CALIFORNIA Governor Jerry Brown is calling for action on the part of the federal government, pushing for stronger gun laws and vigilance against potential terrorist threats.
Speaking from the convention center in Paris on Monday, Dec. 7, where he is attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Brown told CNN, “People are concerned. And I myself want to make sure that the federal government is vetting these individuals, and not just refugees, but we have to be able to take measures to protect the people of this country.”
The governor’s comments came in the wake of last week’s shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, where 14 people were killed by a pair of radicalized attackers at the Inland Regional Center. The massacre is being called the deadliest in the US since 2012, when 20 children and six adults were gunned down at an elementary school in Connecticut.
“My reaction is that the Legislature has been responsive on this whole matter of regulating and controlling the use of guns,” Brown said. “Now, when you do an initiative it tends to get more rigid.”
He criticized lenient gun laws in neighboring states Nevada and Arizona, saying, “California has some of the toughest gun control laws of any state,” reported the Sacramento Bee. “It’s time for other states and for the federal government to catch up with California.”
“We have among the strictest gun control regulations in the country, and it doesn’t do us that much good if other states and the federal government is basically passive in this effort to keep guns out of the wrong hands.”
The governor also accused several politicians of “demonizing” and “exploiting” the terrorism issue, calling out Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for going “to a rather extreme level,” for his inflammatory comments about tracking Muslim Americans and restricting incoming Muslim immigrants entering the country.
“That doesn’t mean we don’t have to be pretty intensive in our effort to ferret out these people who are developing these attitudes that then turn into mass slaughter. I don’t have the full answer, but I wouldn’t be too complacent that we’ve got it right yet,” Brown said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“It’s a very different circumstance because we’ve never seen anything like it. It’s unprecedented and we’re going to have to take some…unprecedented steps to deal with it.”
The governor expressed his desire for more collaboration at both the state and national government levels.
He also said that the US government should ban gun purchases by people on the no-fly list, siding with President Obama’s push for stronger national gun laws.
Brown promised to look at tightening gun control policies, such as Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed measure in October to ban the possession of large-capacity magazines, which Newsom said would set “the gold standard for meaningful reforms to stop gun violence,” according to Fox News.
“When it comes to this kind of terrorist threat, I understand that the federal government has to keep control of what it’s doing, but I think the state, with our greater manpower, could be a real help,” Brown said.
“Congress should get off their partisan seat and do something to protect the American people,” he added. “It’s about what can America do to combat something that’s not just bullets, but its ideas.”
