2017 Bill Status Update

2017 is going to be a wild year for California gun owners and Second Amendment advocates! With the election of Donald J. Trump as our 45^th President, Sacramento Democrats are eager to start their battle against him. Because of this, we are sure to see even more attempts to limit our right to keep and bear arms than we did in 2016. It is hard to believe that Sacramento politicians could try to top Proposition 63 and the “Gunmageddon” bills signed into law last year, but we know they are going to try.

Fortunately, CRPA will be on the front lines with our allies, including the NRA, fighting any attempt to strip law-abiding citizens of the ability to protect themselves and their families. In addition to serving as watchdogs in the Capitol, CRPA will be busy gearing up for the 2018 elections by building our grassroots movement to elect pro-Second Amendment politicians and defeat those who vote against the interests of law-abiding Californians. If you would like to find out more about these efforts and get involved, please visit our county coalition page.

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List of Legislation for the 2017 – 2018 Legislative Session

Support

AB 472 (Frazier): Water transfers: Idled Agricultural Land: wildlife, waterfowl, and bird nesting habitat. Promotes more waterfowl habitat.  Financial incentives for landowners to develop and maintain waterfowl habitat. (Waiting App. Committee Hearing Date)

AB 521 (Frazier): Hunting: Elk Tags: Fees for residents of California has seen a steady decline of hunters over the past 20 years.  Hunters are an essential component of wildlife management and hunting generates dollars vital to conservation efforts throughout California.  High prices have been found to be a barrier to new hunters. (Waiting App. Committee Hearing Date)

AB 718 (Frazier): Mosquito abatement and vector control districts: Fees: This bill provides financial relief for landowners regarding mosquito abatement to free up dollars to develop and maintain waterfowl habitat. (Awaiting Hearing in Assembly, Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee)

AB 757 (Melendez): Firearms: Concealed carry licenses: This bill would define “good cause” for these purposes to include self-defense, defending the life of another, or preventing crime in which human life is threatened, and would provide procedural guidelines to the issuing authority on determining the presence or absence of “good cause.” (Killed in Assembly Public Safety Committee 4/3)

AB 986 (Gallagher):  Hunting and Sport fishing licenses: sport-fishing license duration: reduction in license fees for veterans. This bill would require a resident or a nonresident, 16 years of age or older, upon payment of the fee, to be issued a sport-fishing license for the period of 12 consecutive months beginning on the date of Issuance. (Waiting App. Committee Hearing Date)

AB 1040 (Mathis):  Department of Justice: permits: This bill holds DOJ accountable for a 30-day response time to stated permits and applications.  While this bill takes some good steps forward, it does not address all of the concerns we have relating to licensing processing, renewals, and allowed activities by licensees when they obtain the license/permit. (Waiting for Hearing in Assembly Public Safety Committee)

Oppose

AB 7 (Gipson) Firearms: Open carry: This bill will further burden law-abiding Californians. (Passed by Assembly Public Safety Committee, Awaiting App. Committee Hearing Date)

AB 8 (Bloom) Mountain Lion, Depredation permits: This bill would change the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s authority in the issuance of depredation permits from ‘shall’ to ‘may’.  This could greatly reduce the number of mountain lions previously taken on depredation permits and restrict the department’s ability to keep numbers in check with wildlife and increase livestock loss. (Awaiting Hearing in Assembly, Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee)

AB 424 (McCarty): Possession of a firearm in a school zone: This bill would remove the authority of school superintendents or those with equivalent authority to give written authority for to possess a firearm within a school zone. AB 424 could result in the decimation of various youth programs such as ROTC and Hunter Education Classes, which would hinder the development of California students.  (Waiting App. Committee Hearing Date)

SB 464 (Hill): Firearms dealers: storage and security: This bill will be brought up for discussion. SB 464, will place even more burdensome firearm requirements on California licensed firearm dealers, who already face the most restrictive regulations in the nation. All SB 464 will do is result in adding more costs to licensed firearm dealers which will then result in higher prices for the consumer, and potential closing of small businesses.  (Waiting App. Committee Hearing Date)

SB 497 (Portantino) Firearms: Transfers: This bill would make the 30-day prohibition and the dealer delivery prohibition applicable to all types of firearms. The bill would exempt from that prohibition the purchase of a firearm, other than a handgun, by a person who possesses a valid, unexpired hunting license, and the acquisition of a firearm, other than a handgun, at specified charity fundraising events. (Will Be Heard in the Senate Public Safety Committee on April 18th.)

