BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 678 Hearing Date: April 28, 2015
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|Author: |Hill |
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|Version: |April 20, 2015 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|JRD |
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Subject: User-authorized firearms.
HISTORY
Source: Author
Prior Legislation:SB 293 (DeSaulnier) - held in Senate
Appropriations, 2013
SB 697 (DeSaulnier) - died in this Committee,
2009
AB 2235 (DeSaulnier) - held in Senate
Appropriations, 2008
AB 1471 (Feuer) - Ch. 572, Statutes of 2007
Support: Allied Biometrix, Inc.; Law Center to Prevent Gun
Violence; New Jersey Innovation
Institute
Opposition: Firearms Policy Coalition (previous version)
PURPOSE
The purpose of this legislation is to require the Department of
Justice (DOJ) to convene a workgroup and prepare a report to the
Legislature on user-authorized firearms, as specified.
Existing law generally regulates the sale, use and possession of
firearms in California. (Penal Code § 1600, et seq.)
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This bill would require DOJ, with input from the working group
described in the legislation, to:
Survey the status of the current user-authorized
firearm industry;
Assess the market conditions and barriers to market
of user-authorized firearms;
Investigate methods to increase the availability and
use of user authorized firearms in California; and,
Provide recommendations on manufacturer performance
and reliability standards and how those standards should
be tested.
This bill would require DOJ to report its findings to the
Legislature by January 1, 2017.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the past eight years, this Committee has scrutinized
legislation referred to its jurisdiction for any potential
impact on prison overcrowding. Mindful of the United States
Supreme Court ruling and federal court orders relating to the
state's ability to provide a constitutional level of health care
to its inmate population and the related issue of prison
overcrowding, this Committee has applied its "ROCA" policy as a
content-neutral, provisional measure necessary to ensure that
the Legislature does not erode progress in reducing prison
overcrowding.
On February 10, 2014, the federal court ordered California to
reduce its in-state adult institution population to 137.5% of
design capacity by February 28, 2016, as follows:
143% of design bed capacity by June 30, 2014;
141.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2015; and,
137.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2016.
In February of this year the administration reported that as "of
February 11, 2015, 112,993 inmates were housed in the State's 34
adult institutions, which amounts to 136.6% of design bed
capacity, and 8,828 inmates were housed in out-of-state
facilities. This current population is now below the
court-ordered reduction to 137.5% of design bed capacity."(
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Defendants' February 2015 Status Report In Response To February
10, 2014 Order, 2:90-cv-00520 KJM DAD PC, 3-Judge Court, Coleman
v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (fn. omitted).
While significant gains have been made in reducing the prison
population, the state now must stabilize these advances and
demonstrate to the federal court that California has in place
the "durable solution" to prison overcrowding "consistently
demanded" by the court. (Opinion Re: Order Granting in Part and
Denying in Part Defendants' Request For Extension of December
31, 2013 Deadline, NO. 2:90-cv-0520 LKK DAD (PC), 3-Judge Court,
Coleman v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (2-10-14). The Committee's
consideration of bills that may impact the prison population
therefore will be informed by the following questions:
Whether a proposal erodes a measure which has contributed
to reducing the prison population;
Whether a proposal addresses a major area of public safety
or criminal activity for which there is no other
reasonable, appropriate remedy;
Whether a proposal addresses a crime which is directly
dangerous to the physical safety of others for which there
is no other reasonably appropriate sanction;
Whether a proposal corrects a constitutional problem or
legislative drafting error; and
Whether a proposal proposes penalties which are
proportionate, and cannot be achieved through any other
reasonably appropriate remedy.
COMMENTS
1. Need for This Bill
According to the Author:
SB 678 will provide important feedback and analysis
regarding user-authorized firearms. This important
technology has the potential to save lives, especially
those of children. It is essential for the Legislature to
understand the status of this industry, and what we can do
to foster it and incentivize it to grow. Additionally it is
critical to have a public forum to provide input on what
some basic reliability standards should be for this new
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innovative technology. Without a basic understanding of
where this industry it is and what is needed for it to
grow, the Legislature cannot make informed decisions
regarding this technology and bourgeoning industry.
2. User-authorized Firearms
In a 2002 issue of the journal "The Future of Children," a
publication of The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings
Institution, researchers wrote the following:
The Promise of Personalized Guns
Some researchers believe that the most important
change that could be made in the design of handguns to
reduce the incidence of gun-related injuries,
especially to children, would be to personalize guns.
A "smart" gun would rely upon a personal
identification number (PIN), a magnetic ring worn by
the user, a radio-frequency device on the user's
clothing or person, or fingerprint recognition
technology to ensure that only an authorized user
could actually fire the gun. Some technology to
produce smart guns already exists; other technology
seems feasible in the near future.
Theoretically, handgun personalization would prevent
unauthorized persons of any age-not just young
children-from operating a firearm. Until these types
of guns are widely available for use, however, their
effectiveness remains unmeasured. It is not known how
many firearm injuries personalization of guns may
prevent. However, personalization technology could
prevent the use of stolen handguns, thus shrinking the
illegal gun market, and it could decrease access to
firearms by adolescents and protect young children.
An Emerging Technology
In 1992, faculty at The Johns Hopkins School of Public
Health commissioned three undergraduate engineering
students to devise a personalized gun. With an
investment of $2,000, and use of existing technology,
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the students converted a revolver so that only its
authorized user could operate it. The gun's firing
mechanism was blocked unless it was touched by an
electronic "touch-memory" device. Only the handgun's
authorized user had possession of the device.
