UNDER FIRE: GUNS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY : Voices : ‘People do more stupid, violent crimes. . . . And they always seem to have guns.’

THE JUDGE

Ask Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Richard Neidorf why he keeps a handgun within reach while on the bench and his answer is simple:

“Because of the crazies.”

An increasing number of the defendants he sentences, Neidorf said, are either unbalanced from cocaine use or have severe psychiatric problems--individuals who once might have been institutionalized but who have been put out on the street because of cutbacks in mental health funding.

“It doesn’t stop at the courthouse door,” said Neidorf, who has a concealed-weapons permit. “People do more stupid, violent crimes with more frequency than before. And they always seem to have guns.”

THE FUNERAL HOME EMPLOYEE

Business is good in South-Central Los Angeles at the Hobbs Williams Cooper Mortuary--”The home of beautiful work,” according to its ad in the Yellow Pages.

More shootings have meant more bodies to be embalmed and more funerals to be arranged, said spokeswoman Bernadette Jackson. But the upturn in business has not come without challenge.

“It’s difficult work for us--trying to make them look like they used to, especially head wounds,” Jackson said. “Bullet holes have to be closed and covered so they don’t leak.”

There have been shootings outside the mortuary that have disrupted funeral services, Jackson said, and even a brawl inside the mortuary’s chapel between gang members that resulted in 15 arrests.

“I see the bodies. I see the families crying. It’s very real to me.”

THE POSTAL WORKER

It is a long way from the turmoil of inner-city Los Angeles to bucolic Glendora, where post office mechanic Michael A. Pacer lives, but that doesn’t stop Pacer from sometimes slipping a derringer into his pocket when he and his wife take strolls after work.

Gang members, according to Pacer, “come to Glendora to rob.”

“Our only alternative is to arm ourselves,” said Pacer, a Vietnam veteran. “Everybody walks around and thinks they’re safe and all of a sudden you’re confronted with life-threatening danger and you’re never the same after that.”

THE BROADCASTER

“There is less reluctance to shoot someone, to injure someone, to brutalize someone than there was 10 or 15 years ago in Los Angeles,” said radio news reporter Pete Demetriou, who grew up in Inglewood.

Which is why he said he packs a pistol in the trunk of his car.

One night a few years ago, Demetriou said, he had a chance to use it when three marauders began stalking him in Venice. “I got to my car first,” Demetriou said, “and . . .they got within about 15 to 20 feet. I cleared the weapon, turned around, locked on the first guy and just didn’t say a word. They left. No shots fired.

“Things,” Demetriou lamented, “were a hell of a lot safer in the Wild West.”

THE EX-COP

George F. Ellers Jr. quit the San Diego Police Department after investigating a particularly gruesome murder-suicide. “I couldn’t take the gore,” he said.

Today, he wouldn’t own a gun if you gave him one.

It’s not that his Mid-City neighborhood always is safe, Ellers said. He takes precautions, watching people closely when he is out for a walk, or crossing the street to avoid knots of suspicious-looking men who might be armed.

“I don’t think our Founding Fathers ever envisioned what’s taken place today,” Ellers said of those who believe the constitution allows the right to bear arms. “A gun is so devastatingly final.”

THE LAWYER

Sometimes, when she is working alone in her Westside office late at night, attorney Donna Kobe straps on a shoulder holster with her .38-caliber revolver and feels better.

“If criminals have weapons,” she said, “then law-abiding citizens should have something too.”

Kobe said she first became interested in guns after separating from her husband, when she realized that there would no longer be anyone at home to protect her. Since then, Kobe said, she has become an enthusiastic supporter of firearms safety and recreational programs.

“At least I no longer worry about being a victim of crime,” she said, “because I am prepared.”

THE RETIREE

The Los Angeles Police Department classifies Thelma Hilliard’s neighborhood, midway between Beverly Hills and Culver City, as a low-crime area.

Try telling that to Hilliard, a retired airlines reservations worker.

Twenty-two years ago, when she moved into the neighborhood, there were never any shootings. Now, Hilliard said, “I can listen to gunshots practically every night.”

People have been robbed at gunpoint just down the street. A few have been shot. She no longer walks outside at night.

“It’s become more or less like ‘Gunsmoke’ around here,” said Hilliard.

THE ARTIST

The first time commercial artist Todd Waite of Tarzana purchased a gun was in 1984, after he was burglarized. He now keeps a .45-caliber pistol at home, loaded and ready for action.

Waite said he harbors no fantasies about “blowing away” an intruder.

“I would watch somebody take my VCR--keep the gun pointed at him--just so long as he wouldn’t molest my wife and kids,” Waite said. “I hope to God I never have to use it.”

THE SCREENWRITER

Call him Norm. He is a screenwriter who lives with his wife in Venice. Last year, after they had their first baby, Norm bought a pistol. And now, anytime Norm ventures out with his family, he straps on a fanny pack and tucks his eight-shot Colt Mustang inside.

He knows it is a misdemeanor to carry a hidden gun in public without a permit, but believes he has no choice: A man has to protect his loved ones against armed thugs.

“I know dozens of people who carry (guns) without permits,” Norm said. “There is a civil disobedience going on in this town which is massive--more massive than violations of marijuana laws in the 1960s.”

THE MOTORIST

Michael Limon used to have a temper when it came to rude drivers.

“If they popped off to me,” Limon said, “I’d pop off right back.”

But about a year ago, while waiting at a railroad crossing in East Los Angeles, Limon exchanged words with an angry passenger in another car and suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol.

“The thing that I remember,” said Limon, an office manager for a downtown law firm, “is that there was a little kid in the back seat of the other car. He couldn’t have been more than 4 years old and this guy was waving a gun at us.”

Since then, Limon said, he’s learned to keep his comments to himself.

“I was born and raised here,” Limon said, “and I just see it getting worse. It’s turning into an anarchy. It’s like you’ve got to carry a gun or something.”