Spurred by recent mass shootings, the legislation, introduced by Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, and co-authored by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, would allow residents to “voluntarily add their name to the California Do Not Sell List for firearms.”

“A lot of the political opposition to efforts California has taken to address gun violence is around government telling people what they can and cannot do,” Bonta told the SacBee. “This is different. This is an individual saying, ‘I want to do this. I’m choosing to do this.’ We think it will save lives.”

Of the roughly 38,000 gun deaths in the U.S. in 2016, about two-thirds were suicides. In California alone, there were nearly 1,600 suicides with guns in 2016.

While a controversial topic, the issue of guns and suicide are inextricably linked. Research suggests that suicide attempts are an impulsive act, and firearms offer a disproportionately lethal means.

The bill is not without its opponents, such as the National Rifle Association, with some expressing concern that the law could be abused.

To join the list, a person would provide the names and contact information for five people. These contacts would be informed if the person attempted to buy a firearm. Additionally, while those on the list may not be able to legally purchase a firearm, they would not be liable for “any criminal or civil penalty for purchasing, receiving or possessing a firearm.” Those who knowingly sell firearms to Californians on the list, however, would be subject to penalties.

The law would require the state to regularly add people on the list to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

People on the list would need to wait a year before removing themselves; however, to remove themselves earlier, they could provide testimony from a medical professional that they are not a risk to themselves or others. The state would “expunge records related to the person’s inclusion in, and removal, from, the Do Not Sell List.”

Unwilling to be locked out of the gun cabinet by Sacramento Democrats, California residents have pushed gun purchases up to record numbers, leaving latecomers to the trend in the lurch. But as the state Legislature added fresh restrictions, developments in the courts painted a murkier picture that could impact interpretations of federal law around the United States. 

Over the course of the year, lawmakers spearheaded a suite of measures designed to further tighten the screws on the California gun market, which has long been subject to progressive constraints. “The new gun control legislation, six bills signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in July, was a boon to 2016 gun sales already on an upward trend,” as the Press Democrat noted. Voters followed on the action by toughening things further at the ballot box: 

“Nearly one million firearms were purchased in California as of Dec. 9, the most recent state data available, compared to just over 700,000 guns sold in all of 2015. Sales have likely soared beyond one million guns since then. Semiautomatic rifle sales have more than doubled. The California Department of Justice reported 364,643 semiautomatic rifles had been sold by Dec. 9. Only 153,931 rifles were sold last year.”

More “assault weapons”

Shoppers have raced to acquire firearms that won’t be available for legal purchase after the raft of new legislation takes effect. “Rifles with bullet buttons for the quick swap of ammunition magazines and other soon-to-be banned features have also skyrocketed,” the San Jose Mercury News reported. “Statewide sales are up 40 percent by early December. The new gun controls reclassified semi-automatic rifles that have certain features as assault weapons. The features added to the prohibited list include a protruding or forward pistol grip, a thumbhole stock, a folding stock or a flash suppressor.”

Although rifles with bullet buttons will be banned from sale as a result of their reclassification as so-called assault weapons, it will remain legal to own and possess them. 

A separate front

As has been the case with issues such as immigration and minimum wages, California municipalities have in some instances gotten out ahead of the state on gun control. In San Francisco, a federal appeals court recently agreed that an 11-judge panel would “review a challenge to an Alameda County ordinance that restricts the locations of gun stores in March,” according to CBS San Francisco. “The challenge was filed in 2012 by three businessmen who wanted to open a gun and firearms training store in an unincorporated part of San Leandro that was found by county zoning administrators to be within 500 feet of a residential area.”  

More than just Alameda County law could be at stake, officials quickly argued. “Lawyers for Alameda County said 17 other cities and counties in California regulate the locations of commercial gun dealers, including San Francisco — which has a 1,000-foot buffer zone — as well as Oakland and Contra Costa County,” the San Francisco Chronicle observed. “State Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office said a ruling allowing a constitutional challenge to the local restrictions could also imperil state laws regulating commercial gun dealers’ licensing, inspection, monitoring, storage methods and delivery of firearms.” The Alameda regulation was made law in 1998, but the crux of the controversy will implicate a key part of the most recent landmark gun ruling to come down from the nation’s highest court. As the Chronicle noted, the Alameda case “is one of many pending in federal courts over the meaning of the 2008 Supreme Court decision that declared a constitutional right to possess firearms at home for self-defense.”

