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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Area dealers don’t expect run on guns

Local law enforcement officials and gun dealers anticipate little effect from Monday’s expiration of the federal ban on “semiautomatic assault weapons.”

“For us, it hasn’t been an issue,” Spokane County Sheriff Mark Sterk said.

During his six years in office, Sterk said, “we haven’t had to deal with a suspect with any kind of an assault weapon.”

Spokane Police Department spokesman Dick Cottam agreed that the guns covered by the expiring law have “not been a real factor in our crimes here.”

Two notable exceptions include the Chinese-made MAK-90 semiautomatic assault rifle a disturbed airman used in a June 1994 shooting spree at Fairchild Air Force Base, in which four people and an unborn baby were killed.

Also, a 30-round SKS assault rifle was one of the weapons involved in a shootout with Spokane police in January 2002 at the Intermodal bus and train depot downtown.

Cottam said the Police Department hasn’t taken a formal position on the assault weapons law, but Sterk said he has “all the laws on the books I need to deal with criminals who hurt people with firearms.”

However, both men expressed concern about legalizing large-capacity magazines – which can be used in conventional as well as military-style rifles.

Several local gun dealers say they don’t expect major changes in their businesses.

“It’s not a big part of our business, and it never really has been,” said Bruce Barany, secretary-treasurer of the General Store on North Division. “We’re not planning to make any big change in our inventory.”

Customers haven’t been clamoring for military-style weapons, anyway, Barany said. Mostly what he’s heard from customers is that “they would like to be able to get larger clips without having to pay an arm and a leg.”

The law limited the capacity of removable magazines, often called clips, to 10 rounds.

“Guys that go out target shooting, they hate to spend more time reloading than they do shooting,” said Matt Graupner, a clerk at the Spokane Valley White Elephant sporting goods store.

He also anticipates little change: “We’re more just the hunting guns. For hunting, you can’t have more than five rounds anyway.”

Dave Staley and Jim Brock, co-owners of Brock’s Gunsmithing on North Division, also expects pent-up demand for larger magazines to be the main effect of removing the assault weapons law.

“People are looking for the high-capacity magazines,” Staley said. “They want them for home defense. They just feel more comfortable with more rounds.”

At least one manufacturer, Glock, will immediately start shipping guns with the magazines they were originally designed to have. Designed capacities vary, but a couple of Glock handguns use 15- and 17-round magazines.

Aside from the restriction on magazine capacity, the law had little practical effect, Brock said.

The law ignored guns and magazines manufactured before it took effect in 1994. And, because the law focused primarily on cosmetic features, even banned weapons could still be produced with minor modifications, Brock said.

It banned some semiautomatic guns designed to look like fully automatic military weapons, but semiautomatic weapons without that appearance are just as lethal, he said.

Semiautomatic weapons require the trigger to be pulled every time a shot is fired. Automatic weapons that fire continuously with a single trigger pull have been restricted by federal law since the mid-1930s.

“It was a feel-good, liberal measure and it hasn’t slowed crime down a bit,” said Brock’s partner, Dave Staley. “The last time I heard, looks never killed anybody.”

But Everett Police Chief Jim Scharf, who is president of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, thinks appearances can make a difference.

“If you have a weapon that looks that way, maybe psychologically you take it to the extent that you are more prone to use it,” Scharf said.

Brock and Barany said they think military-style weapons appeal mainly to veterans who something that looks like their service weapons.

Scharf said he thinks most sheriffs opposed the law while most police chiefs favored it. He thinks the split probably reflects the difference between rural and urban lifestyles.

He said he spoke only for himself, not his department or his association, which has taken no position on the issue.

Despite his opposition to military-style weapons, Scharf said he finds no statistical evidence in Everett or elsewhere in the state that lifting the ban will increase the danger police officers face.

Most gunbattles in Everett are with criminals using conventional handguns at close range, he said.

The Washington State Patrol and Gov. Gary Locke wanted Congress to renew the assault weapons law.

“These type of weapons don’t really serve a legitimate reason,” said WSP spokesman Capt. Fred Fakkema. “So many of them come up with 50 or more bullets able to be fired without reloading.”