SB 899 Blakespear/Skinner 2024 Bill To Strengthen Red Flag Gun Laws

[TrappedinCalifornia]

California senators introduce bill to strengthen red flag gun laws

...State Senators Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, announced on Thursday SB 899, an act to establish uniform standards for the Golden State's gun violence restraining order law.

What this measure aims to do, according to the senators, is to make it easier for California courts to ensure that "people who are deemed a threat to themselves or others no longer have access to firearms."

Put simply, SB 899 would establish uniform standards for California's red flag laws, also conforming to recently enacted rules governing California's domestic violence restraining order law...

According to Skinner's website... Senators Skinner And Blakespear Announce New Bill To Strengthen CA?s 'Red Flag' Law

...SB 899 would make it easier for California courts to ensure that people who are deemed a threat to themselves or others no longer have access to firearms. SB 899 would establish uniform standards for California's gun violence restraining order (GVRO) law, also known as the "Red Flag" law, and the state's other firearm-prohibiting restraining order laws. The new standards would conform to recently enacted rules governing California's domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) law...

[AlmostHeaven]

The California red flag law currently lacks uniform standards?

While I, like most others on Calguns, reflexively oppose all gun laws, I find the implication that the current gun violence restraining order system has heterogenous standards across the state to be concerning in a different way.

Nonetheless, I shall default to no while awaiting additional information.

[TrappedinCalifornia]

The California red flag law currently lacks uniform standards?

While I, like most others on Calguns, reflexively oppose all gun laws, I find the implication that the current gun violence restraining order system has heterogenous standards across the state to be concerning in a different way.

Nonetheless, I shall default to no while awaiting for information.

My sense is, from a quick perusal of the linked bill, that what the Senators are looking to do is make sure that anyone who has a restraining order against them is disarmed; i.e., remove any 'wiggle room' in terms of how/when someone can be disarmed based on the issue of a restraining order.

If I had to guess, it's a way to open the door to more public funding for (from Skinner's webpage)...

...But even with those laws, far too many people who have been deemed by a court to be a threat to themselves or others still have guns. According to the state Department of Justice, there are approximately 24,000 Californians on the state's APPS (Armed and Prohibited Persons System) list...

Why would I say that? Senator Blakespear is from San Diego and in September 2022 it was reported... Inside the team pioneering California's red flag law...

...More than 1,250 times since the end of 2017, when San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott launched the pioneering unit, Brooker?s team has successfully filed a gun violence restraining order, leading to the seizure, as of April, of nearly 1,600 firearms from 865 people - far more than any other agency in the state. An estimated one-third of the weapons, most of which are handguns, have since been returned to the owners...

Under Elliott, San Diego has invested in its red flag program like nowhere else in California, with close coordination between the city attorney's office and the police department to streamline the process for obtaining an order. Brooker's team includes three attorneys, a paralegal, a legal secretary, a police officer and two retired police officers who work part-time as investigators, preparing cases for review...

To achieve this, she enlisted Skinner, whose district includes Richmond, Berkeley, and Oakland. Why? Because Skinner (again, from Skinner's linked webpage)...

...In 2014, California adopted the nation?s first GVRO law, AB 1014, by then-Assemblymember Skinner. In addition, the state has five other restraining order laws that result in the relinquishment of firearms to address domestic violence, school violence, workplace violence, elder or dependent abuse, and civil harassment...

[AlmostHeaven]

I see. Thus, the bill aims to create uniform standards across the state by subjecting everybody to the extreme heightened gun seizure regime of San Diego.

F*ck these tyrants.

[TrappedinCalifornia]

I see. Thus, the bill aims to create uniform standards across the state by subjecting everybody to the extreme heightened gun seizure regime of San Diego.

F*ck these tyrants.

Not necessarily 'subjecting,' at least not immediately.

It would seem, however, to my cursory reading, to allow access to additional funding for places like San Diego or Berkeley to create, maintain, and/or expand such units if the regional powers were so inclined. That's where the 'uniformity' angle would play a part.

Again, without going through it in detail, that's speculation on my part; i.e., it creates more Government authority to 'disarm' individuals by creating a metric the entire State must adhere to when a restraining order is granted.