New legislation on guns was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown and advanced on Capitol Hill, as California elected officials continued a concerted push for tighter regulations at both the state and federal level.

To the satisfaction of state Democrats, Gov. Brown “signed six gun-control bills into law, including new restrictions on semi-automatic rifles and a requirement that ammunition purchasers undergo background checks,” according to the Los Angeles Times, “saying they will help ‘enhance public safety’ in California.” But Brown also scrapped five more bills that would have cracked down further, “including an expansion of the use of restraining orders to take guns from people deemed to be dangerous.” Brown also rejected language that would expand the definition of firearms, warning against the potential for wide-ranging unintended consequences. 

“The action appeared to be a subtle shift for Brown, whose complicated record on gun control has been marked by skepticism about whether many proposals increase public safety without infringing on the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”

Opponents of the new measures, who bitterly objected to the flood of new rules, remained unswayed by the vetoes. “Brown’s decision to veto almost as many bills as he signed did little to pacify outraged pro-gun groups that believe the measures were improperly rushed through the legislative process in the wake of the San Bernardino and Orlando massacres,” the San Jose Mercury News observed. “One reason was that the governor signed the most controversial bills.”

Another was the stark divide between Republicans and Democrats on the scope of Second Amendment protections for individual private buyers of firearms and ammunition. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a personal right to private ownership, constitutional law grants states and localities a fairly wide berth on how freely available to make guns and bullets. 

Second chances

Democrats to Brown’s left have already shifted focus to the November elections, when Californians will have the opportunity to vote back in much of what the governor left out. “A separate set of gun control measures will appear before voters in November; some of them have been passed by the Legislature, but Mr. Brown vetoed those, saying they should be left to voters to decide,” the New York Times noted. 

“That initiative is being championed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is running for governor after Mr. Brown’s final term ends in 2018. His initiative would, among other things, make firearm theft a felony and require ammunition vendors to report lost or stolen supplies within 48 hours.”

Federal feud

The party has faced slower going in Washington, D.C. As Newsweek observed, “national Democrats and Republicans continue a political battle over the proper response to the spate of mass shootings, with Republicans bending to possibly accept some gun control curbs but unwilling to agree with the extent of Democrats’ proposals. Frustrated Democrats resorted to a talking filibuster and a Congressional sit-in to force the issue in recent weeks, but Congress remains stalled.”

Democratic Gun Violence Prevention Task Force chief Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, insisted that the alternative to proposed legislation tying gun access to the so-called terror watch list was a bill “drafted by the gun lobby,” as the Los Angeles Times reported separately, with Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside, characterizing the bill as “a fig leaf to cover up Republicans’ refusal to take any meaningful action on gun violence.” Republicans have countered that the watch list, notorious for bureaucratic mix-ups and overbroad application, would add due process problems to other gun strictures they already oppose. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, lambasted the Democrats’ recent sit-in as “one of the most disgraceful and childish breaches of decorum in the history of this institution,” the Times added. 

A wave of violence, legislation and litigation fueled the latest acrimonious phase of the debate about guns in California. While the issue had risen near the top of the political agenda following shootings that intensified the immigration debate, an apparently close call with mass bloodshed at the Los Angeles gay pride parade has sharpened the dispute around firearms even further. 

“The early morning arrest in Santa Monica of James Wesley Howell, 20, of Jeffersonville, came just a few hours after at least 50 people were shot and killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, though police said they had found no evidence of a connection between the events,” the Associated Press reported. “The L.A. Pride event continued as usual, albeit with increased security. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the arrest at the start of the parade and struck a defiant tone.”

Rules and rulings

In Sacramento, that tone collided with heated opposition to a new slate of measures designed to pick away at Californians’ market access to guns and ammunition. In a harsh session, “divided California state lawmakers advanced a dozen gun-control bills, including proposals to outlaw the sale of semiautomatic rifles with easily detachable magazines,” the Los Angeles Times noted. First introduced in the wake of the December terror attack in San Bernardino, the mass shooting of scores of people in Orlando “was invoked over and over Tuesday by Democrats as state legislative committees heard testimony before voting to send bills to the floor for votes,” the paper added. 

The atmosphere surrounding that legislation was charged even more highly by a Federal Appeals Court ruling this month keeping sharp restrictions in place around so-called concealed carry in California. “The 7-4 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reverses a 2014 ruling from its three-judge panel, which had struck down restrictions imposed by two California counties based on state law,” USA Today reported.

