BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair S
2011-2012 Regular Session B
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SB 313 (Correa)
As Introduced February 14, 2011
Hearing date: January 10, 2012
Penal Code
SM:dl
HANDGUN SAFETY REQUIREMENT EXEMPTIONS
HISTORY
Source: California Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc.; National
Rifle Association of America
Prior Legislation: AB 2546 (Hagman) - 2010, died in Assembly
Public Safety
AB 854(Keene) - Ch. 163, stats. 2007
AB 1471 (Feuer) - Ch. 572, stats. 2007
SB 489 (Scott) - Ch. 500, stats. 2003
SB 15 (Polanco) - Ch. 248, stats. 1999
Support: California Association of Firearms Retailers; El Dorado
County Sheriff-Coroner's Office; Herb Bauer Sporting
Goods; Mendocino County Sheriff-Coroner's Office;
National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc.; San
Bernardino County Sheriff's Department; Shasta County
Sheriff's Office; Siskiyou County Sheriff's Department
Opposition:California Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent
Gun Violence; Legal Community Against Violence
KEY ISSUE
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SHOULD SPECIFIED HANDGUNS BE EXEMPTED FROM EXISTING HANDGUN
SAFETY REQUIREMENTS?
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to exempt specified handguns from
existing handgun safety requirements.
Existing law provides that the sale, loan or transfer of
firearms in almost all cases must be processed by, or through, a
state licensed dealer or a local law enforcement agency. (Penal
Code §§ 27540, 27545, 28050.) <1>
Existing law provides that commencing January 1, 2001, no
"unsafe handgun" may be manufactured or sold in California by a
licensed dealer, as specified, and requires that the Department
of Justice (DOJ) prepare and maintain a roster of handguns which
are determined not to be unsafe handguns. Private party sales
(used or previously owned) and transfers of handguns through a
licensed dealer or sheriff in smaller counties are exempted from
those restrictions. (Penal Code §§ 27545, 32000, et seq.,
32110.)
Existing law does the following:
Defines "unsafe handgun" as any pistol, revolver, or
other firearm capable of being concealed upon the person,
as specified, which lacks various safety mechanisms and
does not pass listed tests, as specified. (Penal Code §
31910.)
Requires any concealable firearm manufactured in
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<1> SB 1080, Chap. 711, Stats. 2010, recast and renumbered most
statutes relating to deadly weapons without any substantive
change to those statutes. Those changes will become operative
January 1, 2012. All references to affected code sections will
be to the revised version unless otherwise indicated.
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California, or intended to be imported for sale, kept for
sale, or offered for sale to be tested within a reasonable
period of time by an independent laboratory, certified by
the (DOJ), to determine whether it meets required safety
standards, as specified. (Penal Code § 32010.)
Requires DOJ, on and after January 1, 2001, to compile,
publish, and thereafter maintain a roster listing all of
the pistols, revolvers, and other firearms capable of
being concealed upon the person that have been tested by a
certified testing laboratory, have been determined not to
be unsafe handguns, and may be sold in this state, as
specified. The roster shall list, for each firearm, the
manufacturer, model number, and model name. (Penal Code §
32015.)
Provides that DOJ may charge every person in
California who is licensed as a manufacturer of
firearms, as specified, and any person in California who
manufactures or causes to be manufactured, imports into
California for sale, keeps for sale, or offers or
exposes for sale any pistol, revolver, or other firearm
capable of being concealed upon the person in
California, an annual fee not exceeding the costs of
preparing, publishing, and maintaining the roster of
firearms determined not to be unsafe, and the costs of
research and development, report analysis, firearms
storage, and other program infrastructure costs, as
specified. (Penal Code § 32015.)
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|Existing law requires that, commencing January 1, 2010, for all | |
|semiautomatic pistols that are not already listed on the roster | |
|pursuant to Section 32015, it is not designed and equipped with | |
|a microscopic array of characters that identify the make, | |
|model, and serial number of the pistol, etched or otherwise | |
|imprinted in two or more places on the interior surface or | |
|internal working parts of the pistol, and that are transferred | |
|by imprinting on each cartridge case when the firearm is fired, | |
|provided that the DOJ certifies that the technology used to | |
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|create the imprint is available to more than one manufacturer | |
|unencumbered by any patent restrictions. (Penal Code § | |
|31910(b)(7).) | |
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This bill would delete the exemption to handgun safety
requirements contained in existing law for loans of firearms by
a licensed firearms dealer to a "consultant-evaluator."
