After massacre, officials renew call for gun laws

SACRAMENTO — Calling on Washington to enact sensible gun-control laws after the recent mass shooting at a Florida high school, California lawmakers on Monday underscored their own efforts to tighten access to firearms across the state.

New bills this year would extend lost or stolen firearm reporting requirements to all state law enforcement agencies, expand gun violence restraining orders against people who pose a serious risk of harm and prohibit purchases of guns by people who have been convicted of domestic violence. Another would bar city, county and state agencies from giving out gun or ammunition store gift cards in exchange for voluntarily returning old weapons.

“The parents thought that their children were in a safe environment,” Assemblyman Mike Gipson (DCarson) said of the massacre in Parkland, Fla. “Those children would come home, do homework and eat dinner. Unfortunately, that was not the case.… We are here to say enough is enough.”

Spurred by the outrage over mass shooting, California lawmakers in 2016 sent Gov. Jerry Brown an unprecedented package of guncontrol bills, including a ban on the sale of semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines, background checks for those buying ammunition and new restrictions on homemade firearms.

Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) said President Trump did not give him hope the country would pass new gun laws after he failed to act in the wake of the mass shooting in Las Vegas. But he said California would take the lead when others would not.

“Movie theaters, offices, holiday parties, concerts, nightclubs, churches, colleges, high schools, elementary schools — these should all be places where we feel safe and can live our lives free of the threat of mass threat and destruction,” Bonta said. “Our children are screaming at us to do something.”