State Senate Votes to Ban 5 More Semiautomatic Guns

The Senate voted Wednesday to add five semiautomatic guns to the list of nearly 60 firearms that are banned by the California assault weapons control law.

The upper chamber sent the bill by Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) to the Assembly on a 22-9 vote, where its future is uncertain. For months, another bill by Roberti dealing with assault gun registration has been stymied in the Assembly Public Safety Committee.

The latest bill would add these handguns and rifles to the prohibited list: the Feather AR-9 carbine, the California Armory Inc. D Max Semiautomatic carbine and pistol, the F.I.E. Spectre Double Action Auto pistol and the Australian Automatic Arms Semiautomatic pistol.

In 1989, California became the first state in the nation to outlaw the manufacture, sale, importation and advertising of military-style assault weapons. People who possessed them before the law took effect could register them, but the deadline expired last Dec. 31 before thousands of owners had registered their guns.

Currently, the law allows the attorney general, with the approval of a Superior Court judge, to add slightly modified copies of banned assault guns to the prohibited list. But the five guns contained in the Roberti bill do not appear to qualify as redesigned assault guns that could be banned by a court. As a result, they are subject to restriction only by the Legislature.

The bill would give legal owners of the five types of guns until April 1, 1992, to register them. It is supported by Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block and Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren and opposed by the National Rifle Assn., Gunowners of California and the California Rifle and Pistol Assn.