Guest Commentary
by Michael Schwartz
Did You Hear What Filner Did This Time?
I didn’t either. But here’s something that’s politically important too, believe it or not.
We are looking at a fairly dire future in California in many ways. One important reason is the future of gun ownership. Approximately one in five Californians (counting the entire population of men, women, and children) are gun owners. Because you have to be 18 to purchase a gun (21 to purchase a pistol), that means there is an even higher concentration of registered California voters who own firearms. And if you’ve ever stood outside a gun show or gun shop asking people if they are registered to vote like I have, you’d see first-hand there is a high concentration of registered voters in the gun community.
So why do we have such bad gun laws in California if so many California voters are gun owners?
I’ll get to that answer in a minute. First, let’s look at what’s coming down the pike.
- SB475 will allow San Francisco to ban gun shows at the Cow Palace (which isn’t even located within the SF city limits; it’s in Daly City) and will soon be voted on in the Assembly.
- AB180 will allow the City of Oakland to scrap preemption and enact firearms ordinances that are more restrictive than California state firearms laws. Not only is allowing cities to shuck state law a horrible precedent to set, it will result in a hodgepodge of firearms laws from municipality to municipality, setting bear-traps for gun owners in Oakland as well as those traveling through Oakland. This will soon be voted on in the State Senate.
- SB108 Requires that all legally owned loaded guns that are the private property of law-abiding residents be locked away and in a locked house regardless of whether anyone is present. This is on its way to sail through the Assembly Public Safety committee.
- SB396 would require the state to confiscate legally owned private property or the owner risk becoming a felon. All standard capacity ammunition magazines that were designed to hold more than 10 rounds, were legally acquired, and are legally owned would have to be turned into the state or result in a felony conviction of the owner. Not because the owner did anything wrong or misused his personal property, not because his personal property had any negative impact on anyone else, but just for simply possessing it.
- SB47 and SB374 combined would in effect ban the possession and sale of the most common owned rifles in California. This is a gun ban and a gun grab, make no mistake about it. This doesn’t affect criminals; it makes the law-abiding into criminals and worse, stops future generations of Californians from becoming gun owners. Both bills are set to breeze through the Assembly Appropriations Committee and pass.
The bills I chose to list — which aren’t all of the anti-gun bills in Sacramento right now — will force a fundamental, real change on gun ownership in California. If you think our prisons and court systems are busy now, just wait until these pass and hundreds of thousands of law-abiding gun owners are turned into criminals overnight.
These laws are absolutely, 100 percent driven by the Democratic Party. Will gun owners remember that? Yes, somewhat. And they will remember that nobody stopped them. So back to my earlier question, if we have so many gun voters in California, why do we have such bad gun laws?
Because they’ve been ignored for a long, long time while really bad things have been happening to their right to keep and their right to bear arms. In California, neither party can claim they are helping gun owners. When supporting a party a gun owner has a choice between bad or much worse. So what are gun owners doing? They have been moving out of state, not voting at all, or voting for Libertarian Party candidates or independent candidates, which helps Democratic Party candidates win over Republicans in close districts and statewide elections.
Time and money is being put into expanding the Republican Party by reaching out to voters that Republicans aren’t historically reaching. That’s a great plan, but not unless we make sure voters that helped build the big-tent aren’t leaving through the back door due to the malaise regarding their core issue.
This issue can be unifying and not divisive, but only through leadership, attention, and proper messaging. I’m not going to re-hash the mistakes every mealy-mouthed Republican made running for office without understanding the gun issues in California. I’d rather talk about moving forward.
I am suggesting four things:
1. Call, write, email, and fax every member of the Assembly and State Senate and voice your opposition to the gun laws being proposed. Do the same to Gov. Brown’s office and ask him to veto.
2. Join NRA, CRPA, and Gun Owners of California today. They will need money to fight these laws in court.
3. Buy a firearm. Get some skin in the game — it’s your right. Don’t know how? Ask me.
4. Own this issue! Encourage every Republican at every level of government to take action, stand for freedom when it comes to gun issues, and show leadership. Whether they do it because legal gun ownership lowers crime, they do it because anti-gun laws chip away at property rights, or they do it because they actually believe in the Constitution’s Second Amendment, it will be a move to draw a clear line between “R”s and “D”s.
This issue can be a clear difference and a motivating vote-getter, but not by shying away from it, ignoring it, supporting candidates happy to plant their flag in the middle ground, or hoping that gun voters will vote for the Republican simply because the Democrats are so much worse.
Mr. Schwartz is a Republican.