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.

In early May, the California Supreme Court handed down a unanimous ruling that allows judges to opt against denying juveniles the possibility of parole, based on their age and the seriousness of their crimes. That decision cuts against lower courts, which have long assumed that justices should favor sentences of life without parole for juveniles convicted of murder with especially heinous or so-called “special” circumstances.

At the same time, release on parole continues a steady climb in California. In just the past five years, over twice as many convicts serving life sentences have been paroled than in the last two decades combined, according to The California Report. Meanwhile, Gov. Brown has stood clear of some 80 percent of state parole recommendations. A third of “lifers” facing parole hearings now receive parole, as a result of several wide-reaching events.

Brown has struggled for years with lawsuits trying to force change on the California prison system. Brown’s administration faced allegations of constitutionally unjustifiable overcrowding, which culminated in a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against him in the Brown vs. Plata case.

By this year, Brown was able to secure two years more time to meet criteria used to show overcrowding has been adequately reduced. Nevertheless, as NPR reports, parole is one effective way to reduce prison populations, which Sacramento officials have been especially keen to do in the wake of Swarthout vs. Cooke, a separate U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down in 2011. Brought up on an appeal of a California verdict, the case resulted in tougher standards for denying parole to inmates no longer considered dangerous.

Shifting perspectives on crime

Some of the anecdotal evidence is encouraging when it comes to the real-life impact of parole on life sentences. But more broadly, these developments come at an uneasy time. California parole officials were recently humiliated when two sex offenders who had been granted parole wound up allegedly killing at least four women while subject to “close” state or federal monitoring.

Then, the shocking Isla Vista shootings by University of California, Santa Barbara student Elliot Rodger stoked fears that complicate the issue of parole. California already faces significant debates surrounding juvenile crime, mental illness, access to guns, government monitoring and recidivism.

In an added wrinkle, differing opinions on criminal justice reform don’t match up with party lines. Sacramento Democrats, for instance, are divided over whether to tighten the state’s already stringent gun-control laws even further. California’s restrictions are among the severest in America. But in the wake of Isla Vista, three state Democrats are pushing for a new measure.

A so-called “gun violence restraining order” is being advanced by Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara; Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley; and state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara. Their proposed legislation would permit individuals to warn courts and law enforcement that they’re worried a friend of family member might become violent.

As the New York Times reports, leading Democrats are wary of the move, even though gun-control activists have taken up the “restraining order” cause in the legislatures of states like Connecticut, Indiana and Texas.

While Brown has a mixed record of signing some gun-control laws while vetoing others, state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, told the Times his fellow Democrats’ proposal has a “potential for abuse.” New legislation along the lines they support “would have to be very carefully crafted,” he cautioned, “because you do not want the law to get into the middle, or just to be used as a pretext or excuse for leverage in an intergenerational family fight.”

Liberalized parole laws create the same possibility for potentially dangerous gray areas. On the other hand, they have also been shown to begin the process of rehabilitation into society that even tough-on-crime advocates tend to support. As California’s growing parolee population returns to public streets and private homes, their actions may shape public opinion more quickly than lawmakers themselves.