Ghost guns could be regulated by new California bill

A man who went on a shooting rampage in the tiny Northern California town of Rancho Tehama Reserve in 2017, killing five people, had a court order prohibiting him from buying or owning guns.

But Kevin Janson Neal took advantage of a loophole in California laws aimed at keeping guns away from people flagged as dangerous: He built his own rifles at home.

Now, a first-of-its-kind bill from Assembly Member Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Laguna Beach, might close that loophole. The bill would expand California’s “red flag law,” which lets authorities temporarily seize guns from anyone shown to be a danger to themselves or others, to also cover key parts of so-called “ghost guns,” the increasingly common home-built guns that often can’t be traced.

“Right now, when law enforcement go to someone’s house, they can confiscate regular guns but they cannot confiscate ghost guns even when they know someone is really, really dangerous,” Petrie-Norris said.

“If it looks like a gun, and shoot like a gun, it’s a gun,” she added. “Closing this loophole is simple common sense.”

Petrie-Norris’ Assembly Bill 1057 passed out of the Public Safety committee Tuesday, April 20, with bipartisan support. It now heads to a fiscal committee before it faces a vote on the Assembly floor.

The bill is one of more than two dozen gun control regulations being considered by California lawmakers this session and one of two introduced by Orange County legislators in recent months.

Freshman State Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, on Jan. 27 introduced Senate Bill 264, which would end gun shows at county fairgrounds and all state- or county-owned property. Other potential gun control legislation calls for blocking ghost gun sales at gun shows, raising taxes on gun sales, releasing more data on gun violence and requiring manufacturers to uniquely mark bullet casings so they can be traced.

Discussion of these bills comes amid a spate of shootings across the country, including one where Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez is accused of killing three adults and a 9-year-old boy at a mobile home sales office in Orange on March 31.

Days after mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado, President Joe Biden on April 8 issued a series of executive actions aimed at curbing gun violence.

Biden asked the Department of Justice to publish model red flag laws for states to use as guides in developing their own policies for restricting gun sales to anyone flagged as a threat. He also asked the DOJ to write rules requiring that kits and parts used to make ghost guns be treated as the same as firearms.

California already has laws addressing both issues on its books.

Under the state’s 2014 red flag law, family members and law enforcement can ask judges for an OK to temporarily restrict gun access to anyone shown to be dangerous to themselves or others. The law was expanded in 2019 to let employers, co-workers and teachers also request gun violence restraining orders.

Nineteen states plus Washington, D.C. have similar red flag laws on the books. While data is limited, studies show such states have made particular progress in lowering their suicide rates by getting guns out of disturbed people’s hands.

California also saw a growing trend of people ordering gun parts online, buying them at gun shows or 3D printing them, then assembling their own guns at home. So since 2019, California has required anyone who builds a homemade gun to first apply to the California Department of Justice for a unique serial number or ID mark that must be applied to the gun.

But data suggests most California aren’t following those rules, even as ghost gun ownership continues to skyrocket.

Some 30% of guns recovered in California in 2019 were untraceable ghost guns, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Los Angeles law enforcement reported even higher prevalence in January, saying some 41% of firearms recovered in the area were ghost guns.

A law that kicks in July 1, 2022 will target sellers, requiring anyone selling ghost gun parts to follow rules similar to the rules for selling ammunition in California, including requiring background checks. Since a significant number of ghost gun sellers are based in California, Tanya Schardt, an attorney with the gun control advocacy group Brady, says she’s optimistic those changes will curb sales of ghost gun parts and kits.

“The law is unable to keep up with what is happening,” said Marcus Friedman, a law student at University of San Diego who received a scholarship to study how to strengthen California gun laws

Friedman — a survivor of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas and a native of Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed months later — noticed the gap between the state’s red flag and ghost gun laws. So he approached Petrie-Norris, who agreed to champion AB 1057.

If the bill passes, it will expand the definition of “firearm” in California’s red flag law to include unfinished handgun frames or receivers, which can sometimes be converted to active guns in as little as 30 minutes by drilling a few holes as described in readily available online tutorials.

One major online seller touts, “With any other guns, you go to the gun store, fill out a bunch of forms. They’ll run a background check, and depending on your state, you could wait awhile.” But with its ghost gun kits, the company says buyers will have “all the parts you need to finish a firearm yourself shipped to your door. No paperwork. And without serialization, there is no way to track your purchase.”

Such kits have become so common that Schardt said gun shows can almost be called “ghost gun shows.”

To Friedman’s knowledge, California would be the first state to have a law connecting ghost guns and gun violence restraining orders. But given Biden’s push to promote model red flag laws, if California passes AB 1057, Friedman hopes such language will be adopted by other states down the road.

While a Pew Research Center survey released Tuesday shows partisan divisions over gun control have grown stronger over the past year, Petrie-Norris points out that there continues to be solid bipartisan support for laws aimed at removing firearms from people who pose a threat. Nearly nine in 10 people surveyed by Pew Research Center, for example, favor preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns.

“We should not just accept that gun violence is an American thing we have to live with,” Friedman said. “It’s an American thing we can change.”

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