San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
Two Firearms Bills To Face Senate After Passage In Assembly
AB 2847 and AB 2362 would revise microstamping laws, increase firearm dealer fines
By Evan Symon, June 15, 2020 6:15 pm
After being passed along party lines in the Assembly last week, two firearm bills that would update microstamping laws and increase firearm dealer fines will now face Senate discussion and voting this week.
AB 2362 and AB 2847
One of the bills, the Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) authored Assembly Bill 2362, is designed to allow the Department of Justice to impose higher fines on firearm sellers for each violation broken. According to the bill, fines can be as high as $1,000 for each violation broken, and $3,000 for each violation broken when the dealer had already received warnings about violations and did not correct them.
The other firearms bill, Assembly Bill 2847, authored by Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco), would change the current microstamping law by requiring a microstamp to be printed in the interior of the gun. The microstamps inside the gun, which imprints tiny markings onto cartridge cases for quicker identification by police, had been first made legal to use in California in 2013, following the passage of AB 1471 in 2007.
AB 2847 would also introduce a system of removing three handguns from the current handgun roster that are non-compliant with current laws for each handgun added.
Support for the bills
Both Assemblymen have said that their bills are for public safety, would reduce the black market for firearms, would lead to a reduction of criminal access to firearms, and would help the police solve more gun-related crimes.
“AB 2847, would require gunmakers to incorporate microstamping technology — to imprint microscopic characters that identify a handgun’s make, model, and serial number on the casing of every bullet that is fired,” stated Assemblyman Chiu. “Having this information is critical to solving countless crimes involving firearms, as well as to reducing the black market for guns.”
Gun control advocates also approved of the Assembly approval of the bills last week.
“Microstamping is a much needed forensic tool that will allow law enforcement to use data and science to help solve gun crimes,” said Brady: United Against Gun Violence President Kris Brown in a press release. “California has led the way in gun violence prevention solutions for a generation – it should be obvious that microstamping is another such innovative policy that other states should take up. This is a common-sense solution. It creates more data for law enforcement to utilize and removes variables and guesswork that can often be affected by bias from investigations. A policy that supports law enforcement and helps to keep communities safe is a clear win-win. Despite this, the gun lobby has stalled this progress since 2007. Today’s action reverses that decades-long obstruction and sets California back on the path towards greater safety.”
Opposition against the bills
Gun advocates, led by the NRA, lead the opposition against the votes, noting that AB 2362 would ‘drive dealers out of business for inconsequential violations‘ and that AB 2847 would ‘reduce the options you have to protect yourself and your family‘.
Firearm experts and dealers also disagreed with the bills votes.
“There’s a lot of tiny violations that could go unnoticed by many gun dealers in California,” noted lawyer Bill Kirk, who has represented gun store owners and dealers in court before. “$1,000 or $3,000 doesn’t sound like all that much for a business violation, but multiply that many more times and that suddenly becomes a big chunk of change. Smaller stores could be taken out without proper guidance.”
“As for the other possible law, while microstamping has been started to be accepted more and more as a reality, they buried that part about taking handguns off the list. It’s actually ingenious, like adding a last minute rider. You pick something both parties would be for or benign to, in this case just altering microstamping and not changing the current law all that much, and then tacking on reducing the number of approved weapons through approving new ones. Republicans and gun rights lawmakers definitely noticed this based on the voting. That’s the reason why many companies don’t want to bring new guns out to California too. Microstamping makes things difficult for them. Look at Smith and Wesson.”
“In this case though it didn’t have to do so much with those changes as it was to reducing the number of approved firearms when new ones were added.”
Both AB 2362 and AB 2847 are currently awaiting Senate discussion and voting. They are expected to be heard and voted on in the next few weeks.
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July 27, 2020 -
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Did these fools watch the riots.. All their crappy laws were violated and guns & ammo were everywhere. The more they squeeze us, the faster we slip between their fingers like sand.
