Senator Lois Wolk, who represents Davis and parts of Yolo County in the state senate, and 20 other members of the state senate, on Friday introduced Senate Joint Resolution 1 urging Congress and President Barack Obama to enact a comprehensive gun violence prevention policy that includes prohibiting the sale of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and strengthening criminal background check requirements.
“We know that unregulated access to these and other dangerous weapons result in horrific tragedies, including the most recent mass shootings, but also the daily carnage on the streets and in homes all over America. We have a duty to do whatever we can within our constitutional boundaries to strengthen laws to reduce access to these inappropriate weapons, as well as preventing other firearms from getting into the hands of felons and other dangerous individuals,” said Senator Wolk, the resolution’s lead author.
“More than 30,000 deaths result from gun violence every year. Just in the month following the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, which resulted in the death of 20 children and 6 adults, a reported 900 Americans were killed by guns,” she said. “I know we can help protect our communities from gun violence while also protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The two goals are not mutually exclusive.”
SJR 1 urges the President and Congress to place generically defined assault weapons and high-capacity assault magazines under the scope of the National Firearms Act of 1934, as is the case in California.
The Act regulates the possession and transfer of fully automatic machine guns through background checks, registration, and excise taxes, but individual states are able to enact their own stronger gun legislation and regulations. Seven states, including California, have enacted laws strictly regulating the possession, manufacture and transfer of assault weapons.
SJR 1 also supports federal legislation to require universal background checks for all firearm transfers, using the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which can instantly determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms or explosives.
SJR 1 also requests the President take steps to ensure all states and applicable federal agencies report all necessary records to the federal background check system. It is estimated that 40 percent of firearm transfers are completed without a federal background check, including the transfer of semiautomatic firearms from private collections.
“As a hunter and gun owner I believe we should protect a law-abiding individual’s Second Amendment right to own firearms. I will never give up my guns or ask lawful Americans to give up theirs. As a father and grandfather, I also believe we have a responsibility to keep our communities safe. We can do both,” said Rep. Mike Thompson who formerly represented Davis and parts of Yolo County in Congress, and is chairman of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“There is no law or set of laws that will end gun violence, but that can’t be an excuse to do nothing. We need to take a comprehensive approach where everything is on the table and everyone is at the table,” he added.
This week, the President asked Congress to ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 rounds, and to close background check loopholes for gun buyers. He also enacted 23 executive measures, including a requirement that federal agencies make relevant data available to NICS and an order to improve incentives to encourage states to share information with the background check system.
“I applaud the work of the President, Rep. Thompson, and all others who are working to take federal action on this important issue, and I urge the President to stand by his pledge to take comprehensive, meaningful action to prevent gun violence,” Senator Wolk said.
“A majority of the California Senate is now on record supporting a federal ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines, as well as universal background checks. These measures are already in place in California,” she said. “But our borders are porous, and since only a small number of states regulate assault weapons and high-capacity assault magazines, Californians remain vulnerable to weapons purchased elsewhere and brought illegally into our state. Without a comprehensive federal approach to curbing gun violence, our laws will fall short of providing the security our citizens expect.”
Earlier this week, Senator Leland Yee, one of the co-authors of SJR 1, submitted legislation to strengthen California’s assault weapon ban.
“Four weeks after the tragedy in Newtown, like most people, I am still shocked,” said Senator Yee. “Our country has changed forever. While we cannot stop every senseless act of gun violence, the significant rise of mass shootings demonstrates that we must take steps to close the loopholes that currently exist in California. These bills will lower the likelihood of a mass shooting and limit the casualties when such an incident occurs.”
Specifically, Senator Yee’s SB 47 will prohibit the use of the bullet button and other devices that allow for easily changeable magazines on all military-style assault weapons, such as AR-15s. Under SB 47, featured weapons would only be allowed to have low capacity (10-round) ammunition magazines that could not be changed without dissembling the weapon. Essentially, bullets could only be loaded one-by-one from the top of the gun.
Senator Yee’s SB 108 will require all guns to be properly stored when not in the possession of the owner. Current law only requires that gun owners own a trigger lock or safety lock box for their weapon, but doesn’t require the safety device to be used on an idle firearm.
