With the terrible massacres occurring across the U.S. in the last few weeks, we all feel the need for a dramatic response. It's time for Congress to require Brady criminal background checks on all firearm transactions including all gun show sales. It's time to pass a comprehensive assault weapons ban.
While we, in California, can work on these issues nationally, we can
also work on a different piece of the gun violence epidemic – handgun
ammunition sales in California. While current law prohibits certain
categories of people -- criminals and the mentally ill -- from purchasing
ammunition, there is no way to enforce this law because there is no
monitoring of ammunition sales. Moreover, a loophole in current law
allows ammunition sellers to sell to prohibited people without any legal
sanction! Thus, many ammunition sales are made to people prohibited
by law from possessing ammunition.
AB 962, introduced by Assembly Member Kevin De Leon, would change all
that. The bill makes it unlawful to sell ammunition to known prohibited
persons. The bill contains other critical provisions:
1) handgun ammunition sellers would have to obtain a vendor's license
from the Department of Justice
2) all employees handling ammunition sales would have to pass a background
check
3) to prevent shoplifting, all handgun ammunition would have to be safely
stored, such as behind the sales counter
4) handgun ammunition sales would be required to be in face-to-face
transactions, thereby eliminating internet or mail order sales.
Equally important ammunition sellers would be obliged to keep records
for five years about every handgun
ammunition sale, including name, thumbprint, signature, of the purchaser,
and type and amount of ammunition purchased. These records would be
required to be made available to law enforcement.
While California has the strongest gun laws in the U.S., there is much
more that we can do to assure we live with sensible and effective gun
laws. Ammunition sales regulation is sensible and critical for keeping
ammunition out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously
mentally ill. Just consider how many of the killers in the massacres
in recent weeks fell into the category of criminal or mentally ill.
AB 962 is a bill that puts no additional expense on the state and it
provides law enforcement with an additional tool for solving and preventing
crime.
Just think about this -- in California, we insist, for the public's
protection, that pharmacies store many strong allergy medicines behind
the sales counter. Wouldn't we want to do at least the same for handgun
ammunition?
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