The site found that while rifles compose the bulk of the state’s prohibited registered weapons, handguns account for 90 percent of the guns used in crime noted in a state Department of Justice crime study in 2013.

From a story on the records:

“The most popular caliber on the [assault weapon ban] list, .223, accounted for a single firearm used in the crime study. Of the 105 guns, only two were registered assaults weapons.”

The article focuses on the assault weapons ban that was launched in 1989, starting with military-style assault rifles and combat shotguns, including the ones with the round magazine like the old mobsters used to favor. Over the years, lawmakers have added additional weapons to the list of those banned. People who owned those added weapons were grandfathered in, but the state’s Department of Justice keeps a registry of all banned weapons.

[Related: California eases back on gun legislation]

The registry has 145,253 weapons, 2 percent of them shotguns, 9 percent of them handguns and the rest rifles.

The list gets technical when it breaks down these banned firearms by caliber/potency. Nearly half the state registry includes weapons with a caliber that is most favored by gun advocates for home safety, the .223 caliber.

If you have to ask, probably banned

Guns are once again being targeted by California lawmakers this year, though the pace of anti-weapons legislation, seemingly on automatic for decades, has ebbed.

In previous sessions, you could scan for bills and come up with at least 100 that mentioned the word “weapon.” A search today yields 33 such bills, though the number could grow by the end of session in the fall.

Last week, a measure advanced that would bar concealed weapon permit holders from bringing their firearms to school and college campuses without permission from the school. The bill moved through a bipartisan Senate committee and on to the state Assembly.

Current law allows properly licensed individuals to carry in those places.

Other bills regarding weapons include:

• State lawmakers have tried to make sure BB and pellet guns are colorful enough for cops to discern them from the real deal.
• Under another measure, criminals convicted of firearms-related misdemeanors would be unable to possess or purchase a gun within 10 years of their conviction.
• A registered gun owner’s home address would be protected from public disclosure under Assembly Bill 1154.
• Another bill would reduce the fee for weapons licensure for members of the Armed Forces from $40 to $25.

Meanwhile, the courts are sorting out lingering issues from earlier legislation.

Those include a challenge to a requirement that gun owners in San Francisco keep their firearms stowed in a lock box in their homes, or disable them with a trigger lock, unless they’re physically carrying them. The U.S. Supreme Court was scheduled last week to consider a review of a lower court ruling against the plaintiffs, who sought to repeal the policy.

And of course there’s the “smart gun” bill from 2013, which would require owner-specific, microstamping technology on guns so that only the owner of the weapon could fire it. The requirement is on hold pending the outcome of a federal lawsuit from a gun rights group. The state prevailed in the lower courts, and the case is now on appeal.

California has some of the nation’s most restrictive gun laws, requiring background checks on all gun sales and banning a growing list of assault weapons — an issue explored in detail recently by the pro-gun rights site guns.com.

In recent years, crime in the Golden State has fallen while gun sales have exploded.

Sales more than doubled between 2008 and 2014, from 425,244 in 2008 to 931,037 last year, according to data collected by the state. Handgun sales went from 208,312 in 2008 to 512,174 in 2014.

[Related: Banned guns not the ones used in crimes]

Regardless, some could say the state’s firearms policies are working.

A report by the state’s Department of Justice noted that from 2012 to 2013, “every violent and property offense category decreased in number and rate per 100,000 population.”

According to the report, the violent crime rate fell, and the homicide rate, after climbing 4.2 percent in 2012, dropped 8 percent in 2013 to 4.6 murders per 100,000 people.

The crime rate has dropped before, as in 2010 when the statistics were trotted out and Gov. Brown said that “crime remains a serious problem in California, and law enforcement officials at every level must redouble their efforts to ensure public safety.” Even back in 2006, the state had relatively low levels of crime, ranking 14th in the U.S. for violent crimes.

Some have pointed to the firearm prohibition laws as the reason for the drop.

“At a domestic level, California is a prime example of legal reform curbing gun violence,” wrote Isaac Saidel-Goley in a report in February at the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy’s Harvard chapter. “Over the past 20 years, California – along with a few other states, including Massachusetts and New York – has pioneered the domestic implementation of gun control by passing laws enacting widespread firearm regulation, including banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, prohibiting individuals from openly carrying firearms in public, prohibiting domestic violence abusers from acquiring firearms, and establishing numerous firearm safety standards.

“These gun control laws have achieved remarkable success in preventing gun violence.”