Today, the technology to make personalized guns is far
more sophisticated. In the near future, personalized
guns that identify the authorized user by a PIN
programmed into a gun may be available for sale. This
development would make possible an early version of a
personalized gun. Another future version of a
personalized gun could employ biometrics, such as
fingerprint recognition, for identification of the
authorized user. Computer chips already on the market
for use in other products immediately scan
fingerprints. Soon these chips will be made durable
enough to withstand the trauma of gunfire and will be
incorporated into guns. A personalized holster
already on the market keeps a gun locked in its
holster unless a device reads the fingerprint of an
authorized user.
Potential Advantages and Drawbacks of Personalized
Guns
Personalization has the potential to make guns less
accessible to young people and therefore holds promise
for reducing firearm injury and death. Personalized
guns are not a panacea, however. The increased cost
of the guns, the immense stock of nonpersonalized guns
in this country, and the potential for an increase in
gun sales once personalized guns enter the market make
uncertain the precise impact of smart guns on the
safety of children and youth.
Personalized firearms would cost more than firearms
sold today, although how much more is unknown. A
national poll on gun ownership and safety found that
80% of people who would buy a personalized gun would
buy one even if the personalization device added $100
to $300 to the price. Even so, it is unlikely that
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all, or even a significant proportion, of the nearly
200 million existing firearms in the United States
would be retrofitted for personalization. The
majority of these older weapons would remain available
for use and purchase. Also unknown is how many people
who do not currently own firearms would purchase
personalized guns because they would seem safer than
other guns. Would the rate of concealed- weapon
carrying increase? How many mothers would buy a
handgun for self-protection if the handgun were
"childproof"?
Although firearms would remain hazardous for children
even with personalization, safer gun design could
contribute to the broader strategy to prevent firearm
injuries among children and adolescents. At the very
least, young children could be protected from adult
inattention to safe firearm storage. In a more
complex set of circumstances, adolescents would have
decreased access to operable firearms.
Adolescents, proscribed by law from owning firearms,
nevertheless have four types of access to guns: (1)
unauthorized access to firearms in homes; (2)
authorized access to firearms transferred from My,
fiends, and acquaintances; (3) illegal purchase of
firearms off the street or through retailers, either
directly or through an intermediary; and (4) theft.
The hope for personalization technology is that the
firearm operating system would be individualized to
the gun owner so that the illegal transfer of weapons,
the utilization of stolen weapons, and other
unauthorized weapon use could not occur or would occur
only with great effort. Personalization could
decrease the pool of readily usable firearms.
Thus, for an adolescent, operating a firearm and
obtaining an operable firearm would be more difficult
and complicated. For adolescents, who frequently
behave impulsively, the time it would take to find a
usable firearm or to make a firearm usable might
result in a change of mind and a loss of interest.
Personalization could thereby work to prevent many
homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries among
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children and adolescents. (Stephen P. Teret, J.D.,
M.P.H.; Patti L. Culross, M.D., M.P.H., The Future of
Children, Vol. 12, No. 2, Children, Youth, and Gun
Violence. (Summer - Autumn, 2002), pp. 118-131.)
3. Legislative Efforts Relating to Owner-Authorized Handguns
Bills promoting owner-authorized handguns in some fashion have
been introduced in several states<1> as well as in Congress.<2>
In 2002, New Jersey passed the first state to require
owner-authorized handguns, as soon as the technology becomes
available. On December 23, 2002, the Associated Press reported:
New Jersey on Monday became the first state to enact
"smart gun" legislation that would eventually require
new handguns to contain a mechanism that allows only
their owners to fire them.
The law will not go into effect immediately because
the technology is still under development and it could
be years before it becomes a reality. But supporters
hailed it as an important milestone in the campaign to
reduce handgun deaths.
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<1> New York Assembly Bill 4878, introduced 1997; New Jersey
Senate Bill 113, Assembly Bill 780, introduced 1998;
Pennsylvania House Bill 1376, introduced 1999; Tennessee House
Bill 0954, Senate Bill 0469, introduced 1999; Hawaii House Bill
41, introduced 2001; Los Angeles motion to require that handguns
sold in the city incorporate safety features to prevent
unauthorized or accidental firing by criminals, minors, and
others, introduced 1999.
<2> Children's Gun Violence Prevention Act of 1999, 106th
Congress, 1st Session (March 25, 1999), H.R. 1342 and S. 735;
Childproof Handgun Act of 1999, 106th Congress, 1st Session
(January 28, 1999), S. 319; Childproof Handgun Act of 1999,
106th Congress, 1st Session (June 7, 1999), H.R. 2025;
Concurrent Resolution Expressing the Sense of Congress in
Support of the Development and Use of Firearms Personalization
Technology, 106th Congress, 1st Session (June 7, 1999), H. Con.
Res. 125.
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"This is common-sense legislation. There are safety
regulations on cars, on toys. It's clearly time we
have safety regulations on handguns," Gov. James E.
McGreevey said at Monday's bill signing ceremony.
(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,73763,00.html.)
In Maryland, a "personalized handgun" is defined as any handgun
manufactured with incorporated design technology (1) allowing
the handgun to be fired only by a person who is the authorized
user of the handgun, and (2) preventing any of the handgun's
safety characteristics from being easily deactivated.
Maryland's Handgun Roster Board is required to review the status
of personalized handgun technology and report its findings to
the Governor and the General Assembly.
4. Effect of This Legislation
This legislation would require DOJ, with input from the working
group described in the legislation, to: (1) survey the status of
the current user-authorized firearm industry; (2) assess the
market conditions and barriers to market of user-authorized
firearms; (3) investigate methods to increase the availability
and use of user authorized firearms in California; and, (4) make
recommendations on manufacturer performance and reliability
standards and how those standards should be tested. DOJ would
be required to report its findings to the Legislature by January
1, 2017.
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