Senator Yee’s bill will specifically require that all guns be properly stored with a trigger lock or in a lock box at a residence when the owner is not present.
In support of Yee’s legislation, the President of the California Brady Campaign, Dallas Stout, Psy.D, said, “California enacted the first ban on assault weapons in the country after a deranged man shot and killed five children and wounded thirty others at a Stockton Elementary School in 1989. The ban has saved lives and has reduced gun deaths for over 20 years. We won’t let unscrupulous gun manufacturers get away with modifying their guns to try to get around California’s Assault Weapon Ban.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Lois for Congress!
I agree. How about Senator Lois Wolk? To replace Dianne Frankenfeinstein. The hypocrite Senator demanding gun bans while she packs and carries herself.
I fully support the efforts of all who are working to balance the second amendement rights of law abiding gun owners ( and I do mean all laws including those concerning safe handling and storage), with those of us who do not feel safer with the gun usage practices of our neighbors and indeed would feel safer with no privately owned weapons.
However, having said this I do think that we are missing a major piece of the picture which is put forward, usually in one sided rants by prominent NRA spokesmen. We are indeed a culturally very violent society. We tend to be driven by the excesses of our emotions ( thus the posts and articles about people “loving” or “hating” certain politicians when what we mean is that we do not like their policies) and freely use very derogative terms for those we perceive as our ideologic enemies. As usual, with any problem, because of my training, I tend to see the best solution as prevention. So for me, the only way to stop “a bad guy with a gun” is not “a good guy with a gun” but rather to have prevented the “bad” guy from getting the gun in the first place, or better yet, prevent those urges that led him to being a “bad guy” instead of a “sick guy” or “guy being driven by his immediate emotional state” in the first place.
What I would add to all the current efforts is a major emphasis on anger management. We should be teaching our children as well as ourselves how to handle our negative feelings in a constructive or neutral manner rather than in the destructive manner that seems to be the go to solution for many who find themselves in transient emotional distress. For me this is more a public health issue than it is a second amendment issue and we will not make much progress until we are willing to admit that no one is perfect and there is not a clear distinction between “the good guys” and “the bad guys” as some would like to portray. After all, every one of these “bad guys” would have been defined as a “good guy” right up until the moment he began shooting.
Jeff, this is from about.com (for what that’s worth):
“Senator Feinstein is a staunch gun control advocate. Despite her stance, in the 1970s, she obtained a concealed firearms carry permit, and carried a handgun with her. A CCW permit was then rare in California, and was the only such permit in San Francisco. At the time, she was the target of a terrorist group that had shot out all the windows in her home. She no longer carries a gun.”
I would love to see Lois run for statewide office.
[i]After all, every one of these “bad guys” would have been defined as a “good guy” right up until the moment he began shooting[/i]
That theory is not supported by the facts.
Bad guys are those lacking morals and ethics, and would break laws and the social rules of common decency to materially harm others for personal gain.
With the exception of the mental health problem, it is real simple medwoman. Really it is. But it is folks with your political bent that make it impossible to do the simple.
The simple solution is to increase gun crime punishment to a zero tolerance level, and to require stop-and-frisk protocol in all major dense population area where there is a high level of gun violence. That would effectively eliminate most crime by gun. New York took this approach when Mayor Rudy Giuliani hired Bill Bratton as the new Chief of Police. Two years after Chief Bratton left his job in New York, murders fell by 70%, robbery 55%, burglary 53% and car theft 61%.
But liberals fought stop-and-frisk and complained about the cruelty of tough penalties, and so here we go again.
And what about a national database of people diagnosed with certain classes of mental health problems? How do you feel about that? Would you support it? If not, then again, you contribute to difficulty solving gun violence problems.
Working to get more mental health data in the background check database was one of the President’s executive orders.
I support most of what the President is pushing for, except gun bans.
I think the clip size ban is also a worthless feel-good thing.
“Conservative” and “Democrat” are no longer two words that can be combined in the same sense. Why is there panic buying ? It’s because people know that the powers that be are really bound and determined to take away and outlaw anything related to firearms.