Gun advocates, however, credit the increase in weapons purchased, a theory advanced in the 1998 book by academic John Lott, More Guns, Less Crime.

Steve Miller can be reached at 517-775-9952 and avalanche50@hotmail.com. His website is www.Avalanche50.com

By Josephine Djuhana

“Owner-authorized” firearm technology. Biometric scanners. Guns with palm print readers that don’t go off unless the hand on the pistol grip had proper clearance. Sounds like something out of a James Bond movie — literally.

But this isn’t some fantasy-gadget hyper-tech weapon designed to circumvent plot holes for the silver screen. No, this currently expensive and obscure technology is what may be — at some point — all you can buy at a gun store near you, thanks to a California legislator.

SB 293, authored by Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, would ban all guns without owner-authorized technology from retail sale in California 18 months after the state attorney general deems such technology to be readily available.

“Senseless violence occurs far too often when guns fall into the wrong hands,” DeSaulnier said in a press release last month. “We should make sure that guns are only used by the owners who are authorized to fire them. Many technologies exist to create this kind of safety mechanism, including biometric readers.”

The bill text provides that the attorney general would periodically “report to the governor and the Legislature regarding the progress made on the availability for retail sale of owner-authorized handguns.” Then, 18 months after the attorney general finds that owner-authorized handguns are sufficiently available, it would be officially illegal to sell guns without owner-authorized technology in the state of California.

Good intentions and unintended consequences

Tiffany Whiten, a consultant in DeSaulnier’s Sacramento office, told me that prototypes with the owner-identification technology are currently very expensive. However, she said, manufacturers have offered assurances that these costs will go down with time and be “reasonable” in the future. The 18-month grace period designated in the bill is an additional measure to ensure that costs would not be too high, and therefore not impact the sale of guns in California.

Whiten also said that DeSaulnier’s office has spoken to current firearm owners who think guns with such owner-authorization technology would be “worth the price.” But it’s impossible to assume those owners speak for firearm owners in general.

And why should government play such a role in deciding when a particular technology is affordable enough to be classified as readily available? That’s the beauty of free markets — the market itself determines when technology becomes affordable for the masses as production goes up and costs go down.

Realistically speaking, the installation of a biometric scanner into the handgrip or trigger of a gun would be an additional cost for gun manufacturers and would result in overpriced firearms in California. Either that, or gun producers just wouldn’t sell guns in California anymore.

Unintended consequences could be grim

But if they are broadly sold in California under DeSaulnier’s rules, consider the following hypothetical situations.

I am a law-abiding citizen who owns a gun with owner-authorized technology.

If I was away while my roommate was at home, and someone were to break in, my roommate would not have the capacity to defend herself with my gun because it would not register her and not fire.

Or perhaps I was at home when the assailant invaded, but my palms were sweaty from nervousness due to the break-in. The gun does not recognize my handprint and doesn’t go off.

What if I’m wearing gloves? What if the power runs out on the biometric scanner and the technology malfunctions? Will members of law enforcement have to adhere to the same standards when purchasing guns? What if the technology malfunctions when police officers are in the middle of a dangerous, life-threatening situation?

Such situations are likely under the owner-authorized gun mandate, alongside many more potential problems that could occur if the technology is faulty.

A barely disguised attack on gun rights

The California Legislature has already advanced bills and resolutions on gun control, including SJR 1 and SB 140. There are many ways to make sure that guns stay out of the hands of criminals and other dangerous individuals, but mandated owner-authorized technology is not one of them. If gun producers want to make “smart guns” available to Californians, then Californians should be allowed to freely purchase both owner-authorized and non-owner-authorized firearms.

If SB 293 is passed, the right to bear arms will no longer be held by the people, but by regulators and bureaucrats in Sacramento.

But the overarching problem with SB 293 is not only the negative impact that it will have on gun sales and potential technology problems; it is the very frightening idea that the California Legislature can legislate and mandate and create regulations on things that, practically speaking, do not even exist yet.

Passing a law now on technology for the future sets a terrible precedent. It shuts down debate on how to deal with that technology and leaves it up to Sacramento regulators and bureaucrats to figure out how to implement the law in the long run.

DeSaulnier may have had the best intentions in mind when he authored this bill; trying to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and mentally ill is a worthy goal.

Still, SB 293 is not the answer. Government infringing upon our rights and liberties is one thing — but government dictating what types of products we can use when they are not readily available or yet in existence is beyond bizarre.