Surge in prohibited gun owners found
When a man legally barred from owning a gun due to a domestic violence restraining order shot and killed his three daughters, a chaperone and himself at a Sacramento church in late February, it underscored the central takeaway of a stunning investigation from CalMatters’ Robert Lewis: California often struggles to recover illegally owned firearms, despite having some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. That finding was reinforced Wednesday, when Attorney General Rob Bonta released a report on a state database that tracks people who possess registered guns despite being banned from owning them due to a criminal conviction, mental health issue or other court order.
Robert identified some key takeaways:
• California is adding people to the system faster than agents are able to get people out by removing guns. At the start of 2022, California had a record 24,509 prohibited people in the database — up from 23,598 at the same time last year. Of those, 21% were blocked from owning a gun due to a restraining order.
• Meanwhile, the number of known firearm owners in California continues to rise: The state had about 3.2 million at the start of this year, compared to 3 million at the start of 2021 and less than 2 million at the start of 2016.
• The Department of Justice is struggling to hire and retain agents who confiscate the guns. A whopping 23 of 76 authorized positions were vacant at the start of this year, compared to 25 out of 75 last year.
• Finally, the database has a big caveat: It doesn’t track unregistered guns. Yet “ghost” guns — firearms that don’t have serial numbers and can’t be traced — are rapidly proliferating in California. San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata on Tuesday announced plans to offer cash rewards for information leading to the seizure of ghost guns.
In other gun news this week: A key legislative committee rejected a bill that would require parents to tell school districts if they keep guns at home — but its author, Democratic state Sen. Anthony Portantino of Glendale, can bring it back later for another vote.
Fentanyl bills a tough sell
Also facing an uphill battle in the Legislature: a series of proposals that aim to address California’s fentanyl epidemic by strengthening punishment for dealers. The extremely addictive and powerful synthetic opioid caused an estimated 64% of California’s record-high 10,000 fatal drug overdoses in the yearlong period that ended April 2021, according to recent estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But cracking down on fentanyl dealers could prove to be a tough sell in the supermajority-Democratic Legislature, which generally favors rehabilitation programs over adding penalties that could result in longer sentences.
• Democratic Assemblymember Cottie PetrieNorris of Laguna Beach on Tuesday unveiled a bill that would, among other things, allow prosecutors to pursue a sentence of 20 years to life against defendants who distribute fentanyl resulting in a fatal overdose, establish as a felony the possession of two grams or more of fentanyl, and add enhancements for selling fentanyl in areas near kids or on social media. “Despite the fact that this is a common sense proposal, we are facing an uphill battle to move this through the Legislature,” she told the Los Angeles Times.
• Indeed, the same day Petrie-Norris announced her bill, a similar proposal from Republican Assemblymember Janet Nguyen of Garden Grove failed to pass the Assembly Public Safety Committee. However, Nguyen can bring it back later for another vote.
• To help drum up support for her bill, PetrieNorris launched a petition to urge lawmakers “to increase penalties to deter traffickers from poisoning kids with fentanyl.”
Meanwhile, state Sen. Richard Pan, a Sacramento Democrat, is set today to join youth advocates and substance abuse groups to promote a bill that would, among other things, require many cannabis products and advertisements to have larger warning messages and mandate retailers to give first-time buyers a brochure about safe cannabis use and health risks.