Watch

AB 27: (Melendez) Violent Felonies: Sex offences: This bill would additionally define as violent felonies rape, sodomy, penetration with a foreign object, or oral copulation, if the victim was unconscious, if the victim was incapable of giving consent due to intoxication, if the victim was incapable of giving legal consent because of a mental disorder or developmental or physical disability, if the victim submitted to the act under the belief that the person committing the act was someone known to the victim other than the accused, or if the act was accomplished against the victim’s will by threatening to use the authority of a public official, thereby amending Proposition 36 by adding to the list of violent felonies that can be prosecuted as a 3rd strike. By changing the definition of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

AB 96 (Ting) Budget act of 2017 This bill would make appropriations for the support of state government for the 2017–18 fiscal year.

AB 197 (Kiley) Violent Felonies: This bill would additionally define as violent felonies child abduction, providing a child under 16 years of age for purposes of a lewd act, abduction of a minor for purposes of prostitution, child abuse, sodomy with a minor, oral copulation of a minor, contact with a minor to commit specified offenses, arranging a meeting with a minor for lewd purposes, employing a minor to produce sexual matter, elder and dependent adult abuse, false imprisonment of an elder or dependent adult, and animal abuse, as specified, thereby amending Proposition 36 by adding to the list of violent felonies that can be prosecuted as a 3rd strike. By changing the definition of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

AB 264 (Low): Protective Orders: This bill would require the court to consider issuing a protective order, which may be valid for up to 10 years, restraining a defendant from any contact with a victim of, or witness to, any crime for which the defendant suffered a conviction.

AB 270 (Gallagher): Restraining orders: Witness: This bill would require the court to consider issuing an order restraining a criminal defendant who has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence or  one of specified sex offenses from any contact with witnesses, including a minor who was not a victim of, but who was physically present at the time of an act of domestic violence, and the immediate family members of the victim or witnesses.

AB 537 (Acosta): Serious felonies: This bill would amend those initiatives statutes by adding certain felonies, including threatening a witness and human trafficking, to the definition of a serious felony, as specified.

AB 539 (Acosta) Search warrants: This bill would authorize a search warrant to be issued on the grounds that the property or things to be seized consist of evidence that tends to show that a violation of the above-described crime of disorderly conduct has occurred or is occurring.

AB 573 (Bigelow): Depredation permits: Wild Pigs: This bill seeks to reduce the ‘game mammal’ status of wild pigs and illuminate the requirement of a pig tag.  This would reduce the cost to hunters to hunt wild pigs, increase pig hunting opportunities and the department’s ability to manage wild pig populations.

AB 631 (Harper): Domestic Violence: This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation relating to domestic violence.

AB 693 (Irwin): Firearms: This bill would provide exemptions to loans of firearms and LCMs for those going through POST during the period of enrollment. Provides law enforcement fix for all the bad regulations passed last year.

AB 721 (Bigelow): Firearms: Prohibited firearms: This bill would add district attorney’s offices and peace officer members of these offices to the specified entities and persons authorized to purchase and possess these weapons under specified circumstances.

AB 736 (Gipson): Firearms: Dealer licensing: Authorizes DOJ to impose civil fines for violations of certain firearm licensing requirements and increased fine and suspension if occurring within the specified time period.

AB 785 (Jones-Sawyer): Firearms: Possession of Firearms by Convicted Persons: This bill would also add to the list of misdemeanors, the conviction for which is subject to the prohibition on possessing a firearm within 10 years of the conviction, the above-referenced interference with the exercise of civil rights, as specified.

AB 1192 (Lackey): Firearms: Retired Peace Officers: Spot bill relating to firearms.

AB 1195 (Melendez): Firearms: Spot bill for firearms regulations for dealers.

AB 1316 (Quirk): Public Health: Childhood Lead poisoning: prevention: This bill would require the standard of care to be all children be screened for blood lead levels and would clarify the lead screening would not be paid for by funds from the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Fund. The bill would also make conforming changes and delete obsolete provisions.

AB 1453 (Garcia): Crimes: Unlawful discharge of firearms: This bill would express the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation prohibiting the discharge of a firearm into the air on New Year’s Eve.

AB 1471 (Allen): Firearms: Silencers: This bill would make the crime of possessing a silencer inapplicable to the sale to, purchase by, or possession by the Department of the California Highway Patrol, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the possession by peace officers employed by those agencies, or the sale or other transfer in interstate or foreign commerce by registered dealers or manufacturers when the sale or other transfer is in accordance with federal law.

