California serves as our nation’s cutting edge on many fronts. The gun laws I set on the governor’s desk in 2016 — some of the strongest in the country — keep our nearly 40 million residents safer, and serve as national examples of what state common-sense gun legislation looks like. But we are very much a part of that larger nation, and we deserve leaders ready to make nationwide strides to end gun violence.
Since Parkland, my colleagues in the California Senate have stayed the course in our fight to end gun violence. Sen. Anthony Portantino, D–La Cañada Flintridge, recently introduced Senate Bill 1100, which would raise the age for purchasing any firearm to 21 and restrict buyers from purchasing more than one firearm per 30-day period. Sen. Portantino’s SB 459 would prohibit the state’s leading pension funds from investing in companies that sell guns outlawed in the state. Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson’s, D-Santa Barbara, SB 1346 would expand our standing ban on multiburst triggers to include bump stocks. And I commend Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, whose bill SB 1200, which passed the Senate on May 30th, buttresses the Gun Violence Restraining Order law, a law that Parkland students have pointed to as the legislation that the federal government should emulate.
These new legislative efforts do not mean that our fight to end gun violence is anywhere close to complete. We need the Assembly to pass, and the governor to sign these into law these important pieces of legislation in order to better protect Californians. But solutions to end gun violence can’t come from Sacramento alone. We also need national leadership, and national results. The lack of productive policy from Washington, DC, hurts Californians just as much as it does our fellow Americans.
Since Parkland, we’ve seen retailers step up where Congress won’t. Dick’s Sporting Goods has announced that it will stop selling assault-style weapons, and will require gun buyers to be at least 21 years old. Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, has also imposed an age requirement of 21 years; after taking assault-style weapons off the shelves in 2015, it will now stop selling items that resemble these guns. Even Wall Street is attuned to the issue. In March, Citi announced that going forward, their retail sector clients cannot sell bump stocks or high-capacity magazines, sell firearms to purchasers under 21, or sell to customers who have not passed a background check.
And now the NRA has turned its trademark vitriol on those companies in an effort to cow them as it has many of our politicians. In Georgia, lawmakers pulled tax benefits for Delta after the company chose to discontinue a discount for NRA members, and Republican U.S. Senators who sit on the Banking committee are publicly chastising companies and banks including Bank of America and Citi and threatening them for having a conscience.
Enough is enough. Lawmakers must stand up for companies that choose public safety over profit margins. Where other states have chosen to penalize these companies, we should protect them, and applaud their choices to implement the very policies that we are trying to pass in our state.
No corner of our society has been left unscathed by the horrors of gun violence. To end it, we’ll need to bring together the best from each corner, taking what works from government, the private sector, and our local communities and crafting common-sense solutions to gun violence. Because when it comes to public safety, we all belong on the cutting edge.
Kevin de León is Senate President pro Tempore Emeritus and a member of the California Senate, representing the 24th district. He is a candidate for U.S. Senate.