“California’s law, like those in eight other states and the District of Columbia, generally requires citizens to show ‘good cause’ before being granted a concealed-carry license. In other states, licenses are issued to most citizens without felony convictions who are not considered dangerous or mentally unstable.”

Congressional Democrats have faced a much higher hurdle to passing gun regulations than their fellow party members in Sacramento. “House Democrats with limited ability to influence the congressional agenda tried for the dozenth time Tuesday to force a gun-control vote,” as the Times reported separately. “Lawmakers used a procedural move in an attempt to get their colleagues to vote to prevent people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list from being able to purchase a gun. Given Republican control of Congress and a years-long logjam on anything related to guns, the push was symbolic.”

“But it was the second emotional and tense moment for Democrats who have repeatedly pushed for the provision and other changes to gun laws in the months since Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, and other California members first stalled House floor action in the days after the San Bernardino shooting in an effort to raise the same issue.”

From morality to money

The root of the controversy over gun control has increasingly shifted onto not just moral but more deeply philosophical grounds, with proponents of tighter strictures thinking of firearms more abstractly, akin to contagious diseases, hazardous building conditions, and other generalized risks. “Gun violence is one of the top public health problems in the nation,” Boston University epidemiologist Michael Siegel argued to Wired. “If you’re in an urban area and African American, it’s probably the number one public health problem you’re going to face.”

Siegel and other such analysts cheered Sacramento’s recent passage of a $5 million allocation toward a new California Firearm Violence Research Center. The funding, according to Wired, will “train a new crop of researchers, and get one of the best gun violence data sets out there.” UC Davis violence-prevention researcher Garen Wintemute linked up with sate Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, to parse California’s copious amount of data around violence and guns, examining “the ways it has changed over time as policies shifted.”

The phenomenon cuts both for and against the prevailing party platforms on the political Left and Right. “The increase in handgun sales coincides with a dip in gun-related crimes,” for example, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported, lending support to conservatives’ insistence that most gun owners have no interest in breaking the law and no greater inclination toward violence. “The number of aggravated assaults in California involving a firearm dropped from more than 23,000 in 2005 to less than 16,000 last year,” the paper added. “The number of gun-related murders fell from 1,845 to 1,169 over the same time period.”

Growing unease

On the other hand, the statistics also reinforce the liberal contention that even very strict controls on guns can leave the Second Amendment intact, preserving citizens’ sport shooting and self-defense interests. In a further irony, however, the data indicates that robust gun sales have been boosted by a widespread perception among current gun owners that access to weaponry is being progressively sealed off.  “While more handguns are being sold in California, it doesn’t necessarily mean there are more gun owners. Some researchers have found the number of American households that own a firearm is at a 40-year low, even though transactions are climbing. This suggests a smaller group of people is collecting more weapons,” the Chronicle surmised.

The state’s 2014 ban on openly carrying unloaded guns, going into effect at the beginning of 2016, was “not expected to slow the growth in gun sales,” as SFist noted. Other new rules taking effect on the first of the year required that “pellet, BB, and airsoft guns must be brightly colored, to help distinguish them,” and that “concealed carry permit holders will no longer be allowed to bring their weapons onto school grounds or college campuses,” as the Christian Science Monitor reported.

But another impending law has raised the ire of a relatively broad group of activists and interest groups. January 1 triggers legislation, written and passed in the aftermath of the Isla Vista shooting, that “gives the police or family members the option to petition the courts to seize the guns and ammunition of someone they think poses a threat,” as the Guardian observed — “the first law of its kind in the country.”

Diminishing returns?

But, the paper noted, this so-called gun violence restraining order “has raised concerns from lawmakers and pro-gun groups about civil liberties and questions about how effective it will really be.” The now-customary wave of litigation set to emerge from the uncertain legal landscape was expected to refine the law’s implications, which legislators in Sacramento haggled over on the way to passage. “It will become clearer after petitions begin to flow through the California courts what kind of evidence, minimally, could result in the issuance of a temporary firearms restraining order,” according to the Guardian.

Other new restrictions on guns proposed this election season have raised further questions. While Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has begun campaigning on a policy that “would prohibit their possession and require anyone who has them to sell to a licensed firearm dealer, transfer them out of state or relinquish them to law enforcement for disposal,” as the Sacramento Bee reported, Gov. Jerry Brown has instead played up the limits of California restrictions that aren’t mirrored or reinforced by neighboring states and the federal government. “We have among the strictest gun control regulations in the country, and it doesn’t do us that much good if other states and the federal government is basically passive in this effort to keep guns out of the wrong hands,” Brown told CNN, according to the Bee.

