Why It Matters: Legislation seeking to restrict the Second Amendment is often eventually used as a vector of attack for hunting-related issues, just as restrictions on hunting are often used as a vector of attack against Second Amendment rights. Our issues are fundamentally intertwined given that firearms of every kind are routinely used in hunting, and many hunters are also avid recreational shooters. Therefore, it is important to be aware of these issues as they arise so you can have a full understanding of what may likely happen in the future and how it impacts our sporting community, even if Second Amendment issues are not your primary interest.
Highlights:
- Like happens every year, dozens of anti-Second Amendment and anti-sportsmen bills were filed in California this year.
- Many of them were defeated before they ever got published or received a committee assignment, and many more were defeated once they hit the floor.
- Of those that remained, only 16 made it across the finish line, and many were just language clarification bills, primarily in regard to domestic violence protective orders, and virtually all of them were amended so much that they will have a much lower impact on sportsmen and women in the Golden State, if they have any impact at all.
What started as a very aggressive anti-firearms agenda in the California Legislature this year, ended in a remarkably lackluster fashion for the proponents. Only 16 bills that have anything even remotely to do with firearms, firearms ownership, or possession made it to Governor Newsom, who signed all 16 into law recently. And while 16 new laws sounds like a lot, the fact of the matter is most of them will have minimal impact on sportsmen and women, if there’s any impact at all, thanks to amendments championed by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) and our partners within the sporting-conservation community.
The heavily amended legislation that ultimately became law is as follows:
SB 53: Firearms: storage – This bill requires residents to store firearms in a state approved safe or locking device when not being carried or immediately controlled. This is the most egregious and flagrant piece of legislation affecting our community that managed to pass. It was heavily amended and isn’t as bad as it began, but legal challenges are already being discussed.
SB 758: Firearms – This bill is an attempt to prevent people from bringing guns in from other states, such as a grandfather outside California handing down a firearm to a grandchild. Just as with SB53, this law is expected to be challenged in the courts.
SB 899: Protective orders: firearms – This bill requires the court, when issuing protective orders, to provide the person subject to the order with information on how any firearms or ammunition still in their possession are to be relinquished. The bill would also require violations of the prohibition to be reported to the prosecuting attorney in the jurisdiction where the order has been issued within 2 business days.
SB 902: Firearms: public safety – This bill establishes subjective standards for animal cruelty, including the so-called “over working” of hunting dogs, the consequences of which can affect the ability to purchase firearms.
SB 965: Firearms – Current law requires the California Department of Justice to conduct inspections of specified licensed firearms dealers at least once every 3 years, to ensure compliance with the law, and requires the DOJ to maintain specified records regarding these inspections and to make those records available upon request. This bill requires the DOJ to now also include in that report information about department staffing for conducting inspections, information about each inspection conducted, including violations and the resolution of those violations, and specified information about the roster of handguns, including information about handguns added to, removed from, or denied addition to, the roster.
SB 1002: Firearms: prohibited persons – This is a technical change to California’s “red flag law” that extends the possible length of prohibitions from the current 5 years up to 10 years.
SB 1019: Firearms: destruction – This bill defines the “destruction of a firearm” to mean melting it down. Many law enforcement agencies across the state were previously disassembling the firearms and selling the parts, considering the disassembly to meet the criteria of “destruction.”
AB 1252: Office of Gun Violence Prevention – This is another clarification bill that redirects where some of the current funding for the Office goes.
AB 2629: Firearms: prohibited persons – This is a language clarification bill as well, clearing up some confusion about definitions.
AB 2739: Firearms – Existing law prohibits the carrying of a concealed firearm except in certain places. Under existing law, a handgun carried in violation of this provision is a nuisance and is subject to forfeiture and destruction. Existing law also prohibits carrying a loaded firearm in public and openly carrying an unloaded firearm in public, except where specifically allowed. This bill would deem any firearm carried in violation of these provisions to be a nuisance and subject to forfeiture and destruction.
AB 2759: Domestic violence protective orders: possession of a firearm – This is another language fix bill to clear up some confusion.
AB 2842: Firearms – This is a companion bill to SB1019 noted above.
AB 2907: Firearms: restrained persons – Yet another language fix bill, this one affecting those with domestic violence restraining orders against them.
AB 2917: Firearms: restraining orders – This bill gives courts the ability to add firearms restriction time in 5-year increments if persons under a domestic violence restraining order continue to exhibit the behavior that got them the restraining order in the first place.
AB 3064: Firearms – This is essentially a study bill that tells the DOJ to research what constitutes a “firearms safety device,” how to define it, and if such things can be registered and tracked.
AB 3083: Domestic violence: protective orders: background checks – Still another language fix bill to existing law.
CSF extends its thanks to all our in-state partners who fought tirelessly to make the outcome of this session far less impactful to hunters and gun rights than in years past. We look forward to the next session where we hope to continue holding the line in one of America’s toughest states for our issues.
