California passed new legislation last week aimed at getting over 40,000 illegally owned weapons off the streets.
A new measure, signed into law last week by California Governor Jerry Brown, will now make it possible for authorities to confiscate the “tens of thousands of weapons owned illegally throughout the state.” The Huffington Post reports that the bill, which was written by state Senator Mark Leno, “allocates $24 million to identify and seize assault weapons owned by convicted criminals and individuals with serious mental illnesses.”
According to California’s Bureau of Firearms, there is a 3-year “backlog” of over 40,000 guns which are owned illegally by almost 20,000 residents. But due to a lack of staffing and funding authorities have been unable to confiscate the firearms. The bill, titled SB 140, is the most recent of 30 which were introduced by California legislators since the Sandy Hook massacre in December. Other measures presented include “background checks on ammunition purchases, a requirement that all gun owners use lock boxes and expanding the list of criteria one must meet before owning a firearm.”
Senator Leno said in a statement:
We are fortunate in California to have the first and only system in the nation that tracks and identifies individuals who at one time made legal purchases of firearms but are now barred from possessing them. However, due to a lack of resources, only a few of these illegally possessed weapons have been confiscated, and the mountain of firearms continues to grow each day.
Opponents to the bill argue that the allocated funds should be used on more rigorous background checks, but supporters are pleased with the measure. deborah Azrael, associate director of the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center said, “This makes enormous sense and is one of the only ways available to reduce access to already purchased firearms. Universal background checks, as much as we should have them, can affect only the next gun purchased, not the sizable reservoir of guns already out there.”
Photo: gre.ceres/Flickr