Posted on 09/10/2001 11:13:44 AM PDT by 45Auto
The debate over whether California should require a state license for the purchase of a handgun is over, at least for this year. Licensing lost. It has been amended out of pending handgun legislation in the Assembly and Senate, deleted by the bills' sponsors because it lacked the support needed to become law.
Licensing lost despite the Democrats' 2-1 majorities in the Assembly and Senate for almost any gun control measure. It lost despite a Democrat governor, Gray Davis, who has signed some of the most restrictive gun laws of any state in the nation. It lost despite the usual press clamor for still more limits on the right of law abiding citizens to purchase and own firearms.
Why did licensing lose? Because the sponsors of the legislation in question, Assembly Majority Leader Kevin Shelley, D-San Francisco, and Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena, couldn't make a sufficiently convincing case that licensing would accomplish anything useful. More to the point, they couldn't convince two of California's premier law enforcement organizations that licensing handgun owners was either necessary or advisable. And without solid support from law enforcement, Gov. Davis had served notice that he wouldn't sign any more gun control legislation this year.
The California State Sheriffs' Association, which represents the elected sheriffs in all 58 counties, and the 50,000-member Peace Officers Research Association of California opposed the original Shelley and Scott bills. That opposition was based on multiple objections, including the financial and paperwork cost to law enforcement and the new burdens imposed on lawful gun ownership. But PORAC in particular also cited licensing among its objections.
"What does licensing do? Where is the problem that a (handgun) license would solve?" rhetorically asks Randy Perry, PORAC's legislative advocate. Perry says PORAC -- California's largest rank-and-file police organization, which also represents 660 police associations -- has been working to change the Shelley and Scott measures from "licensing and registration bills to training and education bills." The latter goals make at least some sense, which is more than can be said for the licensing and registration requirements.
Licensing and registration are ideological goals favored by those whose core beliefs tend toward prohibiting private ownership of handguns, if not all firearms. No law enforcement organization in California supports such extremist objectives. PORAC and the California Sheriffs' Association also opposed as unworkable the original Shelley and Scott requirements that handgun purchasers be required to demonstrate proficiency in firing a pistol.
"It was very unclear how that would work," Perry says. "Then we found out that 22 or 23 counties didn't have firing ranges. In Northern California, you would have had people driving a hundred miles to get to a range." Next came hairbrained suggestions for requiring gun shops to install indoor shooting containers so that customers could fire a pistol in the store. Talk about unsafe and impractical, not to mention pointless! This nonsense would be laughable if these people weren't writing laws the rest of us must live with.
A modicum of sense prevailed, thanks to the Sheriffs' Association and PORAC. The shooting proficiency requirements have been dropped from both bills.What remains are requirements for a rigorous written test and, perhaps, a "safe handling" demonstration showing that the prospective handgun purchaser can safely load and unload the gun. Buyers would also be required to provide a thumbprint and submit their drivers' license for an electronic swipe.
When all this was completed, the California Department of Justice would then issue a safety certificate allowing the purchase of a handgun. Current California law already requires handgun purchasers to take a written test on gun laws and safety prepared by the state Department of Justice or, alternately, watch a video presentation covering the same points.
Some gun rights advocates call the safety certificate licensing by another name. They have a case, which is one reason these bills will still be controversial. But it will also be true that formal licensing and permanent registration were proposed in an overwhelmingly liberal Legislature, passed the Senate and Assembly on party-line votes, but ultimately failed because law enforcement and a politically attuned governor said no.
There's a final instructive chapter in the handgun licensing debate. Licensing advocates, including Sen. Scott specifically, claim that their legislation would promote safety and save "hundreds of lives." Unsuspecting readers might reasonably assume that hundreds of Californians are dying in handgun accidents every year.
Not so. Not even close.
Neither Scott nor anyone else knows for sure exactly how many Californians die in handgun accidents. The state doesn't bother compiling such statistics. But the California Department of Health Services does have figures on accidental fatalities caused by all firearm types, whether handguns, rifles or shotguns.
The total for 1999, the most recent year for which statistics are available: 46. Perhaps half that number is attributable to handguns. In a state with a population of 34 million, with millions of firearms in private hands, a fatal accident rate that low is evidence of commendably responsible and safe gun ownership.
Makes one wonder whether California really needs any version of the still costly and cumbersome Shelley and Scott handgun legislation.
VIVE LE RESISTANCE!!!
Well, a lot of gunsmiths have tanks for this purpose, but I'm thinking that a full indoor range with no backstop or bulletproof wall material might be just a touch objectionable to the neighbors, even it it's the local NRA field office...
I think you may be on to something. First we have to get guns store owners to move into a building that shares a common wall with a liberal politician!
I agree, we cannot afford to let our guard down. I do like to kick up my heels with any victory no matter how small because they are so few and far in between. Please bear with me while I celebrate before the next battle, thanks;-)
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