Lawyer Uses Skills to Zero In on Gun Lobby

She litigates. Relentlessly. With a laser-sharp focus that has delivered a series of body blows to an industry long accustomed to beating back efforts at gun control.

For 10 years, Weaver has been working to staunch the flow of "Saturday night specials" -- cheap handguns that cost less than a good pair of sneakers and are the weapon of choice in the criminal milieu.

In 1996, she helped West Hollywood officials draft and defend California's first local ordinance aimed at curtailing handgun sales. That success, despite a well-funded challenge by the gun industry, emboldened dozens more cities to tighten limits on weapons sales, making California a national leader in restricting handgun access.

"These are guns that have no legitimate sporting purpose," says Weaver, who lives in La Habra Heights and practices in Brea. "The gun lobby had bamboozled everybody" into believing that restrictions violated constitutional protections.

"But there are all sorts of ways to regulate firearms dealers, in the same sort of way you regulate liquor stores: You have to operate out of a business district, you have to have a local license, you have to provide security measures, you can't have minors in your store without an adult

"It's not an issue of putting them out of business but raising their level of responsibility. My task was convincing local governments that there are aspects of their operation that are well-suited to regulation."

For her efforts, Weaver, legal director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, was among three activists honored in San Francisco last month by the California Wellness Foundation with its 2005 Peace Prize for violence prevention.

"Some communities had more gun dealers than McDonald's" when Weaver's campaign began, said foundation consultant Laurie Kappe. "When she prevailed in West Hollywood, that opened up a willingness among others to take on the [National Rifle Assn.] and the gun industry. Sayre did such terrific legal arguments, it showed others this was a fight worth fighting."

Weaver seems an unlikely leader on such an emotional issue.

"Most gun control advocates come from a place of passion that's right on the surface," Kappe said. "Sayre's thoughtful, precise, very measured in the way she talks. She brings a surgeon-like precision to something that often gets clouded by emotion."