Letters to the Editor: October 14, 2009

[<B>Editor's note:</B> AB 962 (De Leon) was signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday, Oct. 12. Here is the bill author's rebuttal to a recent column by Winnie Maker urging defeat of that same bill.]

Dear Mr. Winship:

I write in response to the guest piece published (recently) to correct several misstatements and assertions regarding AB 962, mistakenly referred by the author as SB 962.

For the record, I'm not an "anti-gun nut" as asserted by the author. I have never proposed banning guns, ammunition or in any way infringing on law-abiding citizens' rights to own or possess firearms. It's never been clear to me why every conversation on gun violence has to start with insults.

My view of the Second Amendment is this: it's an individual right to own and possess firearms, but I don't believe every Californian is entitled to own and possess a firearm. I don't think felons, persons adjudicated to be criminally insane or gang-bangers should be entitled to own or possess a firearm. They forfeited that right when they were convicted of that violent crime or judged to be too mentally instable to stand trail for a violent crime. Now if the gun lobby wants to call me an "anti-gun nut" for holding this position, so be it, but I do not believe my position runs counter to the Second Amendment as guaranteed under the Constitution.

Assembly Bill 962 does several things. First, it makes it illegal to knowingly sell ammunition to criminals or gang-bangers. This provision targets straw purchasers who don't have a criminal record yet purchase ammunition for their friends who cannot legally purchase such ammunition. My district, which covers northeast Los Angeles, has been ravaged by gang violence. People sell ammunition on the streets to known criminals. That's insane and I hope we can all agree that it shouldn't be legal to knowingly sell handgun ammunition to criminals. If they can't legally buy it, why should it be legal to knowingly sell it to them?

AB 962 also requires handgun ammunition purchasers to provide a thumbprint and show their driver's license. The City of Sacramento, which recently adopted a similar requirement, has used this data to arrest nearly 200 armed and dangerous criminals in just the last year alone. Those arrests also netted over a hundred illegal handguns, machine guns, explosive devices and thousands of rounds of illegal ammunition.

The Second Amendment is an important right, but it shouldn't be used as a shield to protect murderers, rapists, and the gang-bangers pushing drugs and waging wars on our streets.

Sincerely,

KEVIN DE LE<0x00D3>N

Chair, Assembly Appropriations Committee

Forty-Fifth Assembly District