By Patrick McGreevy
Los Angeles Times
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California lawmakers on Monday approved a trio of bills that would reduce the number of people with access to firearms, including lifetime bans on owing guns for people convicted of domestic violence and individuals placed on involuntary psychiatric holds twice in a year by the courts.
The three bills now head to the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown for consideration.
Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, proposed a lifetime gun ban on those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence, which extends the current 10-year prohibition in state law.
“We must do more to ensure the safety of our survivors of domestic violence,” Rubio told her colleagues Monday.
Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, introduced the measure that says Californians placed on involuntary psychiatric holds twice in a year by the courts would face a potential lifetime ban on owning firearms.
The state currently imposes a five-year ban on possessing firearms on people the courts order admitted for psychiatric treatment because they are deemed a risk of harming themselves or others.
Low’s bill would allow patients to petition the court for a hearing to have guns returned.
“People at risk of harming themselves or others should not have easy access to firearms,” Low said. “AB 1968 tightens our laws to keep firearms out of the hands of people who may be suicidal or violent.”
Some two-thirds of gun deaths in the United States are suicides, according to a report last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Lawmakers also gave final legislative approval Monday to a measure that would require Californians to undergo at least eight hours of instruction and pass a live-fire gun test before obtaining a concealed weapon permit.
Assemblyman Todd Gloria, D-San Diego, proposed the bill, noting there is no minimum standard for the amount of instruction applicants must receive before they are eligible for a conceal-carry permit.
“If you want to have a loaded gun in public, you need to show that you know what you are doing,” Gloria told his colleagues during the floor debate Monday.
The measure drew opposition from most Republican members including Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez of Lake Elsinore, who objected that there is no cap on the amount of training hours a county can require.
AB 2013 is also opposed by the Firearms Policy Coalition, which advocates for gun owners.
The group said the measure “casually enacts a burdensome new mandate and then leaves it up to hundreds of different law enforcement agencies to determine how it should be interpreted and applied.”
