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COURTESY PHOTOGov. Gavin Newsom
Gov. Gavin Newsom held a press conference Wednesday to announce expedited legislative efforts to protect communities from gun violence.
Senate President Pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins, D-San Diego, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, also spoke at the conference, which came one day after the killing of 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
“Rather than pointing a finger of blame, our impulse in California has always been to take action,” Speaker Rendon said.
“California already has strong gun laws on background checks, limiting purchasing by age and restraining orders to prevent gun violence,” he said. “Still, if there is anything more that we can do, we are compelled to do it. That is why we are here today, trying to accelerate consideration of new laws to reduce gun violence …
“It is also our hope that other states will join California, and that we will act nationally to end the stranglehold that gun violence has on our country…We have work to do,” he said.
Legislative proposals include limiting firearm marketing to minors and permitting legal action against gun makers and dealers who are “reckless” or “negligent” in marketing their products. Proposed legislation also would allow citizens to sue firearm makers, distributors and others who sell or import assault weapons, .50 BMG rifles and ghost guns.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Sen. Atkins discussed the fear that families experience today.
“We’re here because we have gotten to the point that we can’t live our lives without trepidation that every time we step outside we may never see our families again. That’s what I heard yesterday. We can’t live without fear that each goodbye to our children, our spouses and friends could be the last. This may feel like a point of no return but it’s not…
“We have to turn it around before another neighbor, mother, teacher or child is senselessly ripped from our world,” she said.
She said she is working with Speaker Rendon “to move expeditiously on over a dozen bills that are already working their way through our legislative process, many of them being acted on yesterday, today, this week…
“We are also working on the creation of an office of Community Violence Prevention, which would help local communities create on-the-ground programs to prevent violence,” Sen. Atkins said. “We have to do everything in our power to get guns off our streets and away from people who should never lay a hand on them. Ten years ago we were in an eerily similar situation, grieving the killing of 20 children and six educators at Sandyhook Elementary. But here we are mourning the murder of children again. Nothing has changed.”
Gov. Newsom said he didn’t have “any comments that I can share that haven’t been shared after every senseless act of violence. I have nothing that I can add that hasn’t been added to the conversation.
“Just reflecting on what happened a little over a week ago in Buffalo, or what happened in Boulder…” said Gov. Newsom, as he went on to list many of the acts of gun violence and mass shootings that the nation has seen in recent years.
“That’s just a short list of these moments that tragically we have shared together, contemporary moments we have shared together,” he said.
Gov. Newsom said California leads the national discussion on gun control policies. “We are going to control the controllables, the things that we have control of. California leads this national conversation.When California moves, other states move in the same direction. …
“Those states like California that have the most progressive policies in restricting the abuse and proliferation of guns have consistently out performed other states in terms of gun murder rates and gun death rates.”
email: kzehnder@newspress.com
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