September 20, 2001
What the Shoe Fanatics Make Doesn’t Fit, They Tinker Anew

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

The committed anti-gunners in government and lobbying organizations never give up. They don’t listen when experts advise against their schemes. And they don’t really learn from their failures.

Fanatically committed to their cause, they are always ready to try again and again.

A case in point is the California law requiring all new handguns that are to be sold legally in the state to pass a series of tests that were originally designed to eliminate a whole class of guns.

But as a recent Copley News Service article out of Sacramento makes clear, the handgun testing law has misfired and the anti-gunners are ready to try again.

The public safety scam that was their justification for the law in the first place has been unmasked. Hundreds of guns they believed would fail the test have passed, and a few of the ones that they expected to pass have failed.

The so-called cheap, easily concealed guns actually are better quality than they imagined, but the way they want to rewrite the law is to make the test harder, and impose more useless cost and paperwork on manufacturers, who have to pay for the independent testing. Needless to say, consumers end up paying more for the guns.

Few Have Failed
Here’s what the Copley News article had to say.

“A tough new handgun safety test designed to pinch the supply of cheap, disposable “Saturday night specials” doesn’t appear to be pushing many guns to the sidelines.

“Through its first eight months, nearly 600 handgun models have passed the punishing firing and drop tests, according to a list compiled by the California Department of Justice.

“The total includes an unknown but significant number of models that are only cosmetically different from each other—a chrome rather than blue-steel finish, for example. But it also includes at least 12 guns manufactured by the so-called Ring of Fire companies, a cluster of Southern California manufacturers who have been accused of flooding the nation with inexpensive handguns.”

The Copley News report went on to spell out that the legislation that required the safety tests originally was aimed at the “Ring of Fire” firms, such as Bryco Arms of Costa Mesa, Davis Industries of Chino and Phoenix Arms of Ontario.

“They tried to make the test so tough that those guns wouldn’t survive, but it obviously hasn’t worked,” said Bruce Cavanaugh of San Diego, a former president of the California Firearms Dealers Association.

It’s unknown how many guns have failed the tests. Private laboratories that do the testing are not required to report failures to the state, although most apparently do. Manufacturers also can, and do, resubmit weapons that wash out initially.

Gunowners, dealers and manufacturers say the new law has done little more than create another expensive, annoying paper drill that has had almost no impact on the availability of inexpensive handguns in the state.

As a result, just two years after the handgun measure was celebrated as another major gun control breakthrough in California, all involved in the debate are discussing a major overhaul.

Fix-It Plans
The Brady Campaign, formerly Handgun Control Inc., had been pushing for at least three years for legislation to curb production and sales of what they call “inexpensive, easily concealed” handguns.

Such a law proved difficult to draft, and the gun control movement ultimately settled for SB-15, which passed amid the post-Columbine fever of 1999. The measure decreed a series of safety tests, although supporters offered little evidence that many people were being killed or injured because handguns were poorly made.

To pass, three versions of each model must fire 600 rounds with no more than six malfunctions. Each gun is then dropped a little over three feet onto a concrete pad from six directions with the hammer cocked and the safety off. All three must withstand the test without discharging.

Although the legislation was signed in late 1999, it did not take effect until Jan. 1 of this year. Since then, the test results have not followed any pattern, those involved say.

In early talks on potential changes, the Brady Campaign and the Attorney General’s Office say they want to require labs to report all failures. They also say the state should have clear authority to randomly test a sample, perhaps 10% to 15%, of handguns that pass.

Additionally, the Brady Campaign wants to allow recalling firearms later found to have problems, and it would like to see guns tested with a standard, or recommended, ammunition.

“I don’t really think we know, unless we have the ability to randomly test and receive reports from the laboratories, of instances where a specific model has tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and passed,” Randy Rossi, who heads the AG’s firearms division, said.

“But this is a very tricky balancing act because we do not want to discourage manufacturers from submitting their firearms, improving their firearms and then having the public benefit from those improvements.”

“They managed to create a monster,” said Louis Baldridge, owner of the El Cajon Gun Exchange. “It has not accomplished what they hoped to accomplish, unless they wanted to make life more difficult for dealers.”

Police & Gun Locks
When the California gun-test law was passed, police were exempted, in part because they were supposed to know more about guns than the general public. But that brings up another subject, involving a study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which was published in the September issue of Injury Prevention.

The survey reveals that only one-third of police officers use a gun lock and fewer than half believe gun locks should be mandatory, according to Reuters Health.

The findings underscore the need to develop new gun safety devices, as many claim that easy access to firearms is thought to contribute to high rates of suicide, homicide and accidental injury among young people in the US. Roughly 35% to 50% of homes in the US contain guns, the authors note.

The study also reveals that some police officers do not practice what they preach. In several states, the authors point out, law enforcement has been a leading proponent of using gun locks through giveaway programs and firearm safety education programs.

“The general public looks to officers for gun safety advice, and it is thus important to have officers’ support when promoting safety devices,” Drs. Tamara Coyne-Beasley and R. M. Johnson, the researchers claim. “This research demonstrated that many officers do not use safety locks, probably because they believe these devices may hinder their access to their weapon if needed in an emergency.”

The researchers offered free, keyed cable gun locks to more than 200 police officers from an urban agency in the southern US and then surveyed the officers about their opinions on the locks and guns in general. About half of the officers collected locks and nearly three-quarters returned the survey.

According to results, African Americans and police officers with children were more likely to report using a lock. About 65% of those who had collected a lock said they were not using it, and 56% said the locks should not be required.

Reasons for opposing mandatory locks included the belief that it is possible to keep guns out of reach of children without locks, opposition to government regulation of gun ownership and storage and fear that locks would prevent quick access to guns. One respondent compared using a gun lock to “putting an anchor on a life jacket.”

The authors of the study stress that their findings should not be generalized to all police agencies. Rather, they highlight the need for further research into police officers’ attitudes toward gun locks.

If at first it doesn’t work, try, try again.