CHAPTER _______

An act to add Section 30020 to the Penal Code, relating to firearms.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AB 1999, Achadjian. Prohibited Armed Persons File: initial review.

Existing law requires the Attorney General to establish and maintain an online database known as the Prohibited Armed Persons File, sometimes referred to as the Armed Prohibited Persons System, to cross-reference persons who have ownership or possession of a firearm on or after January 1, 1996, and who, subsequent to the date of that ownership or possession of a firearm, fall within a class of persons who are prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm.

Existing law appropriates $24,000,000 from the Dealers’ Record of Sale Special Account to the Department of Justice to address the backlog in the Armed Prohibited Persons System and the illegal possession of firearms by those prohibited persons. Existing law requires the department to report to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee specified information, including, among other things, the degree to which the backlog in the Armed Prohibited Persons System has been reduced or eliminated.

This bill would require the department to complete an initial review of a match, as defined, in the daily queue of the Armed Prohibited Persons System within 7 days of the match being placed in the queue and to periodically reassess whether the department can complete those reviews more efficiently.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.  

Section 30020 is added to the Penal Code, to read:

30020.  

(a) The Department of Justice shall complete an initial review of a match in the daily queue of the Armed Prohibited Persons System within seven days of the match being placed in the queue and shall periodically reassess whether the department can complete those reviews more efficiently.

(b) (1) For the purpose of this section, “Armed Prohibited Persons System” means the “Prohibited Armed Persons File,” as described in Section 30000.

(2) For the purpose of this section, “match” means the entry into the Automated Criminal History System or into any department automated information system of the name and other information of an individual who may be prohibited from acquiring, owning, or possessing a firearm, and a corresponding record of ownership or possession of a firearm by that individual, as described in Section 30005.

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