Californians will be able to sue those responsible for illegal assault weapons and ghost guns.
Article continues below
SB 1327, authored by Senator Bob Hertzberg (D-San Fernando Valley), allows Californians to sue those making, selling, transporting or distributing illegal assault weapons and ghost guns – guns made at home to avoid tracing – for damages of at least $10,000 per weapon involved.
The same damages are also available against gun dealers who illegally sell firearms to those under 21 years of age. The legislation is modeled after Texas’ wrongheaded anti-abortion bill, SB 8, which places $10,000 bounties on doctors, providers and others involved in providing life-saving abortion care.
After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block the Texas law last fall, Governor Gavin Newsom called on the California legislature to pass a similar bill to add a new tool to California’s gun safety toolkit.
“Our message to the criminals spreading illegal weapons in California is simple: you have no safe harbor here in the Golden State. While the Supreme Court rolls back reasonable gun safety measures, California continues adding new ways to protect the lives of our kids. California will use every tool at its disposal to save lives, especially in the face of an increasingly extreme Supreme Court,†said Governor Newsom.
The Governor spoke at Santa Monica College, the site of a mass shooting that took the lives of six people in 2013, including the gunman. The 2013 shooting involved an unserialized AR-15 type semi-automatic rifle built by the shooter using legally purchased components, a ghost gun that would be subject to lawsuit once SB 1327 is law.
“For the sake of our children, this is a common sense step toward ensuring California streets, schools and communities continue to be among the safest in the nation,†Senator Hertzberg said after the Governor signed SB 1327 into law.
“While some politicians put up roadblocks or say nothing can be done, here in California we are once again proving we can take on the gun lobby and protect our communities,†said Attorney General Rob Bonta.
“With these new laws, California is protecting life, safety, and freedom. We have the strongest gun safety laws in the nation, and one of the lowest firearm mortality rates. This is not a coincidence. More guns do not make us safer — laws like these do. Period. I am committed to enforcing our commonsense gun safety laws, and keeping weapons of war off our streets and out of the hands of dangerous individuals.â€
As California strengthened its gun laws, the state saw a 37 percent lower gun death rate than the national average. Meanwhile, other states such as Florida and Texas, with lax gun regulations, saw double-digit increases in the rate of gun deaths.
As a result of the actions taken by California, the state has cut its gun death rate in half and Californians are 25 percent less likely to die in a mass shooting compared to people in other states. ■