BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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Date of Hearing: May 24, 2016
Counsel: Stella Choe
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr., Chair
HR
52 (Rendon and Gipson) - As Introduced May 17, 2016
As Proposed to be Amended in Committee
SUMMARY: Recognizes June 2, 2016 as National Gun Violence
Awareness Day. Specifically, this resolution:
1)Makes the following legislative findings:
a) Death and injury arising from firearm violence by
suicide, homicide, and unintentional shootings constitute a
tragic and substantial burden upon the citizens of the
United States and public health in the United States;
b) According to data from the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, in the United States approximately
81,300 nonfatal injuries and 31,672 deaths involving guns
occur every year. That is about 308 shootings and 86
deaths every day, with about 13 shootings and 4 deaths per
hour;
c) Between 2005 and 2015, 71 Americans were killed in
terrorist attacks on United States soil, whereas 301,797
were killed by gun violence during the same period;
d) Mass shootings draw widespread attention to firearm
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violence from the media, the public, and policymakers but
account for less than 2 percent of the United States
firearm-related deaths that occur each year;
e) Patterns of injury and death from firearms differ
according to factors including age, gender, sexual
orientation, ethnicity, geographic region, educational
level, employment status, and social class;
f) In order to be developmentally and culturally
appropriate to relevant aspects of diversity, public policy
and prevention strategies must attend to the different
relative risks, occurrences, and contexts across groups;
g) In 2015, at least 756 American children were killed by
gunfire;
h) Young African American males living in impoverished
urban communities bear the greatest risk of homicide by
firearms, with African Americans almost eight times as
likely as Caucasians to be homicide victims;
i) Women are disproportionately more likely to be the
victims of firearm violence by an intimate partner as
domestic violence assaults in which firearms are used 12
times more likely to result in death than domestic violence
assaults in which firearms are not used;
j) Firearms are the most frequent means of suicide among
older adult Caucasian men and contribute to their very high
suicide rate. Across the United States, suicides account
for nearly two-thirds of all gun death;
aa) Gun homicide is the second leading cause of death among
Asian American youth in California;
bb) 100,000 students carry a gun to school each day;
cc) African Americans die due to gun violence at a rate of
19.4 per 100,000, Hispanics at 5.3 per 100,000, and
Caucasians at a rate of 2.5 per 100,000;
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dd) It is imperative that there be greater public awareness
of this serious issue and that more is done to increase
public awareness at the local, state, and national levels;
ee) As with motor vehicles, toxic household products,
tobacco, and other products with inherent risks whose harms
to the public health have been significantly reduced,
firearms pose inherent risks that have been identified and
can be addressed through a public health approach; and
ff) This resolution seeks to inspire a necessary discussion
in our communities about resources to reduce gun violence
and improve our state's programs in prevention,
intervention, education, and outreach.
2)States that it is resolved by the Assembly of the State of
California, that the Assembly recognizes June 2, 2016, as
National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
3)States that it is resolved that the Assembly commends the work
of the Wear Orange Campaign, the American Psychological
Association, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and
other organizations working to raise awareness about gun
violence across America.
4)States that it is resolved that the Assembly encourages
research, public health programs, and public policy to address
the full breadth of firearm fatalities and injuries.
5)States that it is resolved that the Assembly encourages the
further development and evaluation of policy interventions for
firearm violence across the full life span of firearms, from
design and manufacture to use.
EXISTING LAW:
1)States the legislative finding that the United States leads
the industrialized world in the rates of children and youth
lost to unintentional, firearms-related deaths. (Pen. Code, §
23625, sub. (b).)
2)Contains legislative findings and declarations that the
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proliferation and use of assault and .50 BMG rifles poses a
threat to the health, safety, and security of all citizens of
California. (Pen. Code § 30505.)
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS:
1)Author's Statement: According to the author, "National Gun
Violence Awareness Day was started in 2015 on what would have
been the 18th birthday of Hadiya Pendleton, a high school
student from Chicago who was shot and killed in 2013 just one
week after performing at President Barack Obama's second
inauguration.
"None of us are immune from the tragedies that guns deliver
every day in communities throughout our state. We as
policymakers have a responsibility to not only raise
awareness, but also pursue legislation that directly addresses
the devastating consequences of gun violence."
2)Recent Gun Violence Statistics: According to Gun Violence
Archive, a not-for-profit corporation formed in 2013 to
provide free online public access to information about
gun-related violence in the United States, there were 53,241
incidents of gun violence in 2015 and 13,419 deaths. As of
May 2016, the website has reported 19,722 incidents of gun
violence and 4,996 deaths. (See www.gunviolencearchive.org
for full statistics.)
The frequency of mass shootings in the United States has
increased since 2011, according to researchers from Harvard
School of Public Health. Between 1982 and late 2011, mass
shootings occurred about every 200 days. After September
2011, the rate of mass shootings increased to about once every
64 days. And in the previous three years, the rate of mass
shootings had tripled.
(< http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2015/06/18/charleston-
deaths-are-an-american-tragedy-mass-shootings-are-rising/#2d12b
b267b9f > (as of May 20, 2016).
3)Related Legislation:
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a) AB 156 (McCarty) creates a new regulatory framework for
the sale and purchase of ammunition in California. AB 156
passed on the Senate Floor has been ordered to the
Assembly.
b) AB 857 (Cooper) requires a person who manufactures or
assembles a firearm to first apply to the Department of
Justice for a unique serial number or other identifying
mark, as provided. AB 857 passed on the Senate Floor and
has been ordered to the Assembly.
c) AB 1511 (Santiago and Chiu) limits the infrequent loan
provisions to a loan to a spouse, registered domestic
partner, or any of the following relations, whether by
consanguinity, adoption, or steprelation: parent, child,
sibling, grandparent or grandchild. AB 1511 passed on the
Senate Floor and has been ordered to the Assembly.
d) AB 1663 (Chiu) amends the definition of an assault
weapon as it pertains to rifles and defines "detachable
magazines" and "fixed magazines". AB 1663 is pending
hearing in the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
e) AB 1664 (Levine) redefines what constitutes an assault
weapon in order to close the bullet button loophole. AB
1664 is pending hearing in the Assembly Committee on
Appropriations.
f) AB 1673 (Gipson) expands the definition of "firearm" to
include the frame or receiver of the weapon or a frame or
receiver "blank," "casting" or "machined body" that is
designed and clearly identifiable as a component of a
functional weapon, from which is expelled through a barrel,
a projectile by the force of an explosion or other form of
combustion. AB 1673 is pending hearing in the Assembly
Committee on Appropriations.
g) AB 1674 (Santiago) prohibits any person from making an
application to purchase more than one long gun within any
30-day period, and repeals the private party transaction
exemption to the prohibition related to the purchase of
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more than one handgun in any 30-day period. AB 1674 is
pending hearing in the Assembly Committee on
Appropriations.
h) AB 1695 (Bonta) requires the Department of Justice to
send a letter to each firearm purchaser during the 10-day
waiting period informing the purchaser of laws relating to
firearms and creates a misdemeanor to falsely report to law
enforcement that a firearm has been lost or stolen, and
institutes a 10-year ban on owning a firearm for those
convicted of making a false report. AB 1695 is pending
hearing in the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
i) AB 2607 (Ting) expands the individuals who are eligible
to petition for a gun violence restraining order to include
an employer, a coworker, or a mental health worker. AB
2607 is pending vote on the Assembly Floor.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
None received
Opposition
Gun Owners of California
National Rifle Association
Analysis Prepared
by: Stella Choe / PUB. S. / (916) 319-3744
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