BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1695
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Date of Hearing: April 6, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
1695 (Bonta) - As Introduced January 21, 2016
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
No
SUMMARY:
This bill:
AB 1695
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1)Requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) to send a notice
during the 10-day waiting period to every person who applies
to purchase a gun informing him or her of gun laws relating to
gun transfers and storage, as specified. And requires the
notice to include a website for DOJ's summary of gun laws and
requires DOJ to update the summary annually.
2)Makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly submit a false report to a
local law enforcement agency 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. For these purposes,
AB 1695 includes the frame or receiver of the weapon, a
rocket, rocket propelled projectile launcher, or similar
devise in the definition of a firearm.
FISCAL EFFECT:
Significant ongoing cost to DOJ in the range of $420,000 to
$520,000 (Firearms Safety and Enforcement Special Fund - a
continuously appropriated fund) to program, process and provide
upwards of 730,000 notices per year, and maintain and update gun
laws website. All costs will be recovered with the existing fee
authority.
Moderate nonreimbursable local costs for incarceration, offset
to a degree by fee revenue.
COMMENTS:
1)Background. Current law requires all handgun purchasers in
California to take an exam on handgun safety and obtain a 75%
passing score to receive a certificate, and requires the
completion of the California Dealer's Record of Sale (DROS)
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form and a background check. DOJ is required, upon submission
of firearm purchaser information, to examine its records to
determine if the purchaser is prohibited from possessing,
receiving, owning, or purchasing a firearm. Existing law also
prohibits the delivery of a firearm within 10 days of the
application to purchase, or, after notice by the department,
within 10 days of the submission to the department of any
corrections to the application to purchase, or within 10 days
of the submission to the department of a specified fee.
Current law also provides a life-time or 10-year ban on owning
a gun for anyone convicted of specific crimes and provides
specific penalties for those violations.
2)Purpose. According to the author, AB 1695 seeks to reduce the
flow of firearms onto the black market. The bill targets straw
purchases, where a person who can pass a background check
legally buys a gun and then resells it to someone who was
prohibited from purchasing a firearm. Additionally, this bill
makes knowingly falsely reporting a gun as lost or stolen a
misdemeanor, a tactic of straw purchasers seeking to distance
themselves from the gun.
3)Support. According to the California Chapters of the Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, "In 2007, Greg Ridgeway
conducted a study to determine whether sending a notification
to gun buyers during the ten day waiting period could affect
behavior. The notification or letter informed them that law
enforcement had a record of their gun purchase and that the
gun buyer should properly record any future transfers of the
gun. Those receiving the letter reported their guns lost or
stolen with almost twice the frequency of those who did not
receive the letter, and at least initially, those receiving
the letter were less likely to return to pick up their gun.
Ridgeway concluded that straw purchasers were much more likely
to report their firearms lost or stolen as a defense when guns
recovered in a crime were traced to them. It follows
therefore, that the act of knowingly filing a false report
should have criminal consequences in order to discourage the
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behavior."
5)Opposition. According to the Firearms Policy Coalition, "The
senseless redundancy of AB 1695 is many-fold. Many laws cited
in the notice content are, in fact, the same laws that the
purchaser is complying with by conducting a lawful firearm
transfer to a licensed dealer. Those same laws are required
to be posted in plain view at the point of sale.
And how many times must a purchaser pay for the same notice
with the same content to be mailed to them?
With the Department of Justice processing nearly one million
firearm transactions in California on an annual basis, AB 1695
represents the needless waste of forests of paper, pallets of
printer toner, and tons of disposed DOJ junk mail every year.
AB 1695 also creates a new misdemeanor crime for falsifying a
report of a lost or stolen firearm, then makes that crime one
which subjects the violator to a 10-year total prohibition on
firearm possession."
6)Prior Legislation:
a) AB 1020 (Bonta), of the 2013-2014 legislative session,
required the DOJ to send a letter during the 10-day waiting
period to each individual who has applied to purchase a
firearm informing him or her of firearms laws relating to
gun trafficking and safe storage. AB 1020 was held in this
Committee's Suspense file.
b) SB 819 (Leno), Chapter 743, Statutes of 2011, provides
that DOJ may use dealer record of sale funds for costs
associated with its firearms-related regulatory and
enforcement activities regarding the possession as well as
the sale, purchase, loan, or transfer of firearms, as
specified.
AB 1695
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Analysis Prepared by:Pedro Reyes / APPR. / (916)
319-2081