FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, May 1, 2013
CA Gov. Brown Signs SB 140, Sen. Leno’s
Raid on Firearm Background Check Funds
In
the middle of California’s firearm acquisition and background check
crisis, $24 Million firearm background check fund is re-appropriated to
other DOJ projects.
SACRAMENTO, CA
- Governor Jerry Brown today signed Senator Mark Leno and Senate
President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg’s SB 140, which takes $24 Million
from a fund designated for firearm background checks and
mis-appropriates it to other, unauthorized Department of Justice
programs. Principal co-authors include Senators Joel Anderson of El
Cajon and Loni Hancock of Berkeley. Notably, the Department is also
seeking an additional budget allocation of $4 Million to replace some of
the $24 Million lost through SB 140.
For years, the
DOJ unlawfully over-collected Dealers Record of Sale (DROS) fees from
firearm acquirers, amassing a surplus of millions of dollars. According
to state law, the DROS funds had one purpose — to support the DROS
electronic background check system itself.
“SB 140 is
nothing less than the State of California profiting from years of
unconstitutional overcharges by the California Department of Justice,”
said Brandon Combs, executive director of The Calguns Foundation.
“Senator Leno’s two-step theft of law abiding gun owners’ money is
begging for public scrutiny, perhaps even litigation.”
Significantly, instead of using the DROS surplus to improve the
integrity of the background check process and fulfill the state’s
mandate to have an effective and efficient background check system, SB
140 plays a monetary shell game in order to fund the DOJ’s “Armed and
Prohibited System,” a program that relies upon the DOJ’s admittedly
“shoddy” Automated Criminal History System.
On July
17, 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported that the criminal records
system maintained by the California Department of Justice is “so poorly
maintained that it routinely fails to alert officials to a subject’s
full criminal history….California has a shoddy system for collecting
case results from 58 county courts and hundreds of local prosecutors and
police agencies….[t]he final outcome — guilty, not guilty, case
dismissed — is missing for about 7.7 million of the 16.4 million arrest
records entered into the state computers over the last decade [alone],”
said Travis LeBlanc, a special assistant attorney general who oversees
technology operations for the DOJ.
“In other words,”
explained Combs, “the DOJ’s Automated Criminal History System lacks
sufficient information to determine whether an individual firearm buyer
is prohibited from possessing firearms or not.”
As
Bloomberg News reported in March of this year, California DOJ admitted
that “merely being in a database of registered gun owners and having a
‘disqualifying event,’ such as a felony conviction or restraining order,
isn’t sufficient evidence for a search warrant….the agents often must
talk their way into a residence to look for weapons.”
“The bottom line is that SB 140 put the cart before the horse,”
explained Combs. “Instead of using the money like they were supposed to,
making sure the databases are accurate so that prohibited people don’t
walk out of gun stores with guns, DOJ will now go around the state
knocking on doors, begging people to give up guns they may or may not
have. It’s like a Saturday Night Live skit of ‘California policymaking
meets law enforcement’ – except, unfortunately, law-abiding California
taxpayers and gun owners are the punchline here.”
The
Calguns Foundation sued DOJ and Attorney General Kamala Harris in April
over improper and excessive DROS delays to gun purchases, issues caused
by DOJ under-staffing the background check program, and taking actions
that exceed their statutory authority – all while DOJ was sitting on the
$24 Million DROS fund surplus. That lawsuit can be viewed at http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/2013/04/the-calguns-foundation-7-californians-sue-attorney-general-kamala-harris-doj-over-gun-delays.
– ROLL CALL –
These CA Senators voted to pass SB 140:
Anderson, Beall, Berryhill, Block, Calderon, Cannella, Corbett, Correa,
De León, DeSaulnier, Emmerson, Evans, Gaines, Galgiani, Hancock,
Hernandez, Hill, Hueso, Huff, Jackson, Knight, Lara, Leno, Lieu, Liu,
Monning, Nielsen, Padilla, Pavley, Price, Roth, Steinberg, Walters,
Wolk, Wright, Wyland, Yee.
These CA Assembly members voted to pass SB 140:
Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Bloom, Blumenfield,
Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta, Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian Calderon,
Campos, Chau, Chesbro, Conway, Cooley, Daly, Dickinson, Eggman, Fong,
Fox, Frazier, Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gordon, Gorell, Gray, Hagman, Hall,
Harkey, Roger Hernández, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Maienschein,
Medina, Mitchell, Morrell, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Nestande,
Olsen, Pan, Perea, V. Manuel Pérez, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Salas,
Skinner, Stone, Ting, Torres, Wagner, Weber, Wieckowski, Wilk, Williams,
Yamada, John A. Pérez.
The following CA Assembly members voted against SB 140:
- Bigelow, Chávez, Dahle, Donnelly, Beth Gaines, Grove, Jones, Melendez, Patterson, Waldron.
No CA Senators voted to oppose the measure.
The following special interests, elected officials, and municipalities supported SB 140:
- American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
- Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
- California District Attorneys Association
- California Medical Association
- California Statewide Law Enforcement Association
- Chief Probation Officers of California
- City of Los Angeles
- Coalition Against Gun Violence
- County of Los Angeles
- Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General
- Peace Officers Research Association of California
- Violence Prevention Coalition
- Women Against Gun Violence
The Calguns Foundation would like to thank the National Shooting Sports
Foundation, National Rifle Association, California Rifle and Pistol
Association, a number of other outdoor and sporting groups, and hundreds
of private individuals for their vigorous opposition to the bill.
—
The Calguns Foundation (www.calgunsfoundation.org)
is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization which serves its members and the
public by providing Second Amendment-related education, strategic
litigation, and the defense of innocent California gun owners from
improper or malicious prosecution. The Calguns Foundation seeks to
inform government and protect the rights of individuals to acquire, own,
and lawfully use firearms in California. Supporters may visit http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/donate to join or donate to CGF.
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