Measured gun control fight a rarity
The initiative is largely already part of state law, so opposition is limited
When Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom launched his gun control initiative last year, he began gearing up for a fiery confrontation with the National Rifle Association.
It came instead from the Democratic leader of the state Senate, Kevin de León.
Arguing that gun control would be better addressed by lawmakers, de León rallied the Legislature before its summer break to enact a series of laws, two of which effectively duplicated the two biggest ticket items on the ballot measure: background checks for ammunition purchasers and an outright ban on the kind of large-capacity magazines that are often used in mass killings.
But Newsom, who is running for governor in 2018, quickly refused de León’s call to drop Proposition 63 in the wake of the legislation’s passage. And that left Californians with a political anomaly: Instead of a knock-down-drag-out battle over gun control, they got a measure that is already mostly enshrined in state law and is seen as too much of a sure thing to attract fierce opposition from the NRA. So far, opponents have waged their fight via inexpensive online ads, while the airwaves belong to bigmoney fights over drug prices
and steeper tobacco taxes.
Newsom’s measure “last spring had all the makings of a titanic battle,” said David McCuan, a Sonoma State political science professor. “But it hasn’t materialized.”
So what would the measure do that isn’t already law?
A few things: It mandates that gun owners report lost or stolen guns; requires gun shops to report lost or stolen ammunition and make sure their employees go through background checks; ensures that gun thefts can be charged as felonies; and requires the state to share data on prohibited gun owners with the FBI. It also sets up a new system to force felons to relinquish their guns.
“It’s beyond me to understand why he wouldn’t want to see those things enacted,” Newsom said of de León. “With respect to his legislation, I think it’s grossly inadequate. It doesn’t go far enough.”
For gun enthusiasts, California has already gone way too far in restricting firearms. Over the past two decades, the state has passed more than two dozen such laws — including statutes that banned assault rifles, required handgun purchasers to first pass a safety test and made it illegal to carry unloaded guns in public.
“It’s just oppressive,” said Chuck Rossi, of San Jose. “We’re all just worn to exhaustion. Every couple of years, it’s more and more and more.”
Rossi, an engineer and shooting instructor, said that Proposition 63 and the overlapping state legislation would add new burdens for people like him who buy hundreds of bullets per week.
Not only would he now have to buy that ammunitionin person rather than through direct mail, which is typically cheaper, he would also have to surrender or sell to a licensed dealer magazines that can hold more than 10 bullets — which, he said, are standard in shooting competitions.
“This affects nearly every gun owner,” he said. “We’ve got magazines coming out of our ears.”
Eric Meyers, president of the Liberal Gun Club, compared California’s restrictions on firearms to what states like Texas have done with abortion.
“They’re making it as difficult as possible for gun owners to be gun owners and practice,” Meyers said. “When you start doing background checks on every purchase, you’re not doing anything to reduce crime. At the end of the day, criminals can go to Las Vegas and get as much ammunition as they want.”
Typically, gun rights advocates can count on a muscular defense from the NRA. In 1982, for example, the organization swooped in with millions of dollars to defeat a California measure that would have restricted the number of handguns in the state.
But with polls showing that at least 60 percent of likely voters support Proposition 63, the gun lobby has stood down. As of last week, the state’s NRA affiliate and other gun rights advocates had raised just $456,487. In addition, organizers of a petition drive seeking to overturn the gun control laws passed in June never raised enough money to pay for professional signature-gatherers and failed to collect enough signatures to take those laws to a vote of the people.
“All of the national progun groups have a very big fight on their hands with the presidential race,” said Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California. The NRA has enthusiastically endorsed Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton, who has railed against the organization and its political power.
“That is the A-numberone priority because appointments to the Supreme Court will determine the future of the Second Amendment for generations to come,” Paredes said.
For many gun control advocates, however, Proposition 63 is still a big deal even if the NRA isn’t treating it as such.
The most important provision at this point is the requirement that courts and probation officers certify that guns are confiscated from people who have been convicted of charges that make them prohibited from owning firearms, said Amanda Wilcox, the legislative advocate for the California chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
That job currently falls on the state Attorney General’s Office, but the task is dangerous and time-consuming. Currently, there’s a backlog of more than 10,000 cases.
“What Prop. 63 does is get the gun out of dangerous hands more quickly and efficiently,” Wilcox said.
The measure also would effectively overturn Gov. Jerry Brown’s veto this year of legislation requiring gun owners to report a lost or stolen gun. Brown and gun rights advocates say the requirement is unnecessary, but Ari Freilich of the San Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence said that people who buy guns to sell to individuals barred from owning guns frequently claim that firearms used in crimes and traced back to them were lost or stolen to avoid prosecution.
The big unknown, if Proposition 63 passes, is how the state will go about conducting background checks for ammunition purchases. Newsom’s measure would require purchasers to buy a $50 permit and track purchases in a new database.
But de León’s bill “pre-amended” the measure with a different background check system that uses the state’s existing database and includes more exemptions than Newsom’s measure.
Newsom called de León’s “pre-amending” the initiative without his consent “remarkable” and said it would be up to the courts to decide which approach becomes law.
De León, who had been pushing hard for new gun control laws before Newsom launched his ballot measure, countered that Newsom should have left the matter to legislators.
“We did our job as elected representatives and passed the most comprehensive gun control laws in the country — not outsource this responsibility to the voters,” de León said in an email. “This is about the well-being and safety of our communities, and we took action with legislation that goes further than the initiative in several areas. The lieutenant governor should be proud of that.”