This bill would add exemptions to the current handgun safety
requirements for:
Handguns for which production ceased prior to January 1,
2000, and for which production has not resumed.
Handguns that are commemorative and for which total
production was or is limited to 1,000 or fewer firearms.
Handguns that are custom-made and for which total
production was or is limited to 1,000 or fewer firearms.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the last several years, severe overcrowding in California's
prisons has been the focus of evolving and expensive litigation.
As these cases have progressed, prison conditions have
continued to be assailed, and the scrutiny of the federal courts
over California's prisons has intensified.
On June 30, 2005, in a class action lawsuit filed four years
earlier, the United States District Court for the Northern
District of California established a Receivership to take
control of the delivery of medical services to all California
state prisoners confined by the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation ("CDCR"). In December of 2006,
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plaintiffs in two federal lawsuits against CDCR sought a
court-ordered limit on the prison population pursuant to the
federal Prison Litigation Reform Act. On January 12, 2010, a
three-judge federal panel issued an order requiring California
to reduce its inmate population to 137.5 percent of design
capacity -- a reduction at that time of roughly 40,000 inmates
-- within two years. The court stayed implementation of its
ruling pending the state's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On May 23, 2011, the United States Supreme Court upheld the
decision of the three-judge panel in its entirety, giving
California two years from the date of its ruling to reduce its
prison population to 137.5 percent of design capacity, subject
to the right of the state to seek modifications in appropriate
circumstances.
In response to the unresolved prison capacity crisis, in early
2007 the Senate Committee on Public Safety began holding
legislative proposals which could further exacerbate prison
overcrowding through new or expanded felony prosecutions.
This bill does not appear to aggravate the prison overcrowding
crisis described above.
COMMENTS
1. Need for This Bill
According to the author:
SB 15, the Unsafe Handgun Act (Chaptered 08/30/1999),
requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) to test
handgun safety and maintain a Roster of Handguns
Certified for Sale. Manufactures of firearms must get
this DOJ approval before their guns may be sold in
California. Licensed firearms dealers in California
are not allowed to sell used handguns that are not on
the DOJ's roster. They must process used handguns
transfers between two individuals but the dealers
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cannot sell used handguns that they own to the public.
The manufacturing of many antique and used firearms
had stopped before the passage of SB 15. The result of
current law is that persons who want to sell these
firearms to licensed firearms dealers are thwarted
because the dealers cannot sell used handguns that
they own in their inventory. Gun owners often resort
to private party transfers or selling their firearms
to dealers in other states.
SB 313 would allow used handguns manufactured before
SB 15 passed to be sold by licensed firearms dealers.
This measure would ensure safe sale of antique and
used firearms by licensed firearms dealers. This bill
would exempt from the Unsafe Handgun Act the
following:
Handguns for which production ceased prior to
January 1, 2000, and for which production has not
resumed
Handguns that are commemorative or custom-made, and
for which production was or is limited to 1,000 or
fewer firearms
2. Sales of Handguns Not on the "Not Unsafe Handgun" List
Since January 1, 2001, the law has provided that no handgun,
except as specified, can be manufactured or sold by a dealer in
California unless it has been tested and certified by the
Department of Justice as meeting certain safety requirements.
(Penal Code §§ 27545, 32000, et seq., 32110.) Handguns that
have been so certified by DOJ are placed on the "Not Unsafe
Handgun" list. Handguns that do not meet these safety
requirements may still be sold in what is known as a "private
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party transfer." In that case, an owner of a handgun that has
not been certified by DOJ may sell the handgun to a buyer by
having a licensed dealer process the transaction. (Penal Code §
28050(a).)
The prohibition on sales of unsafe handguns has some exceptions.
For example, antique firearms, known as "curios and relics" are
exempted from the safety requirements. (Penal Code § 32110(g).)