“Californians have already bought a record number of firearms in 2015, including major spikes in sales on Black Friday and the days after the San Bernardino attacks,” reported the San Jose Mercury News, citing new federal and state data on the sales. “Firearms purchases in California triggered 1.51 million federal background checks in the first 11 months of the year, breaking the previous annual record of 1.47 million set last year,” the paper added.

A rush to buy

The reaction to the San Bernardino shootings was swift, with “as many as 6,000 guns being sold a day in the days after two jihadists massacred 14 people,” according to Fox News. “Figures provided by the California Department of Justice to FoxNews.com show that in the four days after the massacre, there were 20,664 sales, compared to only 12,649 from Nov. 29 to Dec. 2.”

Gun shows have also seen swelling crowds. Ten days after the attack, “Southern Californians flocked to a weekend gun show in Del Mar, many voicing concerns that another mass shooting could lead to tighter restrictions on gun sales,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “Organizers of the Crossroads of the West gun show said the weekend’s attendance could exceed 15,000 people — twice as large as usual.”

“Salesman James Wright, from a San Fernando-based ammunition factory, sold nearly 20,000 rounds of target-practice ammunition in an hour, leaving his black banquet table almost bare by 10:30 a.m. He had arrived with fewer supplies than usual, he said, because his other customers — gun stores and shooting ranges — had doubled their usual orders after the San Bernardino shooting.”

Protection and preemption

Anecdotal evidence has substantiated claims that more Californians are turning to guns for personal defense. In interviews with the San Bernardino Sun, locals expressed concerns that purchasing a gun had become essential to protecting themselves and their family. “This happened too close to home. I need to protect my family,” said one.

“I have two girls, 18 and 20, living at home. I realize that If someone breaks in with a gun, the police may not be able to arrive in time to help,” said another.

But buyers were driven by several factors since the attacks. In addition to personal safety and the holiday gift-giving season, some were motivated by a desire to get out ahead of possible regulations that would add additional strictures to California’s tough gun control rules. “Every single time the politicians start talking about firearms bans or increasing regulation, folks start to realize, ‘This is a right that if I don’t exercise it, I may lose it,'” Craig DeLuz, spokesman for the California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees, told the Eureka Times-Standard. “It’s not the sole motivator, but it’s a significant motivator.”

National trends

Reports from retailers have indicated that both guns and ammunition have done big business. “Though gun sales had already set records for seven consecutive months, several national retailers saw their sales triple in the two weeks since the attack in California,” the Washington Free Beacon observed. The California trend has mirrored a significant uptick nationwide. Rex McClanahan, president of Bud’s Gun Shop, a top online gun store, told the Free Beacon that “sales had actually increased substantially just before the attack out in San Bernardino. We actually expect to see a significant increase every year about that time due to the upcoming holidays, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.”

Recent history has suggested that gun purchases routinely rise in the wake of mass shootings, whether carried out by terrorists or not. “Numbers from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which can be used as an indicator of sales, show that there were significant spikes in background checks after the December 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, the July 2012 movie theatre shooting in Aurora Colorado, and the November 2009 Fort Hood massacre,” Fox News noted.

Although Newsom’s liberal bona fides were not in question, analysts observed that his calculated risk to wade into the debate made sense in the context of California’s current political climate. “High-profile ballot measure campaigns can help bolster a candidate’s visibility,” as the Los Angeles Times noted. “And because of dismal voter turnout in the last California election, the threshold to qualify measures has been dropped to 365,000 petition signatures, much lower than the previous standard.”

Guns in the crosshairs

Newsom didn’t hesitate to cast himself as a champion of the anti-gun movement, capable of going head to head against the nation’s strongest firearms rights lobbies. “The NRA doesn’t own me, they haven’t bought me — and they never will. They’ve already come after us,” he said in remarks to Capital New York, a Politico publication, “and it’s going to intensify.”

Calling the National Rifle Association “extraordinarily effective at stifling the legislative process,” Newsom vowed “to fight a different fight — that is, direct democracy. We’re going directly to voters. Because the public is with us, including the NRA members themselves.”

