Following a long-awaited Supreme Court ruling overturning a century-old gun law in New York, California, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the United States, has vowed to pursue many options to keep its residents safe, setting an example for others. countries.
On Thursday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Yahoo News shortly after judges ruled 6-3 in the New York Rifle and Pistol Association case against Bruen that the law was unconstitutional.
“Bruen’s decision is certainly a failure. … This undermines public safety. It makes communities, neighborhoods and children less safe, ”Bonta said. “It makes Americans less safe.”
California ranks first in the country in gun safety, with the gun death rate 37 percent lower than the national average, according to a 2021 analysis by the Giffords Legal Center for the Prevention of Violence with Firearms. The organization is led by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who herself was a victim of gun violence. In 2022, Everytown for Gun Safety also ranked California No. 1 in gun laws. Bonta attributes the reduction in mortality in the country related to gun violence to laws that “work.”
Katie Novotny walks down First Street with a sign protesting permission to carry a demonstration at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on November 3, 2021 (Tom Brenner / Reuters)
“California, in my humble opinion, is a plan for the kinds of laws that are evidence-based, effective, save lives, and make communities and neighborhoods safer,” Bonta said.
However, the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Second Amendment case made a major component of California’s covert carrying law unconstitutional. New York’s long-established law required gun owners to obtain licenses to carry concealed pistols in a public place for self-defense. Applicants for a license had to demonstrate a “correct reason,” in other words, justifying a special need for a concealed carry license because they were facing a “special or unique danger to their lives.”
In his opinion in the case, Conservative Judge Clarence Thomas claims that the New York government violated the Second and 14th Amendments by requiring people to show a “special need for self-defense” and by preventing “law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense.” needs to exercise their right to hold and bear arms. “
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California’s Concealed Wear Act has a similar language. Residents must demonstrate a “good cause”, defined as “sufficient evidence of a potential danger to life or serious bodily injury to the applicant, his / her spouse or dependent child, which cannot be adequately addressed by the existing law enforcement resources and what danger could not reasonably have been avoided by alternative measures and that danger would have been significantly mitigated by the applicant’s carrying of concealed firearms. “
California’s stable list of gun safety laws also includes a ban on assault weapons, provisions for ghost weapons, a 10-day waiting period for all gun purchases, red flag laws, age restrictions, universal background checks, and mental health reporting.
“Many of these laws do not apply in many states across the country. They do not apply at the federal level. If they were, lives would be saved – thousands. That is indisputable, “Bonta said.
Some of these laws include the so-called Red Flag Act, which California was one of the first states in the nation to pass in 2016. The law “allows law enforcement, family members, employers, colleagues and school employees to file a gun GVRO Order against a person suspected of posing a danger to himself or herself and others. “The order prohibits a person from possessing a firearm.
But Bonta says there are even more bills targeting the office of California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, that he says will strengthen their gun laws. He called on selected officials across the country to act.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, on the left, spoke at a news conference in San Francisco in June 2021, followed by Rob Bonta, the state’s attorney general. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
“We can do a lot that Bruen’s decision doesn’t affect or affect that we haven’t done yet,” he said. “If we had the will and if our elected leaders stepped up and carried it out, we could create communities more safely. We must pursue them. We must act, we must act states. The federal government must act. “
Newsom confirmed some of California’s next steps to public safety in a statement after the Supreme Court announced its ruling.
“While this reckless decision erases the robust gun safety law that has existed for decades, California is looking forward to it,” he said. “Our administration has been working closely with the Attorney General and the legislature for months. Our country is ready with a bill that will be heard next week to update and strengthen our law on public wear and to bring it into line with the Supreme Court ruling, just as Chief Justice Roberts and Judge Cavanaugh said states like California are free. to do.
Sen. Anthony Portantino, a Democrat who represents La Cañada Flintridge in Los Angeles County, is working with Bonta and Newsom to amend and pass Senate Bill 918, which will specify where weapons cannot be carried and clarify qualifications for obtaining of Permit. Bonta adds that more accounts are being developed for Californians.
“There is also a bill that is presented for signature by the governor, which the governor supports. Senator Bob Herzberg is an author who is modeled on SB 8 in Texas, but is used in a constitutionally appropriate manner where he has a private right of action, in which individuals can sue gun manufacturers, distributors or sellers of high-caliber weapons, weapons -ghosts or assault weapons that are already illegal and made illegal in a constitutional manner. “
Bonta stressed that many of California’s gun health laws remain intact, despite Bruen’s decision.
Although the court removed one component of the concealed arms scheme, the right cause requirement or the “good cause” requirement, it also clarified that there are many restrictions that are constitutionally permissible and that states like California can use, to keep communities safe, ”he added.
For example, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Concealed Weapons Act allows for the assessment of the safety of authorizing a person who wishes to have a concealed firearm, including background checks, fingerprints, and firearms training. Concealed weapons can also be banned in certain “sensitive areas”, including schools, courts, legislatures and government buildings.
It is also generally forbidden in California to carry open or concealed loaded firearms in most public places. An exception is made if a person has obtained a license by applying through the local law enforcement authorities. Individuals may also obtain permits from a sheriff or chief of police upon completion of a successful inspection, a firearms safety course, and proof of residence, work, or business in the county or city within the county.
The Supreme Court’s ruling follows a series of recent mass shootings, including massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uwalde, Texas, that killed a total of 31 people, including 19 students.
“I was thinking about the children in Uwalde and how we haven’t done enough to protect them and other children and other Americans in our country from gun violence,” Bonta said. “It’s a step backwards. This is a sad day, but the struggle continues and there are many, many ways, steps that can be taken to protect communities from gun violence that is not being done now. ”
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