Oh, that’s brilliant. Things are going all to shit clear across the board, so let’s make it more difficult and expensive for the law abiding (for now anyway) individuals in the middle to have guns to defend themselves. Despite what they and their supporters may think and say, the police are not going to show up in time, and they’ll defend themselves first before ever putting themselves at risk for the ‘Mundanes’.
(I can’t help but notice that both these guys are Asians, the products of a collectivist Confucian sub-cultural mindset, so maybe that has something to do with it. It’s completely at odds with the Western European individualist + high-trust cultural tradition, and it ‘s sure as hell at odds with the dependency + violent acting out/poor emotional control BLM Ghetto/Sharecropper subculture we see daily. Ditto being at odds with the Pobrecito/Crabs-in-a-Bucket/East of the Hajnal Line low-trust subculture you see in the Barrio.)
People resent being turned into criminals. (The real criminals will of course just ignore this law all together. ) And this yet again one more step of attempted bureaucratic overreach and micro-managing will backfire for the persons attempting it. Unfortunately, that will not happen before these laws and other similar poorly conceived regulations hamstring an already put upon public.
Just a thought.
VicB3
Don’t assume that because they are Asian that they follow that Confucian b.s. you just spewed off your uneducated mouth. They come up with this law because they are the crazy left wing nutcases that tend to infest such places like the SF areas and LA. We got a white governor who wholeheartedly antiguns and the ex governor Brown who signed several antifun laws on the books. Stupid gun laws comes from white left wing nutcases as well, if not most of them. Dont be dumb with your assumptions, CA is fill with shithole politicians White, Asian, Blacks, Brown and all. Stupidity doesnt have a specific color. Sir, I just hope you are NOT white, cause if you are your level of stupidity is an insult to the majority of decent white folks out there.
Because of these new laws, you can’t even find a handgun available for sale in a legitimate store. Rounds either. Sold out for months.
Well, there’s always your friend out of state…
More common than you think. And that includes your Pious Anti-Gun P.C. acquaintances.
Arizona vacation time anybody?
Just a thought.
VicB3
Every new law creates hundreds of new criminals out of law abiding citizens. Which is exactly the point. Trip you up one step at a time until everyone is a felon as soon as they leave their home.
Moved from “the South” to San Diego with the military back in the late 70’s. Went home for a visit a couple of years ago and on a whim decided to stop in a pawn shop. Inside, owner was at one counter cleaning up a deep-sea fishing rod/reel and his mid-twenties daughter was at the other counter putting a polish on a S&W .44 Mag.
Explained where I was from (as well as where I started, cause they gave me suspicious looks when I said I was visiting from California) and asked what the waiting period was for buying a gun. Without a moment’s hesitation, the owner said, “As long as it takes to clear your credit card.” I smiled and left with a warm feeling in my heart. Maybe I should move back.
In this time of (deliberately engineered) unrest, people are going to defend their families. If the law prevents them from doing so, respect for the law and its institutions will fade. I fear we’re reaching that tipping point, where a majority of the formerly law abiding public no longer worries about obeying the law. That will mean the end of the rule of law, and with it, civilization. Since nobody gets into or stays in power by being stupid, I have to believe that this is exactly the outcome the Left desires. They know what they’re doing, and what they’re doing is evil.
The cornavirus will solve all. The state is expected to lose up to 25% of its tax revenue due to its extreme lockdown. That means less police, less prosecutors and less judges. So the state legislature can pass all the feel good, yet ineffective laws they want, but without the ability to enforce them, they are as good as gone. And as crime rises, due to 20% unemployment, the people will find a way to get weapons for defense. I guess the Dem run assembly would rather people fight with knives, bats and hammers than have a stand off way to protect themselves. If any state deserves bankruptcy for its terrible anti-freedom policies, its California.
No guns? Than have and carry a Jo staff as a weapon
Hey Vicb3 Google rooftop Koreans. They weren’t anti gun.