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Seeking to strengthen California’s gun laws, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed, on Sept. 26, a pair of bills authored by Assembly member Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park. The bills empower the Department of Justice to conduct firearm inspection and also require firearm sellers to provide information about the risks of gun ownership.
The bills were Berman’s response to the January shooting in Half Moon Bay, which claimed the lives of seven people. Berman, who is a founding member of the Legislature’s Gun Violence Working Group, said, “The incident rocked (his) district.”
“In the aftermath, the message from my constituents was clear: do more to combat gun violence,” Berman said in a statement. “We have endured our collective grief and frustration long enough.”
Both bills easily sailed through the state Legislature over the past month. AB 1420 advanced with a 75-5 vote in the Assembly and a 33-5 vote in the state Senate, while AB 1598 moved ahead with votes of 63-13 in the Assembly and 30-5 in the Senate.
AB 1420 came out of a partnership between Berman and the state Department of Justice, which sponsored the bill. The law authorizes the DOJ to conduct firearm dealer inspection and requires it to maintain information about firearm dealers who were found to have violated state gun statutes. It also expands the department’s authority to assess civil fines against firearm dealers.
While the DOJ already has the authority to conduct spot checks of firearms dealers, this power is limited to checking for compliance with specific statutes that are listed in a section of a penal code that has not been updated since 2010, according to the Assembly bill analysis. The analysis notes that DOJ representatives who conduct inspections “often observe non-compliance with more recent laws, but do not have the authority to cite for those violations.”
State Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement that the bill will expand the DOJ’s ability to conduct inspections and “ensure dealers are following California’s gun laws.”
“California has some of the strongest gun safety laws in the nation — and these laws save lives,” Bonta said. “AB 1420 provides the California DOJ with the necessary authority and tools to hold accountable gun dealers who transfer, sell, or store firearms in violation of these laws.
“I thank Assembly member Marc Berman and our state leaders for advancing AB 1420 to help ensure that law enforcement has the tools we need to enforce California’s common-sense gun laws and keep our communities safe.”
Berman said in a statement that bad actor gun shops are currently skirting California’s laws. AB 1420, he said, will crack down on these businesses.
His other bill, AB 1598, targets education rather than enforcement. It requires the Department of Justice to put together a firearm-safety-certificate study guide and a pamphlet on the risks and benefits of firearm ownership. Starting Jan. 1, 2025, firearms dealers will be required to provide the most recent copy of the pamphlet to anyone buying or being loaned a firearm.
In explaining the bill, Berman cited a statistic from the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which reported that the presence of a gun in the household increases the risk of homicide for women by 500%. The bill, he said, will “ensure that Californians are fully informed of the risk of gun ownership before they buy a gun.”
“Many people buy firearms because they think it will make them safer at home. The evidence is indisputable, however: keeping a firearm in your home dramatically increases the likelihood that you or someone you love will be a victim of gun violence,” Berman said in a statement. “The data clearly shows that having a firearm at home increases the risk of death or serious injury by suicide, homicide, or unintentional injury.”
Both bills advanced with no formal opposition. Dr. Raul Ayala, president of the California Academy of Family Physicians, said in a statement that physicians have long recognized gun violence as a “national public health epidemic.”
“We care for victims of gun violence every day,” Ayala said. “Gun violence is a physical and psychological trauma that affects the health of our patients, families, and communities.
“AB 1598 is part of a needed comprehensive public health approach to address the gun violence epidemic by requiring education and demonstrated knowledge about the responsibilities of gun ownership and operation.”
“Bad actor gun shops”
Berman is an utter joke. Just another leftist elite that hates America.
Show me one “bad actor gun shop” Mr. Berman.
The only bad actors are those that use tragedy to further their leftist elitist agendas.
Berman / he is My Man. My Man. My representative, my duly elected representative to the CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLY. Representative democracy, not direct democracy Or government by arms.
“A well regulated Militia …”
I’m sad to hear that, Steven. Marc Berman is NOT “my man”. I was not impressed with his handling of SB 9 and SB 10, which he voted for. He is playing the same deceptive game as other state politicians. Listen to the pretty words Berman said:
“Every day, tens of thousands of my constituents – and millions of Californians – struggle under the weight of the housing crisis. Due to the astronomical cost of housing in my district and throughout California, they are forced to choose between paying rent and utilities, buying food, or accessing the healthcare they need. We are failing these friends and neighbors.”
“For decades we have failed to build enough housing in California, and we have failed the most vulnerable among us. These two housing bills attempt to right those wrongs and create a framework to restore some of the socio-economic diversity that my district – one of the most expensive in the country – has lost. That is why I voted yes on SB 9 and SB 10.”- https://a23.asmdc.org/press-releases/20210826-berman-releases-statement-support-sb-9-and-10
The TRUTH is that the “most vulnerable among us” are being thrown under the bus. SB9 and SB10 did not help anyone who was “forced to choose between paying rent and utilities,” so why did Berman say such words? It is a trick to deceive naive voters, who think that the person saying pretty words must be a good guy. But ACTIONS speak louder than WORDS. Politicians who truly care about “the most vulnerable among us” can PROVE that by passing legislation that actually helps those who are “forced to choose between paying rent and utilities.”
Marc Berman also voted in favor of SB 423, the bill that “extends and strengthens” SB 35. Did you know that SB 35 actually REWARDS developers for NOT BUILDING affordable housing? See my comments on https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2023/10/11/mountain-view-city-council-eyes-local-rules-to-prevent-displacement-due-to-redevelopment
Politicians like Berman are now playing a clever game where they blame RESIDENTS for not providing affordable housing to ourselves (!). That’s apparently much easier than working to find actual SOLUTIONS to help “the most vulnerable among us”. They hand cities incredibly expensive and unfunded mandates to build low-income housing. They don’t provide help, mind you, they just assign us the responsibility to build it.
And then when we don’t, because WE DON”T HAVE THE MONEY!, they
1) frame us as being rich elitists who are anti-affordable housing, and
2) provide bills like SB 35 and SB423 to be used as weapons for developers to use in order to silence objections of any kind from residents.
No, Marc Berman is most certainly NOT “my man”. I want to support the politicians who actually find a way to build the 6,225 affordable housing units that state politicians “require” Mountain View to build, units that most of the residents here desperately NEED.
It is off topic to refer to the voting records of a “duly elected representative?”
Wow.