Gov. Brown bans lead ammo in hunting, vetoes other gun control bills

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday signed 11 gun control bills including a ban on the use of lead bullets by hunters, but vetoed seven measures restricting firearms that were introduced in response to the massacre last year at a Connecticut elementary school.

Brown rejected a proposal to ban the sale of semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines, and bills that would have expanded the list of crimes that would bar the offender from firearms possession. He signed bills requiring more safety training for gun owners and better tracking of guns that are lost or stolen.

The ban on lead bullets was proposed by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) because the substance is toxic and can poison those who eat animals shot with the ammunition.

“We are thrilled that Governor Brown has made AB 711 the law of the land,” Rendon said in a statement. “There is simply no reason to continue using lead ammunition in hunting when it poses a significant risk to human health and the environment.” That bill goes into effect in July 2019.

The one bill singled out for a possible lawsuit by the National Rifle Assn. had been passed would have banned the future manufacture, importation and sale of semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines, and require those who already own such guns to register them.

Brown said California already has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, including an assault weapons ban. The ban on rifles with detachable magazines goes too far, he said in a veto message, because it would outlaw the sale of guns used by hunters and marksmen.

“I don’t believe that this bill’s blanket ban on semiautomatic rifles would reduce criminal activity or enhance public safety enough to warrant this infringement on gun owners’ rights,” Brown said.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) introduced the bill to plug a loophole in the state’s assault weapons ban by preventing rapid reloading through the use of replaceable magazines.

“There is no legitimate reason for hunters or sportsmen and women to have battlefield-style rifles that can quickly spray dozens and dozens of rounds through the rapid reloading of detachable magazines,” Steinberg said, noting those kinds of weapons have been used in some recent mass killings.

Via: LA Times

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Labor and Trade Unions Oppose CA Lead Ammo Ban

A controversial bill to ban traditional lead ammunition in California by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, passed both houses of the Legislature last week. But according to representatives of labor and trade unions, animal rights activists pressured Rendon and lawmakers to ignore science while turning a deaf ear to voters.

Assembly Bill 711 passed largely because of concern over the poisoning of the California condor. But the bill was amended at the 11th hour in a secret deal to postpone the effective date until 2019. If the need for the bill is really over concerns about poisoned Condors, what about the thousands of great birds which will have died by the time the bill finally goes into effect six years from now?

But not all of the state’s Democrats voted for  AB711; representatives of rural areas in the state voted against the bill, or abstained.

Motive: A total ban on hunting

The bill isn’t really about concerns over condors or lead poisoning, according to two opponents. They are Mark Gagliardi, a trustee of the Contra Costa Central Labor Council; and Lawrence Keane, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the shooting, hunting and firearms industry.

Gagliardi, a labor union leader, is very frustrated with Democratic Assembly and Senate members he helped get elected, but who voted for passage of AB711. “This bill will hurt the shooting industry, retailers and hunting,” Gagliardi told me in an interview. “They are making hunting unaffordable, and killing California jobs.”

Gagliardi said he goes to the Capitol two to three times each year to meet with lawmaker on labor issues. One day early in 2013, he was at the Capitol and noticed AB711 and a couple of other anti-gun bills were being heard that day in the Senate Public Safety Committee. So he went to the hearing and sat in the front row. Gagliardi said Democrats on the committee he helped get elected acted uncomfortable seeing him sitting there. Several asked him what he was doing at the Public Safety Committee hearing, and suggested he was out of his element.

While Gagliardi is a labor leader, that reaction promoted him to put together a large coalition of labor leaders to fight AB711. “Unions represent business in America, including the manufacturers of lead ammunition,” Gagliardi said. “We elect these people to go to Sacramento to create jobs, not to make them go away.”

Via: California Political Review

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