California Governor Jerry Brown Vetoes SB 374 Semi-Auto Gun Ban, Others
OutdoorHub 10.14.13
California Governor Jerry Brown announced his official rejection of 7 gun control bills passed by the Legislature last month. The vetoed laws include SB 374, a ban on semi-automatic rifles authored by Senator Darrell Steinberg that served as the keystone of his failed “LIFE Act”.
Last Thursday, Firearms Policy Coalition Managing Director Brandon Combs delivered 65,000 letters from individuals to the Governor’s office urging Gov. Brown to veto the bills and protect the civil rights of law-abiding gun owners.
“We can thank tens of thousands of individuals who rose to the challenge for today’s defeat of Sen. Steinberg’s outrageous SB 374,” said Combs of the Governor’s veto.
In spite of an “all-in” push for new gun control measures led by extremists like Sen. Steinberg and anti-rights special interest groups including Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Brady Campaign, and Moms Demand Action, the gun rights community was able to secure a roughly 80% loss rate for California gun control bills.
“Our Demand Rights campaign ramped very quickly thanks to FPC’s online ‘Take Action’ grassroots activism platform,” explained Combs. “We were able to start up where last year’s successful Stop SB 249 campaign left off. FPC’s unique ability to scale agile grassroots efforts in realtime made the difference in how we were able to pull together such a large, diverse coalition of citizen activists for an unprecedented number of issues.”
Some bills, like Senator Leland Yee’s SB 47 ban on “Bullet Button” firearms, those having a magazine locking device, are likely to return when the Legislature reconvenes.
“We told them ‘not one more inch’ and we meant it,” concluded Combs. “We’ll celebrate the wins, learn from the losses, and come back stronger than ever to fight for gun owners’ Second Amendment rights.”
The Governor’s actions today include the following:
VETOED
- AB 180 by Assemblymember Rob Bonta (D-Alameda) – Registration and licensing of firearms: City of Oakland. A veto message can be found here.
- AB 169 by Assemblymember Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento) – Unsafe handguns. A veto message can be found here.
- SB 299 by Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) – Firearms: lost or stolen: reports. A veto message can be found here.
- SB 374 by Senator Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) – Firearms: assault weapons. A veto message can be found here.
- SB 475 by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) – Agricultural District 1-A: firearm sales at the Cow Palace. A veto message can be found here.
- SB 567 by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) – Firearms: shotguns. A veto message can be found here.
- SB 755 by Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) – Firearms: prohibited persons. A veto message can be found here.
SIGNED
- AB 48 by Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) – Firearms: large-capacity magazines.
- AB 170 by Assemblymember Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) – Assault weapons and .50 BMG rifles.
- AB 231 by Assemblymember Philip Y. Ting (D-San Francisco) – Firearms: criminal storage.
- AB 500 by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) – Firearms.
- AB 711 by Assemblymember Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) – Hunting: nonlead ammunition. A signing message can be found here.
- AB 1131 by Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) – Firearms.
- SB 683 by Senator Marty Block (D-San Diego) – Firearms: firearm safety certificate.