I hear politicians use words like Clips and Assault-rifles. Those are both incorect terms. A hammer, baseball bat, or golf club could be used to commit assault. you wouldn’t call them and assault-hammer, or assault-pitching wedge. You think if you were going to argue about something you would educate yourself as much as possible about it.
They’re not remotely interested in promoting public safety, they’re only interested in consolidating their power over the public. They’re not just focused on guns this time, they’re going after the ammunition as well, plus wanting to ban the private sale and transfer of guns between individuals, this will make it illegal to pass down your guns to your kids when you pass on.
They want control of EVERYTHING you do in life. This is how dictatorships work, not America. I laugh when I hear any of them say that “I’m not going to take away your guns” They’re speaking the truth when they say that THEY won’t. They WILL get someone else to do their dirty work. This is how they operate and how they justify themselves You HAVE to take EVERYTHING they say at their word.
Thank God for Lois Wolk. At least Davis has one decent, intelligent person representing us in the state Capitol.
Something weird I learned today is that [b]there are no federal laws which require states to submit the names of any mentally ill persons to the National Instant Background Check System ([url]http://lexicondaily.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-are-states-not-required-to-submit.html[/url])[/b], not even those who have been hospitalized because they are a danger to society. And there are a handful of states which have submitted no names or no more than a half dozen names to the FBI.
The reason for not submitting these names seems primarily to be driven by a civil liberties concern, in liberal states (like Massachusetts) where the rights of psychotic people to own guns is prioritized over the rights of everyone else from not being threatened by them from owning guns.
A secondary reason (in states like Idaho, for example) is a right-wing anti-federal government stance, driven by “states rights” concerns*. However, most conservative states (in the South and elsewhere) have submitted the names of their locked-up mentally ill to the NICS. The conservative states which have not are outliers.
*This was why Virginia never submitted any names until a psychotic gunman/student murdered 32 other students at Virginia Tech. Once that happened, the bogus “states rights” claim was dropped, and now Virginia is the most compliant state.
[i]”I think the clip size ban is also a worthless feel-good thing.”[/i]
You are wrong.
If Jared Lee Loughner could have only had 10 rounds in his clips, he would have killed and wounded 1/3rd the people he did, the day he shot up a Safeway parking lot in Tucson, Arizona.
Loughner was stopped when his first clip (33 rounds) was empty. He then grabbed a second clip, and that fell from his hand, and at that point a man in the crowd then had a chance to slam Loughner in the head with a folding chair, as he was loading a third 33-round clip.
This same fumbling with the clips would have taken place if Arizona, like California, limited clips to 10 rounds. But, assuming the same percentage of killed and wounded and shots missed, instead of 6 dead and 13 wounded, Loughner would have killed 2 and wounded 4. In other words, 4 people who died would not have died. And 9 more who were shot would not have been shot. There is no reason a civilian needs 33 rounds in a clip. Only mass murderers need that many shots.
[url]http://www.gunownersca.com/images/DAgostini-VP_Biden_letter.pdf[/url]
John D’Agostini, the Sheriff of El Dorado county joins the growing list of county Sheriffs who refuse to enforce unconstitutional firearms laws.
You believe county sheriffs should determine the constitutionality of laws? Where in the constitution is that particular part of their job description?
[i]”John D’Agostini, the Sheriff of El Dorado county joins the growing list of county Sheriffs who refuse to enforce unconstitutional firearms laws.”[/i]
I applaud any public official who refuses to enforce laws which have been ruled unconstitutional. However, Mr. D’Agostini has no right to decide which laws are constitutional and which are not.
If, on the other hand, Mr. D’Agostini believes a law is unconstitutional, and the courts do not agree with him or have not yet ruled on their constitutionality, and Mr. D’Agostini does not want to enforce that law, he should resign his office, if he wants to take a stand on principle. And if he does not resign, he should be thrown out of office for dereliction of duty.
[quote]You believe county sheriffs should determine the constitutionality of laws? Where in the constitution is that particular part of their job description? [/quote]
“YES”
Can we agree that a gov’t without limits results in servitude of the citizens? The BOR, and especially the 2nd A protect the citizens ability to keep their gov’t in check. The gov’t works for the people because the gov’ts power comes from the people. When the people with all the guns are in power, there is no reason to listen to the citizens. This has happened, and happens, all the time all over the world.
