March
1992 was invalid. Lungren appealed.
Lockyer, a Democrat who succeeded the Republican Lungren
as attorney general eight months ago, plans to ask a state
appeals court this week to approve the settlement, Barankin
said.
Lungren did not respond to a message left Tuesday on his
home answering machine by The Associated Press seeking
comment on Lockyer's decision.
Luis Tolley, the Western director of Handgun Control, called
Lockyer's proposal a victory.
``Gun smugglers and others who broke the law are now on
notice that the assault weapon law will be enforced and those
caught with illegal, unregistered assault weapons will be held
accountable,'' Tolley said in a written statement.
Sam Paredes, deputy director of Gun Owners of California,
accused Lockyer of going after owners who registered their
weapons in good faith.
``It is unreasonable to have citizens who tried to obey the law
and who followed the directions of the attorney general to be
forced to surrender their guns. That is ridiculous,'' Paredes said.
Nearly 50,000 assault weapons were registered by the 1992
deadline.
[This message has been edited by PEA SHOOTER (edited August 18, 1999).]