California’s tough gun laws are getting stricter

Jerry Brown Friday signed into law six gun safety bills that ban possession of high capacity assault rifle magazines, regulate the sale and possession of ammunition, expand background checks, limit loans of firearms and ban the resale of a gun to someone legally barred from purchasing it.

Democrats in California, which already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, have been pushing for new laws since a December mass shooting in San Bernardino left 14 people dead.

The successful passage of the bills, signed two weeks after the deadliest United States shooting in modern history in Orlando, Florida, offers a sharp contrast to the theatrical and unproductive fights in Washington DC over proposed gun control measures that some progressive activists don’t even support.

“Many want to blame those horrors and those terrorist attacks on law-abiding citizens”, said Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, speaking about the mass shootings in Orlando and San Bernardino.

Rick Zbur, Executive Director of Equality California stated, “The bills signed into law today are a historic step in keeping Californians safe from gun violence”.

Brown’s action will require people who own magazines that hold more than 10 rounds to give them up.

For the third time since 2012, he vetoed a bill requiring gun owners to report a lost or stolen firearm to authorities within five days.

Brown, a Democrat, also vetoed five gun control proposals on Friday, which pundits expected given his mixed record on firearms.

USA lawmakers have fallen short in attempts to tighten gun laws after the killing of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando last month.

The move angered the state Senate’s top Democrat, Kevin de Leon, who had been working to pass numerous same measures through the legislature. “What we’re doing in California is a better job of keeping guns out of unsafe hands”, said Amanda Wilcox, a spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, whose daughter was killed by a shooter using a high-capacity magazine.

Bans the sale of rifles equipped with “bullet buttons”, a small button activated with the tip of a bullet to easily discharge the magazine.

In an attempt to slow gun users from rapidly reloading, the governor signed a bill outlawing new weapons that have a device known as a bullet button.

“I continue to believe that responsible people report the loss or theft of a firearm and irresponsible people do not; it is not likely that this bill would change that”.

The enactment of the legislation leaves little doubt to the standing of California, which in 1989 became the first state to ban assault weapons, as a leader in gun control at a moment when Congress has rebuffed such efforts and numerous Republican-led states are moving in the other direction. Police or immediate family members must persuade a judge to sign off on what is called a gun violence restraining order, which lasts up to 21 days, but can be extended. “We know they were designed by the military to kill as many people as possible in as short of a time as possible”. While I appreciate the authors’ intent in striving to enhance public safety, I feel that the objective is better attained by having the measure appear before the voters only once.

That initiative is being championed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is running for governor after Brown’s final term ends in 2018.