Largest Gun Study Ever: More Guns, More Murder

[NYC_SKP]

41. Doh, forgot to include a link.

And I hate edits and the red text in a post.

California gun-control bills advance in Sacramento

SACRAMENTO -- A package of bills that would once again give California the nation's toughest gun-control laws passed a key legislative hurdle Tuesday, setting up a white-hot Capitol showdown.

By the hearing's end, the committee had voted along party lines to approve bills that would add all semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines to the state's list of banned assault weapons; ban owning any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds, including existing ones; ban "bullet buttons" that allow fast swapping of rifle magazines; require long-gun buyers to pass a written safety test; and add more crimes to the list of those that would bar someone from carrying a firearm. The bills, already passed by the state Senate, are moving inexorably closer to floor votes and the governor's desk.

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California's gun laws -- including strict background checks and waiting periods for all gun purchases -- for decades made the state the most restrictive in the nation. But since December's massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., New York has leapfrogged ahead of the Golden State by toughening its assault weapons ban, expanding registration requirements and limiting magazines to seven rounds. Colorado's new gun laws, though not as tight as California's or New York's, have inspired a recall effort against two lawmakers.

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Sitting next to Steinberg was Adrienne Egeland, who was teaching kindergarten at Stockton's Cleveland Elementary School in January 1989 when a gunman killed five children and wounded 29 more -- a shooting that inspired California's assault weapons ban. Egeland, her voice shaking, testified that the children's wounds looked like those she saw simulated during her Army basic training, "and all I had was Band-Aids."

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But Worley contended that Steinberg's bill balloons the assault weapons law to include firearms that aren't even remotely of military style. Aaron Maguire, lobbyist for the California State Sheriffs' Association, called it "vastly over-inclusive of firearms that are legitimate sporting and hunting weapons." Gerald Upholt, lobbyist for the California Association of Firearms Retailers said, "You're looking at literally millions of guns" that would be affected.

the rest of the story:

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_23856108/gun-control-bills-advance-sacramento