Semiautomatic Weapons

New Year's Eve marks the last day for Californians to forfeit an illegal brand of assault weapon--and get paid for it. A yearlong state buyback program offering $230 in exchange for the SKS Sporter assault rifle has resulted in the roundup of more than 600 weapons at police and sheriff's stations across the state. With the deadline at hand, some agencies reported a surge in gun returns this week.

This year, organizers of the annual holiday fund-raising raffle at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Lennox station have come up with a grand prize that will help the winner get the new century off to a bang: a gleaming new 9-millimeter Beretta handgun. At just $1 a ticket, the chance to pick up one of the powerful semiautomatic pistols that have become American law enforcement's sidearm of choice has made the contest a hit with deputies and the public.

At a little gunsmith shop in a Santa Ana business and industrial complex, owner Shawn Tugwell removes the offending pistol grip from a semiautomatic rifle that California will soon outlaw as an assault weapon. In its place, Tugwell screws on a substitute grip of a high-strength plastic molded to conform to the gun's original stock.

The kits for sale on James Michael Swain's table during last month's Great Western Gun Show at the Los Angeles County fairgrounds in Pomona drew a lot of attention. For inside the plastic bags were most of the parts allegedly needed to assemble a British Sten Mark II machine gun. During the two-day show, Swain is alleged to have sold the parts kits to three undercover agents and made arrangements to meet later in Newport Beach.

The man who sold Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold the assault-style pistol the teens used in their attack on Columbine High School pleaded guilty Wednesday to providing a weapon to a minor. Mark Manes was the first person convicted in connection with the April 20 rampage that left 15 dead, including Harris and Klebold. Manes, who attended Columbine, also admitted Wednesday that he sold Harris 100 rounds of ammunition the night before their assault on the school in suburban Littleton.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti on Tuesday joined LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks in calling for new laws that would allow for the collection, destruction and prohibition of all assault weapons. Garcetti and Baca also supported Parks' call for elimination of small, cheap, poor-quality handguns known by some as Saturday night specials. But Baca said he would not ban small handguns that are of higher quality. In a related development Tuesday, Sen.

Putting close to 1,500 gun owners in legal jeopardy, state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer has decided to drop a court fight defending his predecessor's controversial practice of registering semiautomatic assault weapons declared illegal by a 1989 state law. The decision means that the owners of almost 2,000 UZIs, AK-47s, AR-15s and 72 other types of assault weapons will face a fine and imprisonment if they do not turn in their guns, destroy them or take them out of California.

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, stepping squarely into the fierce debate over gun control, said Friday that every assault rifle and Saturday night special handgun in America should be banned, collected and destroyed. Parks said the shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills is proof that such weapons "have no place in a domestic society." The chief, in an interview with The Times, also pressed for tighter licensing and registration of guns and gun owners.

President Clinton urged Congress on Thursday to pass a tougher hate crime law and a "common sense" gun control statute to demonstrate the nation's revulsion at the anti-Semitism that motivated a bloody assault on a Granada Hills Jewish community center. Clinton's call for the country to "renew its commitment to our common community, our common humanity" won strong support from 29 leaders of national Jewish organizations who discussed the matter with him late Thursday in the Oval Office.

Everybody wants Buford. The feds want him. The state of California wants him. He would be public enemy No. 1 were he at large, rather than cooling his heels in a downtown L.A. detention jug. His is a face postal workers would have eagerly hung on a bulletin board at the post office. No need. The law's got him. Now everybody would like a shot at him--at convicting him, that is. At making sure that accused killer, child-shooter and senior-citizen-shooter Buford O.