“California voters continue to show strong support for Proposition 63,” latimes.com reports, “according to a new statewide USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. The initiative is supported by 58% of likely voters, while 35% are opposed.” Proposition 63 outlaws “large-capacity” ammunition magazines, mandates background checks for all bullet sales and transfers (no lending ammo), fines gun owners for failing to report lost or stolen firearms, and creates a new process for confiscating guns from citizens convicted of a felony. Cop carve-outs? Of course!
Click here to read the official full text of the Orwellian Safety for All Act. Its full provisions are deep into TLDR territory. But you don’t have to go far into the document to elevate your outrage. Check out what “The people of the State of California find and declare” as a prelude to the actual changes in the law.
1. Gun violence destroys lives, families and communities. From 2002 to 2013, California lost 38,576 individuals to gun violence. That is more than seven times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Over this same period, 2,258 children were killed by gunshot injuries in California. The same number of children murdered in the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre are killed by gunfire in this State every 39 days.
2. In 2013, guns were used to kill 2,900 Californians, including 251 children and teens. That year, at least 6,035 others were hospitalized or treated in emergency rooms for non-fatal gunshot wounds, including 1,275 children and teens.
3. Guns are commonly used by criminals. According to the California Department of Justice, in 2014 there were 1,169 firearm murders in California, 13,546 armed robberies involving a firearm, and 15,801 aggravated assaults involving a firearm.
4. This tragic violence imposes significant economic burdens on our society. Researchers conservatively estimate that gun violence costs the economy at least $229 billion every year, or more than $700 per American per year. In 2013 alone, California gun deaths and injuries imposed $83 million in medical costs and $4.24 billion in lost productivity.
5. California can do better. Reasonable, common-sense gun laws reduce gun deaths and injuries, keep guns away from criminals and fight illegal gun trafficking. Although California has led the nation in gun safety laws, those laws still have loopholes that leave communities throughout the state vulnerable to gun violence and mass shootings. We can close these loopholes while still safeguarding the ability of law-abiding, responsible Californians to own guns for self-defense, hunting and recreation.
6. We know background checks work. Federal background checks have already prevented more than 2.4 million gun sales to convicted criminals and other illegal purchasers in America. In 2012 alone, background checks blocked 192,043 sales of firearms to illegal purchasers including 82,000 attempted purchases by felons. That means background checks stopped roughly 225 felons from buying firearms every day. Yet California law only requires background checks for people who purchase firearms, not for people who purchase ammunition. We should close that loophole.
7. Right now, any violent felon or dangerously mentally ill person can walk into a sporting goods store or gun shop in California and buy ammunition, no questions asked. That should change. We should require background checks for ammunition sales just like gun sales, and stop both from getting into the hands of dangerous individuals.
8. Under current law, stores that sell ammunition are not required to report to law enforcement when ammunition is lost or stolen. Stores should have to report lost or stolen ammunition within 48 hours of discovering that it is missing so law enforcement can work to prevent that ammunition from being illegally trafficked into the hands of dangerous individuals.
9. Californians today are not required to report lost or stolen guns to law enforcement. This makes it difficult for law enforcement to investigate crimes committed with stolen guns, break-up gun trafficking rings, and return guns to their lawful owners. We should require gun owners to report their lost or stolen guns to law enforcement.
10. Under current law, people who commit felonies and other serious crimes are prohibited from possessing firearms. Yet existing law provides no clear process for those people to relinquish their guns when they become prohibited at the time of conviction. As a result, in 2014, the Department of Justice identified more than 17,000 people who possess more than 34,000 guns illegally, including more than 1,400 assault weapons. We need to close this dangerous loophole by not only requiring prohibited people to tum in their guns, but also ensuring that it happens.
11. Military-style large-capacity ammunition magazines – some capable of holding more than 100 rounds of ammunition – significantly increase a shooter’s ability to kill a lot of people in a short amount of time. That is why these large capacity ammunition magazines are common in many of America’s most horrific mass shootings, from the killings at 101 California Street in San Francisco in 1993 to Columbine High School in 1999 to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.
12. Today, California law prohibits the manufacture, importation and sale of military-style, large capacity ammunition magazines, but does not prohibit the general public from possessing them. We should close that loophole. No one except trained law enforcement should be able to possess these dangerous ammunition magazines.
13. Although the State of California conducts background checks on gun buyers who live in California, we have to rely on other states and the FBI to conduct background checks on gun buyers who live elsewhere. We should make background checks outside of California more effective by consistently requiring the State to report who is prohibited from possessing firearms to the federal background check system.
14. The theft of a gun is a serious and potentially violent crime. We should clarify that such crimes can be charged as felonies, and prevent people who are convicted of such crimes from possessing firearms.
We could fisk every one of these findings and declarations. We’ve done it for years. But if the above video is any indication, Golden State voters are incapable of comprehending rational arguments. So…it’s stupid! OK?
When Prop 63 passes, America’s most populous state will be lost to the cause of firearms freedom, as it continues its slide down socialism’s slippery slope.