AB 1525 (Baker): Firearm warnings: This bill would require a specified warning to be given to a person who takes the firearms safety certificate examination and would make a passing grade on the firearms safety certificate test at least 85%. The bill would also require the applicant to acknowledge receipt of the prescribed warning prior to issuance of the firearm safety certificate. The bill would require the department to update the testing material at least once every five years. (Waiting App. Committee Hearing Date)

AB 1544 (Dahle): Hunting: Non-lead Ammunition: This bill would instead require the director to temporarily suspend the lead ammunition prohibition for a specific hunting season and caliber if the director finds that nonlead ammunition of the specific caliber is not commercially available for any reason. The bill would require the director to make any finding that nonlead ammunition is not commercially available or publicly available on the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Internet Web site. Basically, makes a bad regulation not that much better.

AB 1559 (Garcia): Community Engagement: Gun Violence Prevention: Grants: This bill would create the Community Engagement and Gun Violence Prevention Grant Program to provide grants to municipal police departments to allow those departments to subscribe to gunshot detection technologies designed to aid law enforcement in responding to and preventing gun violence. The Office of Emergency Services would implement and maintain the grant program, as provided.

AB 1617: (Bloom): Department of Fish and Wildlife: Funding: This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature that the department, in cooperation with those parties and the hunting community, identify and propose new and alternative sources of revenue to fund the department’s necessary wildlife and land conservation, restoration, and resources management and protection responsibilities.

AB 1639 (Garcia): Crime victims: the California Victim compensation board: This bill would prohibit the board from denying an application for a claim solely because the victim or derivative victim is a person who is listed in the CalGang system or because his or her injuries resulted from an officer-involved crime.

SB 18: (Pam) Bill of Rights for Children and Youth in California: Childs “right to live in a safe and healthy environment”.  Many have concerns for many reasons on this bill.  Nothing substantive at this time.

SB 22 (Hill): Firearms: Law enforcement agencies: Agency Firearm accounting: This bill would require a law enforcement agency, as defined, to adopt a written procedure to account for firearms that are owned, acquired, maintained, sold, loaned, lost, stolen, or in any way possessed by that agency or by an employee of that agency if used or carried for purposes of carrying out the official duties of his or her employment, as specified. The bill would require that the acquisition of firearms by an agency employee for use within the course of his or her employment be entered into the AFS and would require that a record of firearms that are lost, stolen, or otherwise disposed of be entered into the AFS.

SB 75 (Bates): Violent felonies: This bill would additionally define, among other crimes, the offenses of vehicular manslaughter, human trafficking involving a minor, assault with a deadly weapon, solicitation of murder, rape under various specified circumstances, and grand theft of a firearm as violent felonies for purposes of imposing specified sentence enhancements.

SB 204 (Dodd): Domestic Violence: protective orders: Allow for use of Canadian domestic violence restraining orders.

SB 299 (Mendoza): Firearms: Firearm loan modifications (Irwin bill).

SB 324 (Roth): Custodial officers.

SB 393 (Lara): Relating to arrests and expungement for non-convictions.

SB 405 (Mendoza) Outdoor advertising displays; exemptions.

SB 536 (Pan) Gun Violence research: requires DOJ to make info available regarding GVRO’s to a research center.

SB 652 (Nielsen) Sentence enhancements: gun possession violent felons.

SB 710 (Anderson): Silencers (for hunting): This bill would delete the felony prohibition on possession of a silencer and would authorize an individual in lawful possession of a device that will silence, suppress, or muffle the sound or natural report of a firearm when the firearm is discharged to use that device to hunt a bird, mammal, fish, reptile, or amphibian for which the individual is licensed if the firearm to which the device is attached is lawfully possessed.

SB 770 (Glazer): Violent Felonies: This bill would amend the above initiative statutes by defining additional crimes, including, among others, human trafficking, elder and dependent adult abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, rape under specified circumstances, discharge of a firearm at an occupied building, and specified crimes against peace officers and witnesses, as violent felonies for purposes of the above specified sentence enhancements.  Possible sentence enhancements for gun possession felons.

SB 779 (Hertzberg): State summary Criminal history information.

SB 785 (Wiener): Consumer Protection: firearms and ammunition: Existing law, the Consumer Legal Remedies Act (act), prohibits certain enumerated unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices undertaken by any person in a transaction intended to result, or which results in, the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer. The act provides for relief through actions for damages, injunctive relief, and restitution, among other remedies. This bill would state that the act applies to firearms and ammunition, and provide that a violation of the act regarding firearms or ammunition is actionable under the act. (Liability for gun manufacturers).