Senate Public Safety Committee Votes to Overburden Already Failing DOJ Firearms Bureau

Today, the California Senate Committee on Public Safety passed SB 459 (Portantino, D), which will require mandatory inspections of California firearm dealers at least every two years, even though DOJ can already inspect them whenever it wants to.

Despite, outstanding testimony pointing out the flaws of this bill, it will now go to the Appropriations Committee for further review. CRPA would like to thank Senators Anderson and Stone for fighting this horrific piece of legislation by voting against it.

This proposed bill will put an unnecessary and oppressive burden on California’s FFLs, who are already subject to some of the strictest laws in the country regulating the sale of firearms.

Additionally, these unnecessary inspections will only add to DOJ’s existing workload. As shown by the complete failure to implement “assault weapon” regulations, ammo regulations, or an ammo vendor license issuing system on time, DOJ is unable to manage the myriad of gun laws coming out of Sacramento. Additional FFL inspections will only make this worse; if passed, we can expect more delays and failures at the department.

Despite this setback, the fight against this underhanded gut and amend bill is far from over. Contact the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee and urge them to vote NO on SB 459. With your support, we can fight this bill.