I am not afraid that our gov’t is going to go off the deep end tomorrow, but by retaining those BOR we ensure that our country, the greatest that has ever existed, continues on for many more generations….assuming we get the economy fixed, which all of this fluff is doing a great job of distracting us all from.
Mr. Rifkin,
We have a Constitution and if the Constitution is falling short then amend it through the constitutional process. The sad part in all this is that most Americans today are so poorly educated that they are ignorant as to the purpose of the Bill of Rights and who they came about. The Second Amendment is not about hunting. It is about having an armed citizenry that is able to defend itself against a tyrannical government. Thank God we had such an armed citizenry at the time of the American Revolution or we would most likely still be subjects of the British Commonwealth instead of free citizens of the greatest Republic in the history of mankind. Safety does not come from Government, Safety comes from the ability of free men and women to defend themselves from criminals and governments that would seek to enslave us both foreign and domestic.
I should say I feel the exact same way about liberal politicians at the local level who decide that their cities should be sanctuaries* for illegal aliens and as a result those local officials refuse to uphold the law without any court ruling the federal law illegal or unconstitutional. To my mind, these local scofflaws ought to resign their offices if they don’t want to obey the law on principle. And if they refuse to resign, they should be thrown out of office or put in jail.
[b]*Source: ([url]http://www.ojjpac.org/sanctuary.asp[/url])[/b] [quote]Despite a 1996 federal law [the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act ( IIRIRA )] that [u]requires local governments to cooperate with Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)[/u], many large urban cities (and some small) have adopted so-called “sanctuary” policies. Generally, sanctuary policies instruct city employees not to notify the federal government of the presence of illegal aliens living in their communities. The policies also end the distinction between legal resident aliens and illegal aliens–so illegal aliens often benefit from taxpayer funded government services and programs too.[/quote]
[i]Can we agree that a gov’t without limits results in servitude of the citizens? [/i]
Our government is not without limits. We have courts. Courts decide what is constitutional, not sheriffs.
“If, on the other hand, Mr. D’Agostini believes a law is unconstitutional, and the courts do not agree with him or have not yet ruled on their constitutionality, and Mr. D’Agostini does not want to enforce that law, he should resign his office, if he wants to take a stand on principle. And if he does not resign, he should be thrown out of office for dereliction of duty.”
I’d agree if the powers that be who don’t want to enforce our immigration laws are also thrown our of office.
Don’t you just love these liberals who one minute want to tear down the constitution just to later turn around and hide behind it when it suits their political agenda.
[i]Don’t you just love these liberals who one minute want to tear down the constitution just to later turn around and hide behind it when it suits their political agenda.
[/i]
Who wants to tear down the constitution, rusty? Your liberals-are-hypocrites theme is very, very, very tedious.
“Who wants to tear down the constitution, rusty? Your liberals-are-hypocrites theme is very, very, very tedious.”
Liberals being hypocrites is very, very, very tedious.
[i]”The sad part in all this is that most Americans today are so poorly educated that they are ignorant as to the purpose of the Bill of Rights and [s]who[/s] [b]how[/b] they came about.”[/i]
I’ll put my constitutional education up against your any day of the week, Craised.
[i]”The Second Amendment is not about hunting.”[/i]
No one said it is about hunting alone.
[i]”It is about having an armed citizenry that is able to defend itself against a tyrannical government.”[/i]
The SCOTUS ultimately decides what it is about. There is no language within the Second Amendment regarding ‘a tyrannical government.’ And as far as I know, there is no usage of that language in any decisions by the SCOTUS or any language which is similar to that.
There is, however, specific language of ‘a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state …’ On its face, that sounds like the 2nd Amendment is addressing the rights of a state to regulate its organized militia.
The second part of the 2nd Amendment says, ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’ On its face, that sounds to me like the 2nd Amendment guarantees that individuals can lawfully own guns. But it does not say any and all guns without regulations.
One of the more important court cases regarding the 2nd Amendment is United States v. Miller (1939), which ruled that while the Constitution guarantees the right of an individual to bear arms, he does not have the right to bear any and all arms. In that particular case, he did not have the right to bear a sawed-off shotgun. Similar state laws which banned civilians from possessing fully automatic weapons were also, within Miller, found to be Constitutional.
