BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2011
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 2011 (Hertzberg)
As Amended August 20, 1998
2/3 vote. Urgency
ASSEMBLY: 66-0 (May 26, 1998) SENATE: 27-7 (August 24, 1998)
Original Committee Reference: PUB. S.
SUMMARY : Requires that a serial number be on a modern handgun as
a condition of transfer of ownership, requires the tracing of all
guns that law enforcement seizes, and subjects long-gun curios and
relics to the dealer record of sale (DROS) process.
The Senate amendments :
1) Delete provisions in this bill as it passed the Assembly which:
a) Increased the penalty from a misdemeanor, punishable by up
to one year in county jail, to a felony for illegally
carrying a concealed handgun where the manufacturer's
serial number on the firearm was obliterated, removed or
altered; and
b) Increased the penalty from a misdemeanor, punishable by up
to one year in county jail, to a felony for illegally
carrying a loaded firearm where the manufacturer's serial
number on the firearm is obliterated, removed or altered.
2) Delete the provision in this bill as it passed the Assembly
which increased the penalty from a misdemeanor to an alternate
felony/misdemeanor (i.e., wobbler) for a person who knowingly
buys, receives, disposes of, sells, offers for sale, or has in
his or her possession any pistol, revolver, or other firearm
which has the name of the maker, model, or the manufacturer's
number or other mark of identification, including any
distinguishing number or mark assigned by the Department of
Justice (DOJ), changed, altered, removed or obliterated.
3) Change the penalty from a wobbler (i.e., as it passed the
Assembly) to a misdemeanor for the new crime created by this
bill which makes it illegal for any person to sell or otherwise
transfer his or her ownership in a handgun unless the firearm
bears either the name of the manufacturer, the manufacturer's
make or model, and a manufacturer's serial number, or the
identification number or mark assigned to the firearm by DOJ.
4) Make technical changes to the tracing requirements in this
bill.
5) Exempt from the requirements in this bill as it passed the
Assembly the requirement that the infrequent transfer, sale, or
loan between private parties of long gun curios and relics
which were manufactured at least 50 years prior to the current
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date, but not including replicas thereof, as defined in the
Code of Federal Regulations, be processed through a state
licensed gun dealer.
6) Make a General Fund (GF) appropriation of $521,000 over two
fiscal years to finance the tracing portion in this bill.
7) Provide that this bill will go into effect on November 30,
1998, but delays implementation of an electronic system to
receive and forward information to the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) until January 1, 2002.
8) Contain chaptering amendments to avoid chaptering out
provisions of SB 63 (Peace), currently on the Senate Unfinished
Business File.
EXISTING LAW :
1) Provides it is a misdemeanor for a person to sell, lease, or
transfer a firearm unless he or she has been issued a state
firearms dealer's license, punishable by up to one year in county
jail. Exemptions exist for commercial transactions among licensed
wholesalers, importers and manufacturers.
2) Requires that the sale, loan or transfer of a firearm must
generally be conducted through a state-licensed firearms dealer
or through a local sheriff's department in counties of less
than 200,000 persons. As part of this process, the 10-day
waiting period/background check/handgun safety certificate is
required prior to delivery of the firearm.
3) Makes a handgun violation of "Existing Law" #2 a wobbler,
punishable by up to one year in the county jail or by
imprisonment in the state prison for 16 months, 2 or 3 years.
Long-gun violations are misdemeanors. The wobbler provisions
treated as felonies are offenses which presumptively mandate a
state prison sentence. Federally defined "long gun curios and
relics" are exempt from "Existing Law" #1 and #2.
4) Requires a person moving to California with a handgun acquired
outside California who did not receive the gun from a
California-licensed gun dealer to register the gun with DOJ.
5) Provides that, on request, DOJ will register transactions
relating to handguns in the Automated Firearm System Unit for
persons who are exempt from dealer processing, or are otherwise
exempt by statute from reporting processes. Provides that
handguns are centrally registered due to the fact that DOJ
compiles various forms.
6) Makes it a misdemeanor for any person to possess a gun with an
obliterated serial number knowing it to be obliterated.
Creates various exemptions from the prohibition on the
possession of guns with obliterated serial numbers.
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AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill:
1) Increased the penalty from a misdemeanor, punishable up to one
year in county jail, to a felony for illegally carrying a
concealed handgun where the manufacturer's serial number on the
firearm was obliterated, removed or altered.
2) Increased the penalty from a misdemeanor, punishable up to one
year in county jail, to a felony for illegally carrying a
loaded firearm where the manufacturer's serial number on the
firearm is obliterated, removed or altered.
3) Increased the penalty from a misdemeanor to an alternate
felony/
misdemeanor (i.e., wobbler) for a person who knowingly bought,
received, disposed of, sold, offered for sale, or had in his or
her possession any pistol, revolver, or other firearm which had
the name of the maker, model, or the manufacturer's number or
other mark of identification, including any distinguishing
number or mark assigned by the DOJ, changed, altered, removed
or obliterated.
4) Made it a wobbler for any person to sell or otherwise transfer
his or her ownership in a handgun unless the firearm bore
either the name of the manufacturer, the manufacturer's make or
model, and a manufacturer's serial number, or the
identification number or mark assigned to the firearm by DOJ.
Exempted antique firearms from this provision.
5) Added a "locked container" exemption to allow the transport of
a handgun by a person for the purpose of having DOJ assign a
distinguishing number or mark of identification to that
firearm.
6) Amended the DROS form to specifically list on it the
identification number or mark assigned to the firearm assigned
by DOJ and required that law enforcement agencies trace
firearms that they seized.
7) Required sales, loans, or transfers of long-gun curios and
relics to be subject to state dealer licensure and state
transfer requirements in the same circumstances as for handgun
curios and relics.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations Committee
analysis, appropriates $521,000 from the General Fund to DOJ. The
appropriation is to be allocated as follows: $174,000 for
1998-99, and $347,000 for 1999-2000. The misdemeanor provisions
create unknown increased mandated, nonreimbursable local costs for
county jail and probation.
COMMENTS : According to the author, "This bill addresses the
problem of gun trafficking and guns used in crimes. Only
criminals have a reason to carry guns with obliterated and altered
serial numbers. Criminals carry these untraceable guns because
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the gun is stolen or because they do not want law enforcement to
have the ability to identify the history of the gun.
"The Federal BATF has recently developed an active program to help
local law enforcement agencies to identify gun traffickers with a
precision never before seen. The barriers to effective use of
this program are lack of information and inconsistency in the type
of information submitted for tracing. AB 2011 standardizes crime
gun information sent to the DOJ and the BATF, and will prevent
illegal gun trafficking.
"Finally, this bill conforms state law to federal law by deleting
the exemption from background checks for long gun curios and
relics. The federal Brady Bill, which takes effect this November
requires the purchasers of all firearms to undergo criminal
background checks under the National Instant Criminal Background
Check System (NICS). This state exemption for long gun curios and
relics must be deleted so that background checks can be conducted
through the state's existing Dealer Record of Sale (DROS)
process."
Please see the policy committee analysis for a more comprehensive
discussion of this bill.
Analysis prepared by : Judith M. Garvey / apubs / (916) 319-3744
FN 042781