Breaking new ground in the state-level battle over firearms, the Democratic-dominated California state legislature has taken gun control into uncharted territory with a flurry of new bills that target...
not just firearms and ammunition, but also recreational hunting.
Among the dozen gun-control bills sitting on California Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk are measures that would outlaw lead ammunition for hunting as well as common types of hunting rifles under the umbrella of an assault-weapons ban. Taken together, the measures go far beyond the efforts that have inspired a sharp backlash and political battles in states such as Connecticut and Colorado.
To put the lead bill in context, about 95 percent of all ammunition sold in California contains lead. The alternative is metal bullets, some of which can pierce police armor and are banned by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Critics say the bill would effectively end hunting as a sport in California.
“If California outlaws lead bullets, the federal government already outlaws everything else, so there’s nothing left for hunters to use,” said California Assemblyman Brian Jones, a Republican from Santee. “It basically outlaws hunting.”
Mr. Brown has yet to say whether he will sign any or all of the gun bills, but the effort has already sparked a backlash against the Democratic-sponsored bills by one of the party’s chief constituencies: labor unions. A half-dozen California labor leaders have formed a coalition urging the governor to veto Assembly Bill 711, the lead-ammunition ban, citing the loss of manufacturing and supply-chain jobs as well as recreational opportunities.
“You’re taking away one of the few things our working families enjoy and can afford,” said Mark Gagliardi of the Office and Professional Employees International Union, Local 277, in Contra Costa County. “Sixty-five percent of all union households hunt, fish or enjoy the outdoors.”
The governor’s decision comes with firearms laws in the national spotlight in the wake of the unprecedented recall vote in Colorado that cost two pro-gun control Democratic state legislators their seats and the Navy Shipyard mass shooting in Washington, D.C.
How Mr. Brown will lean is anyone’s guess. A Democrat and a gun owner, he said at a public event last week, “California has the toughest gun laws in the country, and we’re proud of that achievement.”
In one sign of which way the governor will be leading, Mr. Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle he would not be influenced by the rampage at the Navy Yard in Washington D.C. that left 12 people and the shooter dead.
“And I think we want to look very carefully and not just react to events of the day,” Mr. Brown said. “When we pass laws, it’s not a decision of the moment, it’s a decision for the decades. And we want to look very carefully at what it is we’re setting in motion.”
Legal battle
If he signs Senate Bill 374, which bans all semi-automatic weapons with a detachable magazine, including hunting rifles, Mr. Brown is likely to set in motion a lawsuit, said Long Beach attorney Chuck Michel, who represents the National Rifle Association’s California affiliate.
“This bill is proof that the slippery-slope argument is valid,” said Mr. Michel. “We hope the governor sees how particularly ill-advised this bill is, but if he signs it, the NRA will have no choice but to challenge the law.”
Meanwhile, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is lobbying the governor to sign the bills while praising legislators for passing “an unprecedented number of life-saving measures to keep our communities safe from gun violence.”
Credit for the passage of lead bullet ban goes not to the gun control groups but to environmental and animal-rights activists, led by the Humane Society andAudobon Society, who argued that the lead from ammunition introduces a toxin into the environment that harms both wildlife and humans.