This bill would broaden those exemptions to include:
Handguns for which production ceased prior to January 1,
2000, and for which production has not resumed.
Handguns that are commemorative and for which total
production was or is limited to 1,000 or fewer firearms.
Handguns that are custom-made and for which total
production was or is limited to 1,000 or fewer firearms.
SHOULD THESE CATEGORIES OF HANDGUNS BE EXEMPTED FROM THE HANDGUN
SAFETY REQUIREMENTS?
Current exemptions also include transfers in the form of a loan
from a licensed dealer to a "consultant-evaluator" and from the
"consultant evaluator" back to the dealer. Current language in
this bill appears to preserve the exemption for transfers of
unsafe handguns from a consultant-evaluator to a licensed dealer
who had loaned them the gun, but would delete the exemption that
allows the dealer to loan the gun to the consultant-evaluator in
the first place. This appears to have been a drafting error.
3. Arguments in Support
The Sheriff of El Dorado County writes:
Currently, Federal/State licensed firearms dealers in
California are NOT allowed to sell used handguns that
are NOT on the safe handgun roster. They must process
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used handgun transfers between two individuals but the
dealers CANNOT sell used handguns that they own to the
public.
The result of current law is that persons who want to
sell the used handguns to California Federal/State
licensed firearms dealers are thwarted because the
dealers cannot resell the used handguns that they own
in their inventory, so dealers will not purchase used
handguns.
First, I'd like to address the issue of the "Safe
Handgun Roster" itself. The law was the furtherance
of a scheme by the anti-gun movement to limit and
eventually ban handgun ownership by law abiding
citizens. The law placed undue regulation on handgun
manufacturers and in essence, a "Tax" of $200 for the
privilege of selling a "Safe" handgun in the state.
From the consumer standpoint, this cost, passed on to
them by the manufacturer, priced some handguns out of
reach. And, some handguns, preferred by law abiding
consumers, were not placed on the list either by the
manufacturer's frustration over the regulation and/or
the firearm not "passing" the arbitrary, "nanny-law"
tests. This should be a simple buyer beware issue,
respecting the consumer/manufacturing relationship.
Those that use a handgun in a criminal manner don't
care if a handgun is on a "list" that says it is safe
to use/purchase in California. I can't imagine two
thugs discussing their plan to rob a liquor store
including debates whether the gun they're using is on
the "Safe Handgun Roster"; "Hey Joe, that gun you
stole from that house the other day isn't on the safe
handgun roster. Maybe we better keep burglarizing
houses until we find one that is on the roster and use
that one."
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4. Argument in Opposition
The California Chapters of the Brady Campaign Against Gun
Violence state:
The Unsafe Handgun Act (SB 15) became law in 1999.
Under this law, effective January 1, 2001, no handgun
may be manufactured within California, imported into
California for sale, lent, given, kept for sale, or
offered/exposed for sale unless that handgun model has
passed firing, safety, and drop tests and is certified
for sale in California by the Department of Justice.
The Act generally applies to all handguns that are not
classified as curios and relicts under federal
regulations.
This bill would exempt handguns from the provisions of
SB 15 for which production ceased prior to January 1,
2000, and for which production has not resumed. In
addition, this bill would exempt handguns that are
commemorative or custom-made, and for which production
was or is limited to 1,000 or fewer firearms.
The intent of SB 15 was to rid our streets of the
plague of "junk" guns and in the intervening years the
results have been stunningly successful. This bill
would allow handguns manufactured prior to 2000, and
never submitted for testing, to once again be legally
sold. By allowing firearms dealers to now re-sell
potentially unsafe handguns, this bill would have the
opposite effect intended by SB 15 and is therefore not
in the public interest. The Unsafe Handgun Act has
not resulted in a taking of private property because
owners of an unsafe handgun manufactured prior to 2000
are still able to sell their noncompliant firearm
through the private party transfer exemption.
In summary, this bill would significantly weaken the
Unsafe Handgun Act. The Assembly has previously
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considered and rejected a similar proposal in 2001 (AB
851) and again in 2010 (AB 2546); the Committee should
do so again.
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