How California got tough on guns
The modern American gun debate began in 1967, when 30 protesting members of the Black Panther Party marched into the California Capitol with loaded handguns, shotguns and rifles. In California there were few restrictions on carrying loaded weapons in public.
That soon changed. The Panthers' efforts to “police the police” already had led Republican Assemblyman Don Mulford to propose legislation to ban the “open carry” of loaded firearms within California cities and towns. After the Panthers showed up in the Capitol, his bill sailed through and was signed by then-gov. Ronald Reagan. It's hard to say which now seems more unlikely: that two dozen revolutionaries could legally stroll into the state Assembly chamber with semi-automatic rifles, or that a Republican governor would champion stricter gun control.
In the years since, California's progressive politicians have layered on restrictions while gun owners and manufacturers continue to try to find their way out of them. And every new mass shooting — most recently the one on April 3 that killed six people just blocks from the state Capitol — reignites the debate.
On June 4, 2021 — National Gun Violence Awareness Day — a federal judge deemed California's ban on assault weapons a “failed experiment” and unconstitutional, although he stayed his own ruling to give the state time to appeal, which it did. And on June 21, 2021, a threejudge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the judge's decision while other gun cases are pending. The case could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A 2016 ballot measure championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom required background checks to purchase ammunition, but that and another provision of the measure, banning highcapacity magazines were both declared unconstitutional by a federal district court judge. On Nov. 30, 2021, the ruling on magazines was reversed by a federal appeals court. It was a win for the state, but potentially a short-lived one. Gun rights activists plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in. But it's also possible that the ruling could lead to one upholding the ban on assault weapons.
The battle continues. This year Newsom has responded to a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing a strict Texas abortion law to stay in place by threatening a similar California law on assault weapons and “ghost” guns. Democrats including the governor, Attorney General Rob Bonta and key legislators are now pushing legislation that would allow private lawsuits against gun makers and sellers, just as the Texas law permits them against abortion providers.
Newsom denounces “a gun lobby willing to sacrifice the lives of our children to line their pockets.” A National Rifle Association spokesman predicts the Trump-altered Supreme Court means “winter may very well be coming for gun laws in California.”
How strict are California's gun laws compared to other states?
California has a reputation for being tough on guns. That reputation is well-earned.
Researchers at Boston University have counted 111 California laws that in some way restrict “the manner and space in which firearms can be used.” They include regulations on dealers and buyers, background check requirements, and possession bans directed at certain “high risk” individuals.
By their count, no other state out-regulates California when it comes to sheer quantity of rules. And we've held that top spot since at least 1991, the year the researchers started counting.
The Giffords Law Center To Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control advocacy group, awarded California one of only two “A” grades in its 2020 state gun law scorecard.
“There are not a lot of As out there,” said Ari Freilich, the organization's California legislative affairs director. “California has driven the conversation nationally.”
In contrast, Guns and Ammo magazine labeled California the 5th worst state for gun owners. (Washington D.C. was the top jurisdiction, followed by New York.)
California's pattern: tragedy, legislation, repeat
The story of how California became, according to many, the state with the nation's most restrictive gun laws has largely followed a familiar pattern: alarm or tragedy, then a legislative response.
How does gun violence in California compare to elsewhere?
The United States is not an especially crime-ridden nation. Overall crime rates here are roughly on par with other high-income countries. Where the country stands out— way out—from its international peers is in gun violence.
The U.S. has a gun death rate (all causes of death, including suicide and accidental death) of roughly 11 per 100,000 people. According to research out of the University of Washington, that puts the U.S. in the company of Panama and the Dominican Republic.
Recently guns became the second leading cause of death of children and teens across the country.
At 7.5 gun deaths per 100,000, gun violence in California is much lower than the national average. But that isn't particularly low by international standards. We have roughly the same gun fatality rate as South Africa. In 2019, 2,945 Californians were killed by guns.
Homicides and suicides by gun claim very different victims
Firearm fatalities are a disproportionately male tragedy. According to research from UC Davis, men are more than seven times more likely to be killed by someone else with a gun than women. Men are also more than eight times more likely to take their own lives with a firearm.
While mass shootings seize public attention, they do not claim the most lives. Half of gun deaths in California are suicides — a disproportionate number of them among white men over the age of 50. Most gun homicides, meanwhile, are not high-profile acts of mass carnage, but random outbursts of violence that strike communities least likely to draw news crews.
Brave new world: The tech future of guns
California is often considered the innovation hub of the United States. Why should it be any different for guns?
The state's tough firearm laws have led “many entrepreneurs to `innovate' ways around the law,” said Ari Freilich of the Giffords Law Center To Prevent Gun Violence.
Consider the case of the bullet button.* In 2001, California expanded its ban on new “assault weapons”* to include any modern semi-automatic rifle* with a detachable magazine* and at least one of a handful of other features, including a protruding pistol grip* or an adjustable stock*. To get around the ban, many gun owners came up with a solution: install a small lock on the magazine that can be easily opened with a small tool (or the tip of a bullet).
Legally speaking, that tiny bit of hardware would transform a contraband assault weapon with a detachable magazine into a perfectly legal rifle with an ever-so-slightly-less detachable magazine.
In 2017, California lawmakers caught on and amended the law. That prompted the development of yet another workaround device: the Patriot Pin. And so the arms race over arms design continues in California.
With so many regulations now in place on newly manufactured firearms, many gun enthusiasts are simply building their own guns—or at least, they're putting together the final pieces.
One of the most popular firearm products in California are “80 percent” or “unfinished” receivers.* Receivers are the central frame of a firearm onto which all the other components are connected. “Unfinished” simply means it lacks a few cavities and holes. But legally, that makes all the difference. Under both federal and California law, an unfinished receiver is just an elaborately shaped piece of metal. Under a law passed in 2016, Californians with home-finished receivers were given until January 1st of 2019 to register their gun with the state. It's not clear how widespread compliance has been.
Still, plenty of lawmakers are worried about the spread of unidentifiable “ghost guns.” In 2017, a man with two home-built semi-automatic rifles killed five people and shot up an Elementary School in Tehama County. In 2019, a man killed a highway patrol officer in Riverside County with a home-assembled Ar-15-style rifle. A student at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita also used a kit-assembled weapon to murder two fellow schoolmates before killing himself. In 2016, a proposal to designate unfinished receivers as legal “firearms” passed both the Assembly and Senate, but was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
“By defining certain metal components as a firearm because they could ultimately be made into a homemade weapon, this bill could trigger potential application of myriad and serious criminal penalties,” Brown wrote in his veto message.
But with a new governor came a new approach. In 2019, Gov. Newsom signed a law requiring anyone hoping to purchase an unfinished receiver to undergo a background check. The law doesn't go into effect until 2024.
And in 2021, newlyelected president Joe Biden followed suit. In early April, Biden announced three new executive orders aimed at curbing gun violence.
One would require unfinished receivers to be etched with a serial number and subject ghost gun purchasers to a background check.