Uncertain terrain

To an extent, Newsom has public opinion on his side in the Golden State. “A poll last month by the Public Policy Institute of California found that two-thirds of adults believe California’s gun control laws should be stricter than they are now,” USA Today reported. “It found that 57 percent of adults said controlling gun ownership is more important than protecting the right of Americans to own guns, while 40 percent said protecting gun ownership is more important.”

But Newsom was cagey on the subject of Gov. Jerry Brown, who has torpedoed California gun legislation in the recent past. His proposed initiative, the Sacramento Bee noted, incorporates “provisions of bills that have stalled at the state Capitol or were vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown in recent years.” In addition to compelling sellers of bullets to be licensed in the same manner as sellers of guns, the Bee continued, Newsom’s initiative would “establish a process to seize guns from people prohibited from owning them because of their criminal records, mandate that lost or stolen guns be reported to law enforcement, and require the California Department of Justice to notify federal authorities when someone is added to the state database of prohibited firearms owners.”

Twin ordinances

“The court on Monday let stand court rulings in favor of a city measure that requires handgun owners to secure weapons in their homes by storing them in a locker, keeping them on their bodies or applying trigger locks,” the Associated Press reported. “A second ordinance bans the sale of ammunition that expands on impact, has ‘no sporting purpose’ and is commonly referred to as hollow-point bullets.” The first ordinance passed in 2007; the second, in 1994.

The NRA and gun rights advocates had expected that the court’s 2008 decision in the District of Columbia v. Heller gave them a strong chance at overcoming the regulations. “Gun owners challenged both ordinances after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the Constitution guarantees the right to possess guns at home for self-defense, then ruled in 2010 that state and local laws that substantially burdened that right were invalid,” observed the San Francisco Chronicle. “Gun groups are also relying on those rulings to challenge California’s licensing requirements for concealed weapons, and ordinances in San Francisco and Sunnyvale that ban the possession of high-capacity gun magazines.”

Failure on appeal

As Bloomberg reported, plaintiffs were convinced “that the San Francisco law was similar to the Washington, D.C., trigger-lock requirement invalidated in the high court’s 2008 decision.” But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal ruled against them, teeing up a showdown at the Supreme Court. “The Ninth Circuit Court held that the city had a legitimate purpose in applying laws that reduce the danger of guns,” Al Jazeera America recounted, “and that while it did burden the rights of gun owners, it didn’t burden them so much they couldn’t exercise the rights to self-defense enshrined in the Second Amendment.”

“‘The record contains ample evidence that storing handguns in a locked container reduces the risk of both accidental and intentional handgun-related deaths, including suicide,’ Circuit Judge Sandra S. Ikuta wrote in the court’s opinion in March of last year.”

Among Supreme Court Justices, however, only Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas signaled their willingness to take the case.

“In a six-page dissent, Thomas, joined by Scalia wrote that the San Francisco gun laws are ‘in serious tension with Heller‘ and that the prior court rulings had ‘failed to protect’ the Second Amendment,” National Public Radio noted. “San Francisco’s law allows residents to use their handguns for the purpose of self-defense, but it prohibits them from keeping those handguns operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense when not carried on the person,” according to Justice Thomas.

Mixed messages

Although some legal experts immediately noted that the court’s decision raised questions about just how much protection the Second Amendment now could afford, others noted the court’s recent decision to side with the NRA in a different case.

Just last month, the court drew acclaim from the NRA for its unanimous ruling that convicted felons could sell firearms confiscated by law enforcement.

“The decision came in response to a case involving former U.S. Border Patrol agent Tony Henderson,” Western Journalism reported, “whose 19 guns were confiscated by the FBI upon his arrest on drug charges.”

“Following his guilty plea, Henderson was a felon prohibited from possessing firearms; however, he did not want to simply lose the roughly $3,500 his gun collection was worth. He petitioned a lower court in an effort to allow a third party to take possession of the guns and attempt to sell them on his behalf. That effort was unsuccessful at every stage of appeal up to the Supreme Court level.”

“California must allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed firearms in public, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, striking down the core of the state’s permit system for handguns.

“In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said San Diego County violates the Constitution’s Second Amendment by requiring residents to show “good cause” — and not merely the desire to protect themselves — to obtain a concealed-weapons permit.”

Studies by John Lott and others gun scholars have shown that, when states adopt conceal-carry laws, crime drops. That’s because criminals don’t care about gun laws. And their criminal connections provide them with plentiful illegal guns.

