Gun-store owner takes aim at new law on registration

NEWS FOCUS: Kit can turn assault rifle into weaker weapon.

August 27, 2000

Related story: • Definition of assault weapons central to gun-control debate MOVED

By VALERIA GODINES
The Orange County Register

Frank Abramson used to take his rifle to his Villa Park High School wood shop class so he could build parts for it. No one flinched at the sight of the gun. The class project earned him a B.

That was 30 years ago. Times have changed. Water pistols are banned from some schools these days. There's a law regulating gun shows. A law on registering assault weapons. A law that limits handgun purchases.

From the Glock-lined counter in his gun store, the Anaheim man has decided enough is enough. He's trying to help his customers around the nation's toughest gun laws.

Abramson sells a kit that modifies AR-15 assault weapons so owners can try to avoid registering them as required by state law. He also hopes to legally sell the banned weapons with the conversion kits.

Gun-control advocates are livid, and the author of the nation's toughest gun-control legislation says he's researching a way to stop the work-around.

The Attorney General's Office has indicated that the modifications do not eliminate the need to register the weapons. California's Senate Bill 23, the nation's most sweeping gun-control law yet, went into effect Jan. 1 - the latest step in an 11-year-old gun-control movement that, depending on whom you talk to, is the best thing that's happened in this country or the most frightening example of the government taking away constitutional rights.

The state's Department of Justice has spent months working with gun groups, law enforcement authorities and gun-control advocates. During meetings that have been held around the state, including Orange County, many gun owners have said the guidelines in SB23 are too vague. Some sporting rifles qualify as assault weapons under the law, they argue.

The fight over gun control has intensified since a wave of gun-control legislation passed in 1989, six months after Patrick Purdy walked onto a Stockton playground and fired his semiautomatic assault rifle into a crowd. He killed five children and injured 30 others.

The state's 1989 Roberti- Roos law specifically banned 62 assault weapons, such as the well-known AK-47 and AR-15, by name. So gun companies simply made copycat weapons with different names. Then came SB23, which was based on characteristics such as protruding pistol grips and flash suppressors. Now gun owners are trying to change characteristics of guns to skirt this latest law.

"We anticipated that no sooner than the law would be signed that somebody would be out there trying to evade it," said State Sen. Don Perata, D-Alameda, the author of the bill. "You know, it is just very vexing to go through all this and sort of have a very small minority of gun owners -- even a minority within the minority -- who are bound and determined at all costs to evade the law, but I anticipated it would happen.

"What I hope is that everybody understands that the attorney general can always file a criminal action for willful violation or evasion of the law. Is it worth the trouble? Why not just register the thing?"

That answer is obvious, say Abramson and other gun owners who despise the new laws. Many gun owners fear registration because they think the next step is outright confiscation.

"People don't trust the government," said Abramson.

Rich Studenick, a Costa Mesa aerospace engineer who has worked on a petition to repeal the latest gun-control legislation, said gun owners are increasingly angry. They're tired of being seen as "redneck kooks who behave irresponsibly."

He said he resents gun owners' having to register and be "tracked like a child molester."

"It's insulting," he said.

"The debate is leading to a lot of anger," Studenick said at a gun show one recent weekend in Costa Mesa. "It's a fear of the unknown. Get some training and learn a little bit about them, and you will take the mystery out of it."

Mary Leigh Blek, the national president of the Million Mom March and a Mission Viejo resident, sees it differently.

Her son Matthew was killed with a Saturday night special in 1994 in New York City. Three 15-year-olds robbed him. When Matthew handed over his wallet, one of them pointed the gun at his forehead and fired.

Gun owners say the law is confusing, but she disagrees. "I think the message is very clear. The gun manufacturers were very eager to make slight modifications to an existing assault weapon and say we've changed the style and the name and voila," said Blek, a registered nurse.

"Now we've gone to a generic definition, and they're saying, 'Oh, it's so confusing.' Come on. We don't want this type of military-style gun in our communities, and we have the right to make those decisions for the safety of our kids and our family."

The Million Mom organization is calling for registration of handguns and the licensing of all gun owners.

Many gun owners view the weapons they own as a deterrent to criminals like those who preyed on Matthew. Many consider themselves true patriots. So they find it disturbing that they would be on the other side of the law by not registering their guns. So far this year, 2,000 people have registered their assault weapons under the new law, according to the state.

"I can say that 99.9 percent of gun owners want to comply with the law. They don't want to be branded criminals," Studenick said.

That's where the conversion kit comes in. If that kit can help them legally avoid registering their AR-15s, owners will jump at the chance, say gun-store owners. Abramson, who advertised the kit in newspapers in the past several weeks, said he sold out of them after the advertisement.

The kit has been around for 20 years. The original idea was that gun owners who wanted to target practice with assault weapons could save money on ammo. The conversion is simple, reversible, and takes less than a minute: Exchange steel bolts in the gun, and the 3-foot-long, 8-pound weapon can go from firing high-powered .223-caliber rounds to .22-caliber cartridges, one of the least powerful rounds made. The former have a bullet that weighs at least 55 grains and travels about 3,000 feet per second. The .22, at about 35 grains, goes about 1,100 feet per second. A box of 50 .223- caliber rounds can cost $12 or more. A box of 50 rounds of .22 ammunition costs about $1. The sales pitch has been: Use this kit, save money.

Abramson advertises it this way now: Use this kit, don't register your AR-15.

That sales pitch has dismayed the maker of the conversion kit, Jonathan Ciener of Florida.

"The kit is not going to assist you in avoiding registration," said Ciener. "The conversion would have to be installed permanently, and I don't know a particular way to do that. That is what I call a squirrelly thing to do. I have taken others in the industry to task. ... You are not helping yourselves. You are just adding more fuel to the fire. If you don't like the laws, elect the people who can change the laws, but if it is the law of the land then live by it."

Abramson said the state Department of Justice orally agreed with him that if an AR-15 had the conversion kit installed then the weapon would no longer qualify as an assault weapon based on the characteristics outlined in the 1999 law.

Instead of high-powered center-fire rounds, it would shoot the low-power .22-caliber rim-fire cartridges.

Nathan Barankin, spokesman for the attorney general, confirmed that it is likely Abramson did receive the oral OK. But the recent state Supreme Court decision has changed things, he said. It may mean that many of the guns that Abramson was targeting in his ad likely would have to be registered - conversion kit or no conversion kit.

"So no matter what you do to it, it's banned," said Barankin.