More than 20 new gun safety laws were passed by California state legislators last year following mass shootings in Monterey Park, Half Moon Bay and elsewhere.
Those laws are designed to make it more difficult for potentially dangerous people to keep firearms, help trace perpetrators when one is used improperly and tax ammunition to fund school safety and gun violence intervention programs.
Advocates, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, say California is leading the nation on such reforms and its success is evidence that “gun safety laws work.”
“The data proves they save lives: California’s gun death rate is 43% lower than the rest of the nation,” Newsom said in September. “These new laws will make our communities and families safer.”
Tanya Schardt, senior counsel at Brady, a nonprofit advocating for gun safety, said the lower rate of gun-related deaths in California is the “result of deliberate, strategic interventions to set up a system of laws that work.”
“California did a lot last year with a really diverse package of bills,” Schardt said. “It’s a big step forward.”
Those bills include:
- AB 28, from Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-Woodland Hills, imposed a tax on the sale of bullets, which is expected to raise $160 million annually for gun violence intervention programs.
- AB 732, from Assemblymember Mike Fong, D-Monterey Park, increased the standards for surrendering firearms following criminal convictions and requires the Department of Justice and local agencies to address a backlog of individuals who may not have turned over their firearms.
- SB 452, from Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, prohibits the sale of semiautomatic pistols without microstamping technology, which imprints a code on casings fired from the weapon, after Dec. 31, 2027.
- SB 2, from Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena, sets a minimum age of 21 for a concealed carry weapon license and restricts license holders from carrying those weapons in certain sensitive…
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