All disarming citizens does is provide easy marks for criminals, because the chance of the victim defending himself is limited.

But with conceal carry, criminals don’t know who is armed, and who isn’t. Any potential victim, even a grandma with a purse, could be packing heat.

As we used to say in my U.S. Army days 35 years ago — outstanding!

On Jan. 28, the California Senate passed Senate Bill 199, by state Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles. The vote was 23 to 8. The bill would require BB and airsoft guns to be painted bright colors to make them “readily identifiable” so law enforcement officers could distinguish them from real firearms.

Police shooting of 13-year-old

In the Senate debate on Jan. 23, de Leon addressed the recent shooting death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa, who was carrying an airsoft BB replica of an AK-47 automatic rifle.

“Law enforcement officers have extreme difficulty distinguishing between the real thing and what is fake,” de Leon said. “This is about saving lives.”

Sen. Steve Knight, R-Lancaster, disagreed. The former Los Angeles police officer said, “Today a brand new 9 millimeter gun can look like a toy. A brightly colored gun isn’t necessarily a toy. Are we going to write a bill when a police officer gets shot by a real gun painted bright orange?”

“The tragedy has rocked Santa Rosa and Sonoma County to its very core,” said Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, a co-author of the bill. “A toy should look like a toy. A toy should not get a child killed.”

Santa Rosa police said that Lopez’ airsoft gun did not have the required orange marker.

Similar incidents have occurred elsewhere in America. In 2012, police fatally shot a Texas eighth-grader who was carrying a pellet gun resembling a black Glock. In 2011, Miami police shot and killed a man carrying a realistic-looking replica gun.

However, bright colored firearms — real guns — already exist. There are bright pink Glocks, white AR15s, pretty pearl-handled revolvers, Burberry print rifles and even a 9 millimeter with a leopard print grip — all designed to appeal to women.

For many years gang members, and some suspected narcotics dealers near the border with Mexico, have painting their weapons to resemble airsoft weapons.

The bad guys

“The problem is, we can’t control the bad guys from painting their weapons,” said Sen. Joel Anderson, R-San Diego. “If this bill was about educating our youth how to react to law enforcement, I’d support it.”

Anderson told a story about a man in San Diego apprehended by police. He came at officers with a trowel — and they shot and killed him.

“The bill puts false hope out there,” Anderson said.

Airsoft is a sport

Redding resident T.J. Armstrong is an airsoft enthusiast. “It’s a community sport,” Armstrong said. “It is a father-son sport.”

Armstrong plays on an all father-son team in Redding and told CalWatchdog.com what SB199 will do to the sport. “This bill just kills another sport and successful industry,” he said.

Armstrong said the area property he uses was a local eyesore. So his team asked the property owner if they could use the land for airsoft sporting in exchange for a huge cleanup and ongoing maintenance of the land.

Now, not only do all of the airsoft players in Redding use the field, local police and sheriffs participate for training and ongoing exercises.

Armstrong said that if SB199 becomes law, it will shutter many businesses and thousands of people will lose their jobs. “This bill will not improve public safety at all,” he said.

Specifics

Specifically, SB199 would require that all toy guns, replica guns and BB guns be painted bright orange, purple, red, blue, green and yellow colors.

And in would make it illegal to own all weapons that shoot a 6 mm BB. “No more Red Ryder Daisy BB Guns, no more Pellet Guns, no more Airsoft guns,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong provided a partial list of of groups and businesses located throughout the state of California that would be affected:

AirsoftGI

Airsoft Megastore

Evike.com

Airsplat

U.S. Airsoft

Fort Ord

CQB City

Shorty Airsoft

Lion Claws

Airsoft Extreme

DogTag Airsoft

And the communities which have active Airsoft facilities:

Redding Area Airsoft

The Shadow Legion Airsoft Team

The Jefferson State Regulators Airsoft Team

U.S. Airsoft Team

The Misfits Airsoft Team

The SMS Airsoft Team

Sacramento Airsoft

Butte County Regional Airsoft

Easy Company Airsoft

Airsoft Craigslist

Sutter Yuba Airsoft

Airsoft World Wide

Magpul Masada PTS

Phantom Force Airsoft

Susanville Airsoft Squad S.A.S.

Polarstar Airsoft Owners’ Group

I Play Airsoft

PTW Sales & Forum

BoE Airsoft

The Airsoft Exchange