California Assembly OKs $24 million to speed seizure of guns
California Assembly OKs $24 million to speed seizure of guns
April 18, 2013|By Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times
SACRAMENTO The state Assembly approved $24 million Thursday to speed up the confiscation of guns from Californians who are not allowed to own them because of criminal convictions or serious mental illness.
A day earlier, lawmakers rejected a plan to allow school districts to train teachers and administrators to use guns to protect campuses.
Legislators said the money they allocated would pay for 36 additional agents to capture 39,000 guns from people who bought them legally but were later disqualified because of a subsequent conviction or court order.
The new funds, according to Assemblyman Robert Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills), will allow the state Department of Justice to clear its backlog, accumulated during budget cuts, in the next three years.
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ellisonz
(27,737 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)The GOP has learned well that the way to stop laws being effective is to cut the funding for enforcement. We've seen this across the board and every state.
Legislators and citizens who are active put in thousands hours to organize, educate and get laws passed for civil rights of all kinds, and maintaining systems to make those dreams and needs a reality. All the GOP has to do is cut the funding to make all those hours mean nothing.
That's why the GOP is against taxes, they want to hollow out any government act that will get in their way. They've done an great job convincing Americans the government is corrupt and representatives don't work in their interests.
All the bills written, all the laws passed, mean nothing without enforcement. That takes taxes. The more they spew conspiracy or promote cynicism, the less people of good will get involved. The only ones they can use effectively are the zealots like the fundies or the libertarians to get in office and their intent is to eliminate the government and establish their version of utopia, which shuns democratic process.
This is the danger we are faced with and those who want to get very excited about gun grabbers and confiscation on a mass scale are only feeding their vision from two different sides.
The state of California is making headway in reversing defunding government to make a safer state.
IMHO.