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 AB 2011 Page 2 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. AB 2011 Page 3 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 AB 2011 Page 4 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