Survival for the armed

Jonathan T. Lovitt

05/04/1992

USA Today

FINAL

Page 04A

LOS ANGELES - Bob Zirgulis watched helplessly Thursday night as rioters

burned down one of his two warehouses. But he saved the second one -

surrounding it with 16 men toting shotguns, rifles and pistols.

``We had our guns,'' says Zirgulis. ``People determined to stand up for

themselves survived. ... The looters went somewhere else.''

Many hundreds of people, alarmed by law enforcement's inability to control the

chaos, took up weapons throughout the riots.

Police were grateful. ``You get a guy standing over you with a gun and you're

not going to loot ... and that's fine with us,'' said Sgt. George Wright of Los

Angeles Police Rampart Division.

The rush to weapons began almost immediately after the riot's first vivid images

went out over TV.

Shopkeepers said some gun buyers were lifelong gun-control advocates, running

to buy an item they thought they'd never need - only to find themselves blocked

by gun-control legislation that requires Californians to wait 15 days.

``The customers were angry about the waiting period but they bought the guns

anyway,'' says Barry Kahn, who owns B&B Sales, one of the region's largest gun

outlets. ``These people were different from my usual customers. They were

definitely first-time buyers.''

But many buyers beat the restrictions, purchasing exempt ``antique'' firearms,

made before 1941.

In the Fairfax District, Jack Ferraris, 25, stood on the roof of his apartment

building with a half-dozen others armed with handguns, shotguns and baseball

bats. They also had a garden hose to put out any fires.

Amid rioting, there just aren't enough police to do the job, says Ferraris.

``In a city of 3 million people and 8,000 police officers you don't go into

something like this without a plan,'' he says. ``Nobody wanted to start anything.

We just joined together to protect the neighborhood.''

Anders Karner, 25, was also on the roof: ``The whole situation was out of

control. Buildings were going up in smoke. There was no way the police could

have protected us.''

Karner has been carrying his gun everywhere. ``I'm not sure whether I have the

right to do this. But my safety is more important.''

Others employed different tactics. Black-owned shops hung signs saying

``Black-owned and operated: Do not Loot'' with the name of a prominent

gangster, an enforcer, below. Along trendy Melrose Avenue, store owners

boarded up windows and hung ``for sale'' or ``for lease'' signs, hoping looters

would search for visible booty.

``What you saw in Los Angeles is the most graphic example of what we've been

saying for years,'' says Fred Romero of the NRA. ``That in times of anarchy the

only people without guns will be the people that need them the most. I can't wait

to see how the gun-control people rationalize this one.''

Responds Susan Whitmore, of Handgun Control Inc. based in Washington, D.C.:

``A decision to buy a weapon shouldn't be made in the heat of a moment. ... If

everyone was armed we'd have seen more bloodshed.''

CUTLINE:UP ON THE ROOF: Thursday, the day after the Rodney King

verdict, two Korean men stood atop a grocery store, ready to prevent looters

from entering.

PHOTO;b/w,John Gaps III,AP