California’s Small-Town Folks Wonder About Their Guns

 

(DAVE WORKMAN)

Interesting story in the Visalia Times-Delta about the fate of gun ownership in California’s sparsely populated areas.

Here’s the newspaper’s Calley Cederlof with more:

Assembly Bill 7, which criminalizes the carrying of a long gun in the unincorporated area of a county, has passed out of the California Legislature and is now awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature. 

If signed, AB 7 would eliminate the ability to openly bear arms anywhere in the state of California. Residents with concealed carry permits will still have the right to carry an unloaded handgun. 

“We are an agricultural and sport hunting county community. The law-abiding people of this state are the losers within this bill if passed by the governor,” said Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux. “These types of legislation only hurt the people who exercise their Second Amendment rights and who pose no threat of danger to the public.” …

The bill is unfair to those gun owners who abide by the existing law, Boudreaux said. 

“The criminal element are those which need to be held accountable,” Boudreaux said. “There are laws already on the books that allow us to successfully bring people to justice who violate the law.”

Firearms Policy Coalition, a nonprofit whose mission is to protect and defend the second amendment, also released a statement in opposition to the measure. 

“The Second Amendment to the US Constitution clearly enumerates a fundamental right to bear arms,” said Craig DeLuz, Firearms Policy Coalition spokesman. “Nonetheless, the State of California has chosen to continue on the path toward completely eliminating this constitutional right in the Golden State.”

There’s no easy way to handle firearms who are in the hands of the wrong people rather than those owners who abide by the law, but I can’t imagine anything that would infuriate a responsible gun owner who lives in the middle of nowhere to know that they have less gun rights than a city dweller.