SACRAMENTO — As Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer sees it, if a bill now before Gov. Gray Davis had been the law, white supremacist Buford Furrow might have been prevented from killing a postal worker and wounding five people at a San Fernando Valley Jewish community center in 1999.
If the bill had been the law, Lockyer reasons, former Los Angeles Police Officer Angela Marie Shepard might still be free instead of locked in jail and facing a murder charge in the Aug. 26 shooting of a former USC basketball player.
In the cases of Furrow and Shepard--and in countless other examples each year in California--the subjects had no legal right to possess a handgun. They had been convicted of earlier crimes, and under California law, were forbidden from ever possessing a gun again.
Shepard allegedly shot former basketball standout Audrey Gomez during an argument. Furrow is serving five life terms for the murder of Filipino American letter carrier Joseph Ileto and the wounding of three children, a counselor and a receptionist at the Jewish center in Granada Hills.
Lockyer, who sponsored the bill, SB 950, by Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, complained that law enforcement authorities have no way of knowing in advance whether a suspected criminal may have purchased a handgun legally, been convicted of a crime later but kept the gun anyhow.
The bill would enable police on the street to tap into a proposed electronic database at the state Department of Justice. The information would disclose if the suspect was currently wanted for a crime or had a criminal history and no longer had the legal right to carry a gun.
Lockyer said that would give officers an extra measure of safety, "so when they respond to a 911 call late at night that indicates there is a domestic fight going on, they will know if there were prior convictions and there might be illegal weapons in the household." Now, there is no system for police to quickly find such information about gun ownership.
He noted that California long has prohibited gun ownership by mentally ill people and individuals convicted of felonies and certain misdemeanors, including domestic violence. But he said actual seizure of their guns has not been fully enforced.
"This bill would not be necessary if efforts were successful to [have authorities] acquire the weapon at the time there is a criminal conviction. Yet that often doesn't happen," Lockyer said. "Why? You'll have to ask judges that question."
