WITH the New Year comes new laws, and in 2015 tougher gun laws will change the kinds of guns that can be purchased in California.
In July 2014, Governor Jerry Brown signed the anti-gun legislation Assembly Bill 1964, which bans the sale of single-shot handguns that can be altered into semiautomatic weapons. The law went into effect Jan. 1, 2015 and does not require reimbursement.
Current state laws allow gun shop owners to convert a semiautomatic handgun—not on the state’s approved roster—to fire single-shot only using a magazine plug and extended barrel.
“The restriction is not on the purchaser or owner, it’s on the dealer. There is nothing that says you can’t own a handgun not on the approved roster, it says a dealer can’t sell it,” said Steven Rubert, manager of Big Shot, a sporting goods and firearms store in San Diego.
The new change would make a number of the guns in the store’s inventory “partially useless,” Rubert added.
“We are either going to need to sell online or out of state to purchasers who live in a state where it would be legal for them to own it or law enforcement officers which we have a lot of here in San Diego,” he said.
Pro-gun groups such as the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA), a lobbying arm of the NRA, expressed its disapproval of AB 1964 on its website, saying it would “unnecessarily remove existing exemptions for all single-shot pistols, other than those with a break top or bolt-action” from the state roster, and “does not address any legitimate public safety problems and conflicts with well-established constitutional principles.”
Assemblyman Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento), who sponsors the bill, contends that as many as 18,000 of what he terms “unsafe” single-shot handguns were transferred in California last year. AB 1964, now signed into law, would halt this dangerous practice, he said.
“[AB 1964] would instead make the provisions defining and governing unsafe handguns inapplicable to a single-shot pistol with a break top or bolt action. The bill would make this exemption inapplicable to a semiautomatic pistol that has been temporarily or permanently altered so that it will not fire in a semiautomatic mode. By expanding the definition of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program,” California legislative information website states.
On the other hand, gun shop owners and advocates like Rubert are arguing that AB 1964 legislation would make business tougher for California gun shops.
“What it basically means is that we have a shrinking number of guns we are allowed to sell in California,” Rubert said, adding that some gun manufacturers are already pulling out of the market because of restrictions.
“There is nothing that makes these guns any more dangerous to their users or in a defensive situation. It really comes down to will the manufacturers put down the money to have their firearms approved for sale in California.
Another restricting gun law, AB 1014, will deny gun purchases and the possession of firearms to “at-risk” individuals who are more likely to commit violent crimes; for example those whom family members and law enforcement suspect to be mentally unstable and “poses an immediate and present danger of causing personal injury to himself, herself, or another.”
“It’s an opportunity to take guns away from people who are in moments of distress,” said Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara).
AB 1014, brought forward after the tragic shooting incidents in the Santa Barbara Isla Vista community, is essentially a court order barring the possession of firearms to potentially dangerous individuals.
Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber) opposed the bill, saying the answer instead is to end the policy of letting many people out of prison and jail early.
“There are some who will use every tragedy to take guns away from law-abiding citizens” Nielsen told his colleagues. “Let’s not release into our community without treatment thousands of mentally ill individuals.”
Authored by California Assembly members Das Williams and Nancy Skinner, AB 1014 would require a judge to sign a special Gun Violence Restraining Order to temporarily put a hold on the person’s right to own a firearm.
“This law was created in response to the Isla Vista massacre and was designed to apply to only the most extreme circumstances,” said Kaile Shilling of the Violence Prevention Coalition, which supported the bill. “By providing a temporary action, AB 1014 enables those close to someone who shows signs of being a danger to themselves or others a means to prevent tragedies that many see as foreseeable, but where loved ones did not have any recourse to protect public safety.”
(With reports from LA Times, FOX5 San Diego, KCET, NRA-ILA, Legislature.ca.gov)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend January 3-6, 2015 Sec. A pg.5)