Another important consideration is that all rights, including 2nd Amendment rights, must be balanced against other rights, including the right to life and threats against one’s life. Second Amendment rights are not absolute and inviolable. As such, a convicted felon, the courts have ruled, can be denied his 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, because allowing him to own a firearm is a threat against the rights of others to life. The same is true of someone who is mentally defective, even if he has not committed a felony. Allowing such a person to own or possess a firearm inherently harms the rights of everyone else.
RUSTY: [i]”I’d agree if the powers that be who don’t want to enforce our immigration laws are also thrown our of office. … Don’t you just love [b]these liberals[/b] who one minute want to tear down the constitution just to later turn around and hide behind it when it suits their political agenda.”[/i]
It seems to me that Sheriff D’Agostino is a conservative who it could be said ‘wants to tear down the constitution … when it suits his political agenda,’ very much the same as a liberal like Gavin Newsome did in refusing to obey federal law when he was the mayor of San Francisco and had sworn to uphold the Constitution.
As such, I don’t think either extreme looks too good in these sorts of cases.
I can respect someone whose feelings are so strong against a federal law that they want no part in enforcing that law. However, if they swear an oath to the Constitution and no authoritative court has said the law is not constitutional, then they need to enforce the law or leave their office.
[quote]if they swear an oath to the Constitution and no authoritative court has said the law is not constitutional, then they need to enforce the law or leave their office. [/quote]
Spoken like a true liberal.
The real answer is you stay in office and fight for what you swore to uphold, the constitution. You don’t give up and cower in the corner.
RR: [i]”… if they swear an oath to the Constitution and no authoritative court has said the law is not constitutional, then they need to enforce the law or leave their office.”[/i]
CR: [i]”Spoken like a true [s]liberal[/s] [b]believer in the rule of law[/b].”[/i]
Fixed.
CR: [i]”The (belief of someone who thinks he is above the law) is you stay in office and fight for what you swore to uphold, the constitution, (even though you have no right to tell everyone else what the constitution means and no court agrees with your interpretation of the constitution).”[/i]
Fixed.
The problem craised is that Rifkin is no liberal, so you might want to try again using reasoning and logic rather than argument by epithet. I agree with Rifkin, the sheriff has no authority to interpret the constitution and if he believes that he is violating his own ethos in carrying out the law, he probably has to resign.
Let me posit another example that I think will make this clearer. If I believe that the death penalty is unconstitutional, does that mean I have the right to refuse to carry out the death penalty?
[quote]With the exception of the mental health problem, it is real simple medwoman. Really it is. But it is folks with your political bent that make it impossible to do the simple.
[/quote]
For me, the issue of gun related injury and death is anything but simple. This is perhaps in part, because I see it as a multifactorial issue, not as the “good guys” vs the “bad guys”. Since the Newton shooting, we as a nation have had > 1000 gun related deaths. At least one of these have been “mass shootings” with four or more victims, others have been “bad guy” shootings of lower numbers, others have been an individual who never harmed anyone with a gun before, but deliberately shot in a moment of anger or despair, others have been accidental as in the case of children being shot either by themselves or other children.
So whether lessening the chance of dying by gunshot is a “simple” issue or not depends on how you choose to define the issue. The NRA has chosen to define it in as simplistic terms as possible “a good guy with a gun vs a bad guy with a gun” so that their framing doesn’t interfere with their world view that their individual right to own ( and their allies right to manufacture and profit from gun sales) is not interfered with regardless of adverse consequences. Others may choose to define it as a problem belonging to a narrow segment of society. gang related activity or the mentally ill so that they can also pretend that the issue does not relate to them. I choose to define the problem as one of public health. Many, many of these gun related deaths do not fall within the more narrow parameters that people are ever so comfortable placing them in. And yes, for those who rightly claim that it is possible for a person to attack another with a bat, or a knife, or event one’s fists, speaking from the public health point of view, when the number of deaths from any of those means equals that of the gun related deaths in the same time interval, then I would be happy to see that taken on also.
Is Wolk going to release a correction to her statement about an “assault weapon” being used at Sandy Hook?
You would have to ask her office